The first monthly magazine on ICT4D
Vol. III No. 9 September 2005
Information for development
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knowledge for change April 2004 | www.i4donline.net
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countries
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One Conference. Conflux2005.
Contents
Vol. III No. 9
Features
September 2005
Mailbox
info@i4donline.net
23 News Columns
41 6
Review of Millennium Goals in i4d ICTs for social change
7
Journey of i4d 25 issues: Tooting our own horns Saswati Paik
10
Interview: Walter Fust, DG, SDC Pro poor strategy for a just information society
13
Interview: Nagy Hanna, e-Leadership Institute Knowledge sharing for policy and advocacy
15
In conversation with Chin Saik Yoon, Southbound Publications
Interview: Karl Harmsen, Director, CSSTEAP
Profile of i4d partners
39
Books received
42 44
Bytes for All
45 46
What’s on
29
Amplifying the voices
Feedback Survey for i4d Readerspeak!
In Fact Reaching the unreached
Rendezvous
31
World Summit on the Information Society, 16-18 Nov 2005, Tunis, Tunisia A curtain raiser
40
Science for the end-user
27
Bringing the world at your doorstep
34
“Evolution of i to k will lead to the d”
17
i4d news service
Conference on ICT and Education, 18-19 October, New Delhi Digital Learning 2005
Viewpoint on i4d Everything starts with an idea... Frederick Noronha
i4d Advisiory Board Members’ Profile A global think tank
35 ICTD project newsletter
19 Conflux 2005 Preview III 17-19 October 2005, New Delhi
i4donline.net
News Search ICT4D news by date in the sectors of governance, health, education, agriculture and so on. E-mail Subscribe to daily, weekly, monthly newsletters online or send request to info@i4donline.net Research e-Learning projects from India. www.i4d.csdms.in/elearn.asp Learn more about FLOSS www.i4d.csdms.in/floss/introduction.asp www.csdms.org/floss-portal Print edition The past issues of the magazine are available online www.i4d.csdms.in/archive/archive.htm
The Women’s Media Centre of Cambodia would like to thank you very much for sending a copy of the first monthly magazine on ICT4D to us. Tive Sarayeth Women’s Media Centre of Cambodia wmcc@online.com.kh
Although I am new to this magazine, I find your approach in reporting news based on MDGs and special theme in each issue quite unique and intelligent. The articles in the magazine are as high quality as a journal publication but made easy to read and understand for any layman. As an academician, I have recommended the articles in this magazine to be used as case studies for all related classes at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Keep up the good work i4d! Vikneswaran Nair Taylor’s College, School of Hospitality and Tourism, Malaysia vicky.n@taylors.edu.my
I admire the editorial team at i4d print magazine for their brilliant editing of my article. Ujol Sherchan ICIMOD, Nepal ujol@mtnforum.org
The i4d magazine is an extremely useful resource for those of us who are practitioners in the field of ICT for D. It is well produced, and has informative and enlightening content which is very helpful for us to keep up with changes and developments in the field. Many congratulations to the team! Prashant Sharma Deputy Executive Secretary and Communications Manager Mountain Forum Secretariat, ICIMOD, Nepal prashant@mtnforum.org
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i4d Editorial Calendar 2005 Month
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
January February
Special Theme Tsunami
MDG Intro/Poverty Reduction - MDG 1
March
Gender - MDG 3
April
Education - MDG 2
May
Health - MDG 4 & 5
WSIS Prepcom
June
ICT Policy
July
Human Rights
August
Environment - MDG 7
September
Global Summit
Silver Issue of i4d
Media and ICT
Global Partnerships - MDG 8
Telecentre networks
November
Youth and ICT
WSIS Tunis
December
HIV/AIDS - MDG 6
October
Silver Issue
i4d | September 2005
Editorial Information for development
www.i4d.csdms.in
25th Issue of i4d: A Toddler learns to walk along with partners
ADVISORY BOARD M P Narayanan, Chairman, i4d Amitabha Pande Indian Administrative Service Chin Saik Yoon Southbound Publications, Malaysia Ichiro Tambo OECD, France Karl Harmsen Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific, India Kenneth Keniston Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Mohammed Yunus Grameen Bank, Bangladesh Nagy Hanna e-Leadership Academy, University of Maryland, USA Richard Fuchs IDRC, Canada S Ramani Research Director, H.P.Labs, India Walter Fust Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Switzerland Wijayananda Jayaweera UNESCO, France EDITORIAL BOARD Akhtar Badshah, Frederick Noronha EDITORIAL TEAM Editor Ravi Gupta Editorial Consultant Jayalakshmi Chittoor Sr Programme Officers Rumi Mallick, Saswati Paik Sr. Research Associate Sejuti Sarkar De Research Associate Manjushree Reddy Designers Bishwajeet Kumar Singh, Deepak Kumar Web Programmer Zia Salahuddin Group Directors Maneesh Prasad, Sanjay Kumar i4d G-4 Sector 39, NOIDA, UP, 201 301, India Phone +91 120 250 2180-87 Fax +91 120 250 0060 Email info@i4donline.net Web www.i4d.csdms.in Printed at Yashi Media Works Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi, India
Way back in early 2003, CSDMS was like a newborn infant to the field of ICT4D. With the support of over 125 authors from around the world, a very strong and committed team in-house, the research and support of numerous friends, supporters and partners, and guidance from a strong advisory team, i4d is a healthy baby! Just over two years ago, we began our own enquiry to the world of Information and Communications Technologies for Development, and to understand how this sector is faring, not just in India, but also in the neighbouring South Asian countries, and then globally. In the past twenty-four issues, we have created a valuable platform for learning and sharing. Indeed, the team that works behind the scenes often does not many times get to tell their own story. We celebrate the work that we have been doing and wish to share the process of delivering the various products and services that the i4d programme brings to the fold of thousands of readers from around the world. Readers have responded positively and have sent us words of appreciation, suggestions and criticism. We are pleased to share a selection of these. We have been greatly strengthened and encouraged by the alliances with several key ICT4D agencies, and in time, our editorial advisory board, which serves in an honorary capacity brings in valuable insights into the latest developments from a strategic perspective, looking at policy and conceptual frameworks, while guiding us on the directions of where i4d should be heading. In this issue, we are sharing with our reader a few of these perspective. I am delighted to share with you this special issue of i4d magazine. We hope that you like it and let us know if you enjoyed reading it as much as we all enjoyed telling our own story this time.
i4d is a monthly publication. It is intended for those interested and involved in the use of Information and CommnicationTechnologies for development of underserved communities. It is hoped that it will serve to foster a growing network by keeping the community up to date on many activities in this wide and exciting field. i4d does not necessarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in this magazine are those of the contributors. i4d is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided.
Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in
cc Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, 2005
i4d is supported by:
September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
Silver Issue
5
Review of Millennium Goals in i4d
ICTs for social change
The key objective of i4d MDG series is to generate greater public awareness on MDGs and National Development Goals and review the targets and indicators by showcasing stories that have worked around the globe.
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Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) became the running theme of i4d in 2005. Since its second volume, we have been preparing the stories and organising them thematically. The Millennium Declaration made in 2000 aims to reduce poverty by half by 2015. The progress made in achieving these lofty goals made at the United Nations, and ratified by 170 countries, are being reviewed five years after the declaration. The editorial team planned a calendar for the 2005 to focus on MDGs, with a specific thrust on how ICTs are helping in accelerating the processes. Reviewing the impact of ICTs in various development sectors had already provided an editorial perspective. ICTs are important empowering tools and have been used by many projects and communities for reducing poverty and bettering the lives. The challenge of finding numerical and quantifiable indicators for measuring the achievement of the development objectives in various sectors continues even as we are coming to the ninth issue of this volume. As a member of the Global Knowledge Partnership (www.globalknowledge.org ) we were beginning to understand the importance of multi-stakeholder partnerships. Our alliance with International Institute for Communications and Development (IICD) gave us a link up to stories to be told and shared from African partners. An institutional arrangement, already established in 2004 with Hivos, led us to think about issues like human rights and HIV/AIDS as critical to ensure that development goals are enshrined within the human rights discourse and in consideration of the pandemic like HIV/AIDS and other diseases like tuberculosis and malaria. i4d has evolved into a robust global development magazine. Thanks to our many partners and over 125 authors who form the i4d community we reach new audiences in 119 countries. The decision of making MDGs the running theme meant a lot of background reading, both drawn from books and research papers, and country reports drawn Silver Issue
in from the lead agencies in UN responsible for each of the MDG theme. Our in-house research led us to a valuable insight into the process of building national plans, the role of NGOs and civil society in the Millennium Campaign and in addressing the different targets of the MDGs. The key objective is to generate greater public awareness on MDGs and National Development Goals and review the targets and indicators by showcasing stories that have worked around the globe. We also learnt about individuals who had been leading some of these campaigns. Talking to them during international conferences where the i4d team members participated, as well as during specific interviews that we planned, our source of learning expanded from Internet and print to personal dialogues and networking. Sources of information and background research for i4d editorial team are as follows • Resources available on the Internetspecially from specific UN sites • Relevant documents and papers in magazines and journals • Online papers and research articles produced by OECD-DAC, DFID, UNDP, and national government reports to UN • Personal interactions with experts • Interviews with leaders of agencies, institutions and international NGOs • Networking and informal communications Despite the challenges, the MDG issues have been one of the most rewarding experiences for the entire i4d team. All issues of i4d are accessible online www.i4d.csdms.in in pdf format and also searchable by author, date, etc. Also, since the past few months, the magazine is being released under Creative Commons licence, thus allowing for more open knowledge sharing. These are a valuable resource for research, advocacy and learning. Jayalakshmi Chittoor (jchittoor@csdms.in) and Ravi Gupta (Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in)
i4d | September 2005
J OURNEY
OF
i4d
25 issues: Tooting our own horns
Just wanted to tell you that the March Issue (MDG 3 Gender) was a really nice read. All the articles were interesting and informative. Great going! I know this comes late, but I just managed to read it all. Anita Satyajit
Long back, Pythagoras said, “Choose always the way that seems the best, however rough it may be. Custom will soon render it easy and agreeable.” In our life, for any venture, this quote is of special significance. There are a few push factors that make an individual or a group achieve their goal. A purposeful plan, commitment to achieve the goal, proceeding with positive attitude despite all hindrances and challenges are a few of these factors. ‘i4d’, a brainchild of its editor, has experienced all these push factors throughout its past years. The background of origin and backdrop from where it originated and the challenges faced by this magazine are not known to most of our readers. We would like to share some of these to give you a glimpse of our teamwork.
bibliographies are generally avoided. i4d is ‘serious’ looking, illustrated with charts and graphs, the articles are reviewed by authors but not ‘peer reviewed’ or ‘refereed’ like that of journals. i4d retaining its magazine characteristics is designed with lots of colour photos and illustrations, but avoids the space for advertisements. ‘i4d’ is never seen at newsstands or stores. It is made available only by subscription. Now possibly it has taken a mid way in between magazine and journal as an initiative to bridge the digital divide. i4d is built on the bricks of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) which is very much popular in terms of use and application, but the real focus is its application towards societal development. It focuses Fragrance of memories on a different direction of ICT, a different value of ICT for an i4d was started as a bi-monthly in unique purpose where the May 2003 with an objective of ultimate beneficiary is human creating a neutral platform for being and the society. everyone working in the field of Although it seems to be easy, ICT4D to deliberate and but the interrelation between document issues related to ICT. ICT and its developmental With the team of just two persons aspects is very difficult to be including the editor himself, i4d First issue of i4d magazine focused, especially when the came into existence. The first issue of it was launched by the then IT Minister of India, field of application is so vast and the focus is so much Mr Arun Shourie and one of the stalwart personalities area and purpose specific. Therefore, since inception, of Indian polity as well as the senior politician of ‘i4d’ has taken up some prime sectors of development Maharastra, Mr Sharad Pawar, at the Third Annual where ICT has played a major role all around the Baramati Initiative Conference held in July 2003 globe. Still sometimes we feel the12 issues of i4d in 12 months are not enough to cover all such issues of at Pune. The theme of ‘i4d’ is like a journal, but i4d is a development. Our readers know how the thematic issues have magazine, with an approach which is slightly different from that of a journal. Lengthy articles are not given a clear focus to every issue besides making each published in i4d. Shorter articles only get place which issue a source of information repository in the are written by subject specialists or professionals. respective theme. At this point, the entire team of Unlike the journals, i4d articles are written for scholars ‘i4d’ is thankful to our authors for providing huge by scholarly experts with name and credentials of support through contributing articles to our issues the authors provided. References are provided at the to make the theme-based issues purposeful and useful end of the articles whenever possible, but footnotes, for the readers and to make a common platform of September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
Silver Issue
National Institute for Smart Government (NISG), India anita.satyajit@nisg.org
I enjoy the range of articles in i4d, some of them quite critical of ICT as it is manifested in numerous foundation and aid agency projects. I only wish that more people in Africa and Latin America could read them. There situations are different from South Asia, but the assumption about ICT by companies, granting agencies, and struggling NGOs is somewhat similar. Kudos on the issue related to water projects. Steve Cisler California, USA cisler@pobox.com
I take this opportunity to thank the whole i4d team for the wonderful edition of the community and multimedia centre/telecentre issue. Hara Padhy UNESCO, Paris h.padhy@unesco.org
It was a great opportunity to exchange experiences and learn from practitioners from a variety of countries. Christopher Faris UNDP, Bhutan chris.faris@undp.org
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It was really very exciting and prestigious matter for you and all of us who are associated with i4d for being selected as the best and the first monthly magazine on ICT4D at the AISECT event in Bhopal. I should congratulate you. It is my expectation that the magazine i4d should go to the top position globally. Prof. Lutfor Rahman Vice Chancellor, Pundra University of Science and Technology Dhaka, Bangladesh lutfor@agni.com
Congratulations on winning the best magazine award recently. It is a reward to your vision and the mission you are committed to. But, I trust the real reward for you is in the ‘changes’ you are making in the ICT policy domain. I think your magazine is the good influence on various policy-makers and an eyeopener to many skeptics. Please accept my sincere wishes as you continue your march. Basheerhamad Shadrach One World South Asia basheerhamad.shadrach@oneworld.net
I was searching for WiFi enabling in India and stumbled upon your site. I have seen a lot of websites on voluntary sector and lot more on technology. But there is none that gives an outlook on both, truly yours is the most unique venture on the web. Levin Lawrence Businessgyan, India Businessgyan03@yahoo.co.uk
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interchanging the news and views of ICT professionals, implementers and persons related to advocacy and policy network. i4d magazine has been made available on our portal www.i4d.csdms.in, where anyone can view all the previous issues including the current one. And so i4d, the printed magazine, it has become an online repository of news, events and resources on ICT now.
Moving with challenges Since its birth, i4d has faced several challenges and crises, either in terms of contents or in terms of internal support or manpower. But it has tried its best to cope up with the situations raised and crisis faced. Our regular readers may have already observed how many times the names of the editorial board members have been altered in last three years. Only the team members of i4d know how they have tried to get new authors to write for the magazine on particular themes. This has brought diverse content and experiences. We have searched for stories and projects from various corners of the world. This has involved a lot of background research by the team. Finding new potential authors for every issue has always been a challenging task for the team. Getting suitable images for articles to break the monotony of text has remained equally challenging. The best outcome of such challenges is the increase of research practices within the team of i4d for the sake of maintaining qualitative and quantitative status of i4d.
Healing touches on hurdle race Despite all challenges and crises, we have been able to make and maintain partnership with multitude of organisations. Growing partnerships over the time has been very encouraging. The first partnership of i4d with any other organisation was that with Digital Opportunity. With numerous constraints in terms of finance, manpower etc, i4d entered into the new year 2004. And crossing many hurdles, it gained a better status, received positive response from numerous international organisations. Partnered with Planet Finance, an International organisation on Micro Finance, i4d published the January issue in 2004 on Micro Finance. In the first half of 2004, i4d partnered with UNESCO New Delhi and published the issue on ICT for Poor in May 2004. It was the first ever tieup with an UN body for i4d. Telecentre and Community Radio issues were published in collaboration with UNESCO, France in August and September 2004. i4d received financial support from SDC in September 2004 for one year, which made the most important external supports for i4d. In Silver Issue
Welcoming readers to re-use and disseminate i4d articles and resources widely! i4d editorial team firmly believes in the philosophy of open content. It is with great pleasure to share with the readers that reprinting, translation and re-use of articles published in our magazine are encouraged, provided you give attribution to the authors, the reference of the issue in which it is published, and send us information about the publication or use it has been put to. This helps us to let our supporters also know that value of their support to wider audience. We now release our magazine under the Creative Commons licence. Dissemination of information has been one of the primary objectives of i4d magazine. Within a short span of time i4d has become a knowledge-sharing platform and key resource for ICT4D policy makers, practitioners and researchers. i4d magazine has been recommended as reference in Royal Holloway College of University of London. ‘fem’LINKpacific: Media Initiatives for Women’ of Fiji Islands has referred the article ‘Mixed signals of expectations’ of the June 2005 issue to the steering committee of the Asia-Pacific conference on community radio. Dr. Vikneswaran Nair of School of Hospitality and Tourism, Malaysia and an author in August 2005 issue has recommended the articles of i4d magazine to be used as case studies for all related classes at undergraduate and postgraduate level. We regularly receive reprint requests from India and abroad. The Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India (ICFAI) University has included two articles of the May 2005 issue on MDGs 4 and 5 in their forthcoming book on ‘Health Communication’. National Institute of Rural Development (India) has expressed their desire to reproduce the article on ‘Communication for development: Creating a communication strategy’ published in the ICTD newsletter of May 2005 issue of i4d magazine in the special issue of Journal of Rural Development. The Communication Initiative a multi stakeholder communications platform has entered summary description of two articles of i4d magazine, ‘ICT and Human Rights Promotion in Bangladesh’ by Shahjahan Siraj and ‘Integrating bits for a bigger bite’ by Rashmi Gopal and et al in the Strategic Thinking section of their website. i4d | September 2005
October 2004, i4d brought FLOSS issue in collaboration with HIVOS, The Netherlands. Again in November 2004, i4d on ‘e-Culture’ was published in collaboration with HIVOS, The Netherlands. In January 2005, i4d partnered with NISG and started printing four page colour newsletter every month. HIVOS, a non-governmental organisation, rooted in the Netherlands and guided by humanist values, has supported July 2005 issue and is also going to support December issue this year. International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) has send articles on ‘iConnect’ for April and August issues of 2005 and will send again for December. Telecentre network is again going to get sponsored.
Removing the monotony i4d by now is no more a simple magazine. It has always tried to be recognised as a common platform of people who want to be associated with ‘I’ (information), ‘C’ (communication) or ‘T’ (technology) to share their views, experiences and analyses on development in ICT way. So the magazine has tried to keep its appeal lively and attractive. For that purpose, the sections are changed, modified a number of times, new sections are introduced. The views and reviews of the readers help the team a lot to do so. Many a time, i4d has suddenly changed its focus, feeling the urgent need of diverting the focus towards a theme which might be unique and important. For example, the mention must be made for January 2005 issue of i4d. Responding to the Tsunami that happened on December 26th, i4d published a special issue on Tsunami in January this year. In 2003 itself, i4d introduced ‘Mail box’ from its July-August issue. In the same year, a section on ‘Book September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
review’ and ‘Thematic Quiz’ were introduced in SeptemberOctober issue. NovemberDecember issue of i4d was released in WSIS summit, Geneva, which marks i4d’s first international presence. Since August 2004, Quiz section has been dropped from magazine. Bytes For All section was introduced in November 2004. December 2004 issue of i4d was the 2nd i4d Seminar special issue. This year, i4d has taken a new venture of joining the hand of Millennium Development Goals in its basic ICT way. April 2005 was another turning point for i4d. The magazine became fully coloured instead of black and white and an interview section in the name of ‘Portrait’ has been started. Apart from the regular sections, a section on ‘iconnect’ in collaboration with IICD was a special focus in April issue. Earlier the magazine did not focus much on interviews. In May this year, an interview section by the name ‘Zooming In’ has been introduced. Our regular readers may have noticed that now our magazine has become more interactive and we are covering a lot of other CSO perspectives. Regular sections like ‘In Fact’, ‘What’s on’ are also a part of our attempt to give our readers relief from the monotony of being flooded by information through articles and news. ‘Disaster feature’ was started after the Tsunami disaster from February 2005 issue.
i4d and you Despite the journey being of only three years, i4d is ready to face more challenges. We shall try our best to provide our readers the glimpse of ICT use for socio-economic development, giving examples from each and every corner of the globe. We need more critical comments from readers, more contributions from our authors to develop more and also to achieve our goal. If we can’t remove the ‘digital divide’, at least we can try to reduce the ‘information gap’. If Pythagoras’ quote be considered as the push factor for i4d, then William Shakespeare’s quote might be the reality factor: “To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first”. And then we remember Robert Frost’s words : “…But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep”. Saswati Paik, saswati@csdms.in Silver Issue
I have read and learnt a lot from this magazine. I am also in the field of journalism. I found that i4d is the best for the Nepali reader also. Such kinds of magazines are not available in Nepal. Ram Prasad Dhungel Sub-editor, Samaya Weekly, Kathmandu dhungel_ram@hotmail.com
The ‘FLOSS’ issue of i4d was good. Keep it up. Venkatesh Hariharan Rad Hat India Ltd., India Venky1@internews.tp
I like to congratulate you very warmly on Vol. II No. 10 of i4d. I think this edition contains an in-depth and comprehensive collection of succinct articles on FLOSS. I am particularly impressed with the high quality of editorial input, which rendered the articles accessible to most readers. FLOSS is not easy to put across to readers but you did it wonderfully. I also enjoyed very much reading your insightful editorial and profound questions you posed. Congratulations again on your success with this edition! Chin Saik Yoon Southbound, Malaysia chin@south.pc.my
i4d magazine covered FLOSS in considerable detail. In particular, the features on FLOSS usage in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean are of significance to similar initiatives being planned in India. Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay Red Hat India Ltd., India sankarshan@randomink.org
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Interview: Walter Fust, DG, SDC
Pro poor strategy for a just information society The Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) is Switzerland’s international cooperation agency within the Swiss Foreign Ministry. Together with other federal offices, SDC is responsible for overall coordination of development activities and cooperation with Eastern Europe, as well as humanitarian aid. SDC employs a staff of 500 people to carry out its activities in Switzerland and abroad, with an annual budget of CHF 1.2 billion (2003). The agency undertakes direct actions, supports the programmes of multilateral organisations, and helps to finance programmes run by Swiss and international aid organisations. SDC is one of the key supporting partners of i4d magazine. Walter Fust Director General, Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, Switzerland
In this interview ,Walter Fust speaks about the vision of SDC and the future of the ICT4D sector for poverty reduction. www.sdc.admin.ch
The main areas of operation of SDC are bilateral and multilateral development cooperation, humanitarian aid, especially with the Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit (SHA) and cooperation with Eastern Europe. What is the basis of selecting these areas? The basis for Swiss Development Cooperation is a federal law, dated from 1976. Already at this time, Swiss Legislators set the overarching goal of poverty reduction. The law thus helps us to focus and also enables us to operate with a mix of instruments towards that goal. Multilateral and Bilateral Cooperation, be it in the east or in the south, are different instruments that serve the same endeavor and complement each other. We set ourselves to focus on certain thematic and geographic priorities in order to use the resources effectively. Humanitarian Aid is essential to alleviate rapidly the sufferings in natural and man-made disasters and by its nature has a different approach than development cooperation. Even so, both activities are very
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tightly interlinked and we work hard to achieve an appropriate continuity in countries where we have a humanitarian intervention and then engage in longer term development activities. What are the strategies of SDC to ensure coordination of development cooperation and humanitarian aid with other responsible federal offices? Policy Coherence for Development is a key challenge for SDC. The federal law on Development Cooperation attributes the overall coordination of Swiss development policy and implementation to SDC. There are a number of coordination mechanisms in place to ensure coherent decisions. For example, on an operational level, different committees with our main partner in the Swiss administration, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), meet regularly. On a broader level, SDC chairs an inter-ministerial committee which includes all federal offices concerned with development policy. On a political level the federal law has called into existence an Silver Issue
advisory commission, composed by eminent personalities with interest in development cooperation, who represent the private sector, NGOs, academia and the political arena. This commission serves as consultative body to the federal council. These and other mechanisms together form a tightly woven web of communication between all relevant actors, in order to ensure coherence in our decisions. It is stated that the main objective of all development cooperation activities is to improve the living conditions of the most deprived people on our planet. How does SDC explore the areas of maximum need? At a global level, needs have been identified in the Millennium Declaration and Switzerland has committed to contributing to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as the other donor countries have done. The transformation of these goals into concrete action follows a country per country approach. For an effective poverty reduction, it is essential to have an in-depth i4d | September 2005
knowledge of the context and conditions specific to each country. This is why SDC has established offices in each of the countries in which it is mainly working. In these Cooperation Offices, poverty analysis of the Government and of other stakeholders are gathered and specific needs as well as target groups are identified with the support of local professionals. Based on these assessments and SDC’s own experience in ongoing projects and programmes, medium term strategies are being developed for each of SDC’s partner countries. The main criteria are needs and potential. What are the strategies and policies SDC implements for good governance? In which nations good governance has been effectively implemented and what role SDC has played in their success? SDC’s approach to good governance is anchored in one of the objectives of Swiss Foreign Policy: The promotion of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The promotion of human rights and gender equality is a crosscutting issue in our development cooperation. This means: The empowerment of poor and marginalized people, promoting equality and inclusion on the one hand and – on the other hand strengthening capacities of governmental institutions to better promote basic rights. Our support to good governance focuses on two major strategies which are closely interlinked: The support to decentralization processes aiming at improving a democratic culture and strengthening accountable and efficient public institutions. Note that the promotion of access to information is an important means to enhance these processes. We try to design appropriate programs carefully together with our partner countries, according to their particular context and needs. This brings me to the second part of your question: The notion of good governance is a broad concept and the promotion of good governance is a dynamic process. Therefore it is difficult to say “good governance has been implemented”. However, SDC has September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
prioritised this in majority of its partner countries. Be it in Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Bolivia, Southern Africa or Southern Europe – our support to decentralization, democratization and enhanced access to justice is an important and welcome support. SDC’s particular strength lies in its focus on poor and marginalized women’s and men’s needs and rights. For the effective implementation of Millennium Development Goals at the local level what kind of support does SDC make? SDC intervenes not only on national and international levels, but, through its projects and programmes, directly at the local level. Our projects and programmes in the countries of intervention are based on comprehensive medium term strategies and
annual programmes, which take into consideration the countries’ specific context, their priorities and their contribution to the achievement of the MDGs. In May 2005, the Swiss federal council has released the progress report of Switzerland on the MDGs, where our contribution to the MDGs is explained exhaustively. For the developing nations, what are the main constraints associated with achieving MDGs? The challenges that have been there for some time, such as fighting corruption and building capacity, remain important. But moreover, and much more pronounced than before, development policy today cannot be seen isolated from other policy areas. When important decisions are taken on an Silver Issue
international level, the inter linkages between development policy, security policy and human rights policy are essential for decision makers in the capitals. This has led to the conditions in which we work that have become even more complex. To be successful in our quest to reach the MDGs, we have to do many things right, and among others these three policy areas have to be brought into a balance. SDC has played a key role in ushering in a developmental perspective in the WSIS processes, in Phase I and in the preparations to Phase II events. What are some of the critical issues that still remain unresolved? There are two critical issues still open for discussion: one is the financing of ICT for Development (ICT4D) initiatives and programmes. Certain initiatives, such as infrastructure projects, can be financed through the private sector. However, in rural or remote areas, market-based approaches often fail to work and specific efforts by national governments, donors and other actors are needed to ensure the implementation of ICT4D projects. Another important issue is Internet Governance. Many developing countries have been pushing for a more democratic, transparent and multilateral approach to Internet Governance mechanism. WSIS Tunis (November 2005) will have to propose new recommendations for the governance of the Internet both at the technical and the policy level, whilst ensuring that the Internet continues to function well. The ‘Global Knowledge Partnership’ (GKP) has grown into a successful example of multi-stakeholder partnerships, with SDC backing the idea right from the beginning. What are some of the positive lessons for a knowledge society in developing countries? If we really are to make a difference in development work, and achieve the goals that are set internationally, all stakeholders have to pull on the same string. Multistakeholder partnerships offer a dialogue,
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common solutions and action, that ensure a cooperation that goes beyond what every stakeholder group can achieve alone. This can be seen locally, regionally, and also globally, as the example of GKP shows. It is a global network of governmental, civil society and private sector institutions with the common goal of exchanging information and knowledge and advocating for the effective use of ICTs for poverty reduction. Particular focus has been laid, within the GKP, to explore the functioning and experiences made in establishing successful multi-stakeholder partnerships, and it is one of the core tasks of the network to facilitate the support of its members in this endeavor. What are the benefits of using the synergies offered by public-private partnerships? SDC usually seeks four main objectives, when engaging in and supporting publicprivate partnerships, being: generating employment and income, as well as the development of broad-based prosperity, securing of access to adequate and affordable basic services, strengthening of sustainability of natural resource utilization and the improvement of access to knowledge and skills. All these areas are key to development and of particular concern to both the public and the private stakeholders. The idea is to create a situation advantageous for all of the parties involved and the utilization of complementary strengths for ongoing cooperation and sustainable development. In disaster management issues, what kind of services does SDC offer to the countries affected by the disasters? Is there any initiative taken so far for disaster preparedness of those nations, which are frequently affected by natural disasters? As an immediate response, SDC’s Humanitarian Aid offers emergency relief (rescue and survival) which saves lives and covers the basic needs of the victims. In a second step of rehabilitation and reconstruction (recovery) SDC supports the return and reintegration of persons hit by a disaster. Reconstruction is always an excellent window of opportunity to introduce preventive and preparedness measures in order to reduce risks, limit damage and destruction and prepare for disasters. In the field of preparedness, SDC is forming, training and supplying equipment to local
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rescue teams or neighborhood groups and building up coping capacities in disaster prone countries. To maintain a long-term environmental sustainability, keeping a balance with the developmental activities, what strategies must be followed by the nations all over the world? How can organisations like SDC support them to initiate such process? A healthy environment is the very fundament of life. Natural resources are prime but limited production factors and as such essential elements underpinning the sustainable economic development in many poverty regions of the globe. Often however environmental changes can aggravate poverty and deplete common goods such as water, soils or forests Local ecosystems are the foundation for the livelihood of many subsistence farmers and landless users of common property resources. Growing environmental stress is exposing these groups to the shocks of intensified climate variations. With no survival reserves and devoid of alternative income sources, they will be forced into migration. As a consequence of the foregoing, SDC’s overall aim is to support economic activity in such a way that resource regeneration is ensured. Resource utilization should be regulated and more equitably shared. Since global aid for development is actually reducing or being re-prioritised for disaster mitigation issues or fighting calamities, what are your views on long-term support to development agencies and NGOs engaged in sustainable development activities? What are some of the global trends in the field of ICT4D? Humanitarian aid and development cooperation are to be seen as two complementary areas, interlinked in many cases. Generally, SDC is tied to the strategic, legal and political basis. In view of financial constraints, we continue our work while setting priorities according to the resources available. The effective use of ICTs for development should not stand on its own, but be integrated into solutions for communities with a felt need, ensuring access to information or communication flows. This applies to any area of development cooperation and also humanitarian aid, where ICTs can be a tool Silver Issue
for reaching specific goals for clear cut purposes. Finally, what would be your vision for the i4d magazine, and the community of practitioners who represent a wide range of ICT project implementers, and tell their stories through this magazine? My vision is that the benefits of the information society could be fully used for reducing poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. There is tremendous potential in knowledge and access to relevant information, in so many ways. This would, however, mean that this potential should be widely recognized, and that stakeholders should stick to their engagements made during WSIS and other international fora. For getting nearer to achieving this vision, it will be crucial for each country to implement the WSIS action plan as committed. However, while implementing, a special focus needs to be laid on pro-poor policies, as well as the transformation of lessons learnt by practitioners into concrete common action. Brief Biography of Walter Fust Walter Fust, born in 1945 in Mosnang/St. Gallen, studied at St. Gallen University and graduated with a Master of Political Science. He entered the diplomatic service in 1975 and was assigned to Berne, Geneva, Baghdad and Tokyo. From 1976 to 1979 he was in charge of economic affairs at the Swiss Embassy in Baghdad. In 1979, he was transferred to Tokyo, responsible for economic, commercial and industrial affairs. In September 1983, he was appointed deputy head of the Integration Office, dealing with the Swiss government’s relation with the European Community and the EFTA countries. From 1984 to 1986 he was appointed as personal adviser to Federal Councillor Dr. Kurt Furgler, Minister of Public Economy. In 1986, he was elected as Managing Director of the Swiss Office for Trade Promotion. From 1990 to August 1993 he served as Secretary General of the Ministry of the Interior. Since September 1993 he is DirectorGeneral of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Fust is Chairman of the Board of the “Global Knowledge Partnership GKP”, a network dealing with information and communication technologies (ICTs) within the scope for cooperation. He is also a member of the Panel of Advisors of the United Nations Task Force on ICTs. Furthermore he is member of the Steering Committee of the “Global Governance Initiative” of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and of the Policy Committee of the Global Coalition for Africa. i4d | September 2005
Interview: Nagy Hanna, e-Leadership Institute
Knowledge sharing for policy and advocacy The e-Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland is an initiative to link ICTdevelopment practitioners to a network of academic institutions. The aim is to encourage universities and ICT multinationals to invest in e-Leadership education and to nurture communities of practice of such leaders among developing countries and with advanced knowledge economies, and promote comparative research. Nagy Hanna is an innovator and strategic thinker who has served in several capacities with the World Bank for nearly three decades. He has written and lectured extensively around the world. Nagy Hanna Co-Director and Senior Fellow, e-Leadership Institute, University of Maryland, USA
In this interview Nagy Hanna shares his vision of future of ICT for Development and the importance of networking for knowledge sharing which aims to address policy makers and practitioners.
You were formerly associated with the World Bank. How does the WB support ICT enabled development in developing countries? As the World Bank is engaged in almost all economic sectors, it has the opportunity to see the role of information and communication processes in development and to capture the opportunities to apply ICT to enable development and transform institutions. I had almost 30 years experience with the World Bank in diverse roles, most of it concerning private sector development, public sector reform, education and innovation systems, and corporate and national development strategies. So, I come from the demand side of ICT leadership. In my studies of ICT in Bank lending I discovered how pervasive are ICT applications in various sectors. The challenge for the Bank however has been how to scale up such applications from ad hoc components in projects into more comprehensive and coherent assistance across sectors, or what I call ICT enabled development, or e-Development for short. In general, we have not helped our client countries in integrating ICT into their September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
overall development strategies. The focus has been on telecommunication policies and reforms, and here we probably did a very good job in supporting the transformation of this industry in developing countries. But holistic e-Development is crosscutting and integral to overall development, and thus calls for overcoming sectoral silos and for bridging the gap between ICT specialists and development practitioners in all other sectors. Here, the Bank faces the same organisational rigidities as in many governments in developing countries. There are few exceptions, however, such as e-Sri Lanka, which the Bank is currently funding, and with which I have been associated. How do you see ICT as the enabling infrastructure for knowledge sharing and empowerment? Information and communication technology plays three fundamental roles: first, as an infrastructure for accessing information and sharing knowledge at any time from anywhere and at low cost; second, as a disruptive and transformative technology that is reshaping and revolutionising all types of processes and sectors of modern and traditional economies, Silver Issue
private and public; and third, as an infrastructure for connecting people and enabling stakeholders to communicate and organise as well as access timely and relevant information and thus empower them to have voice, build capacity, learn and act. To what extent have developing countries like India been able to operationalise the knowledge economy and information society framework and integrate them into their development strategies? First, I consider ‘information society’ and ‘knowledge economy’ as visions of what is possible or enabled by ICT. Other equally relevant terms may be competitive economy, innovation economy, learning society, connected economy, etc. The challenge has been how to operationalise these visions. Many Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries have focused on Research and Development (R&D) or national innovation systems as the primary tool to realise this vision. But for most developing countries, the emphasis should be on ICT and education and the links between them and the rest of the economy as the key entry points to operationalise these visions.
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Second, I think India should build on its great strengths as a laboratory of development, with so much diverse ICT pilots in different local contexts, and an advanced ICT industry. Yet India suffers greatly from pervasive information poverty and digital and other divides. The challenge for India is to learn effectively and fast from its own home grown successes, as well as from other developed and developing countries. India needs to build the necessary e-Leadership, e-Institutions and the enabling environment to scale up its successes and to diffuse ICT as needed for an information society. India cannot afford to have ICT reinforce current structural rigidities and economic and social divides. The presence of a powerful ICT industry can be a great asset. But this asset is not a substitute for the information society. Rather, it should be leveraged for holistic and equitable development. According to Prof Christopher Freeman (Emeritus Professor of Science Policy at the University of Sussex) ICT is a ‘new technoeconomic-paradigm’. Please elaborate this concept for our readers. Chris was one of the pioneers in coining this term, as he wanted to highlight the interdependence of a number of technologies that come as a wave or paradigm and help shape whole industries and economies. Information and communication technologies very much qualify as such a paradigm shift, moving all kinds of industries from energy-intensive, materialintensive and labor-intensive activities to information and knowledge intensive ones. Like it or not, countries must adjust to these powerful paradigms, as they did with electricity, railroads, etc. But, those who take advantage of such paradigm shifts can leapfrog and reposition themselves for the new competitive global economy. In the context the MDG target of reducing poverty, how can ICTs increase the competitiveness of developing countries in an increasingly globalised world? ICTs increase competitiveness by increasing productivity of existing industries and services, by differentiating products and services, enhancing their quality and customisation, by enabling enterprise to access information about markets almost in real time and to response as quickly. ICTs
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are also enabling developing countries to participate in the outsourcing revolution and new kinds of promising and dynamic services and industries that are fast globalising. But ICTs can also improve competitiveness by enabling governments to reduce transaction costs in its dealing with the private sector and particularly with small and medium enterprises, thus making them more competitive. ICTs can be used as tools for public sector reform and improved governance and transparency, and this also can contribute to improved business environment and overall competitiveness of the whole economy. ICTs provide a promising opportunity for a holistic long-term vision of development. Comment. That is because ICTs can empower individuals and communities to interact and access knowledge locally and globally, thus empower them to learn, build capacity, drive and integrate development activities at the local level, and adapt over time. To me, this is another definition of holistic and sustainable development. Please elaborate the concept of e-Leadership and how it fits into the overall development agenda. Developing countries are investing substantial sums in ICTs, and in many countries like China and India, the growth rate of such investment outpaces developed countries. By some estimates, it adds up to a trillion dollars annually for developing countries. The current and increasing danger is the failure of such investments in transforming our economies and institutions. e-Leadership is the key to link ICT investments to other complementary reforms in policies and institutions and investments in human resources. e-Leaders are needed as agents of ICT-enabled change and transformation in public sector, private enterprise, and civil society. They are needed to link the know-how of ICT to the needs and strategies of various development sectors. e-Leaders, including Chief Information Officers and ICT-literate policy makers, are key to orchestrate the various elements of information infrastructure, human resources, technological capabilities of the ICT industry, e-Policies, and ICT applications across sectors. As advanced enterprises have learned, new CIO leaders Silver Issue
must be able to be part of the top executive team to help integrate ICT as enabler of business strategies. The same must happen in the public sector, and among development strategists and policy makers. Please tell us about your present research interests at the Smith’s School of Business, University of Maryland. Recently I have affiliated with several academic institutions, including the University of Maryland. I hope to build on my large network that I developed through founding and chairing the e-Development Thematic Group while at the World Bank, and to link such ICT-development practitioners to a network of academic institutions. My hope is to encourage universities and ICT multinationals to invest in e-Leadership education and to nurture communities of practice of such leaders among developing countries and with advanced knowledge economies. Comparative research is so far lacking in this area. In particular, I am interested in developing frameworks to integrate national ICT strategies with development strategies, monitoring and evaluation systems of national ICT strategies, e-Leadership development systems, innovation funds to promote the use of ICT for rural and human development, processes to learn from innovative grass roots applications to solve poverty problems, and mechanisms to scale up successes. I am hoping to network with more researchers to advance this broad agenda. What is the role of print and online media to prevent the ‘reinvention of the wheel’ in ICT4D? Print and media play key roles in raising awareness of policy makers about local successes, about building coalitions for reforms necessary for ICT-enabled development, learning from other countries. I know your i4d magazine is playing such a role among ICT practitioners. By emphasising the links of ICT to developing issues and discussing more and more ICT form a development driven perspective, I hope your magazine will also be read by mainstream policy makers and development practitioners. What are your views on i4d’s initiative to foster a growing network of community of practitioners for ICT4D? i4d | September 2005
Excellent idea. It fits well with my own aim to nurture such networks through academic institutions. We should not only include ICT specialists. We need to engage development policy, business and community leaders in understanding the roles of information, communication and knowledge in development and how to harness the ICT revolution to resolve long-standing and new challenges of development. How do you foresee i4d’s future in the information society? i4d’s future is bright as it continues to response to this dynamic field and to help operationalise the information society vision. Do you foresee a multilingual i4d to localise the knowledge? I believe this is likely to evolve, but I would not push for this at this early stage, and until we reach more practitioners, policy makers and e-Leaders with the best content possible. Brief biography of Nagy Hanna Nagy Hanna is an internationally recognised development strategist with extensive experience in advising developing countries and aid agencies on designing and implementing of strategies to leverage information and communication technology in support of national, sectoral and corporate strategies. He led the World Bank’s practice in applying ICT for development, as the Bank’s first senior advisor on e-Development, and the chair of the worldwide community of practice on e-Development with over 4000 members. Hanna is an innovator, communicator, change agent, executive coach, and global thought leader. He has been responsible for developing national ICT strategies, strategic management processes, capacity building programmes, evaluation and learning systems, and new lending and advisory services for the World Bank and client countries. He has lectured and published extensively on e-Development, strategic planning, change management, executive education and institutional development. After retiring from the World Bank, he currently serves as the Co-Director and Senior Fellow at the e-Leadership Academy of University of Maryland in USA, as well as being a Senior International Development Strategy Consultant for the National e-Strategy and Corporate Strategy in the United States of America. September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
In conversation with Chin Saik Yoon Southbound Publications, Malaysia
“Evolution of i to k will lead to the d” What are the main activities of Southbound Publications apart from the publishing activities? We work on development information and communication issues at Southbound. About half of all our work is publishing monographs on issues and themes related to this area of our work. Our authors include some of the top scholars and researchers in the field from both the South and the North. The other half of our work is devoted to designing, implementing and studying development information and communication activities in the developing countries, mainly from the Asian region. We have also worked on initiatives in the Arab, African and Latin American regions. What role Southbound Publications is playing at country level and global level? We are based in Malaysia but most of our work is located across the region. Most of our books are also distributed outside Malaysia. We have been collaborating with Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in the country and supporting their work through publications and facilitating participatory development communication processes that help to drive their work. What role the media should play in socio-economic development of a nation? The role of the media helps to shape perceptions and positions about many things in a country. The mass media sets the national ‘communication agenda’ deciding which issues are up for public debate and political Silver Issue
attention. Advertisements carried in the mass media not only help to drive commerce but also subconsciously shape the values of the population. Most mass media organisations in developing countries are operated in a top-down, cityto-village manner. So what we find is that the ‘agenda’ and the ‘values’ are decided in the city and broadcasted to the villages. Folk and traditional media therefore has a crucial role to play in providing balance and maintaining channels for people’s expression of their cultures, aspirations, and problems. Folk media tend to have limited reach. They are embodied in communities and serve an important role in affirming the social cohesion of the communities themselves. Unfortunately, they are often unable to reach out to the cities to shape the national
communications agenda, nor to counter the alternative sets of values embedded in advertisements.
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Given the dominant city-to-village information and communication flows found in most developing countries, the first thing the mass media can do is to promote flows in the other direction. People in villages must be involved in shaping the national communications agenda. In the developing countries, how can ICT play a remarkable role in improving the media activities? ICT has already made a large impact in the backrooms of media organisations. Newspapers and magazines are now published using computer technologies. Content is obtained online using the Internet. I recently visited a small local television station based in a very remote part of the region and I found that they had pulled together a digital video-editing suite using cloned PCs. I think this backroom revolution will continue and help improve production quality. However, most people in developing countries continue to have limited direct access to ICT. Internet access, hardware and software continue to be priced beyond the means of many people. Where subsidised access is available, such as at a telecentre, many people cannot avail themselves of it because they don’t have the literacy to go online. If by a stroke of magic everyone is given access to the Internet tomorrow, there will still be about 600 people in the region who can’t make use of the Internet because they are illiterate or because they visually impaired. ICT hardware and software must evolve away from the keyboard to include these technically isolated people in the World Wide Web. Voice and audio based technologies and applications can help build the ‘remarkable role’ of ICT. How can media help to promote the public private partnership towards development goals? Given the dominant city-to-village
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information and communication flows found in most developing countries, the first thing the mass media can do is to promote flows in the other direction. People in villages must be involved in shaping the national communications agenda. Their stories must make it to the cities. Once such a state of equilibrium exists we can better define development goals for the public and private sectors to act on. It is also important that the ‘private’ side of the partnership must involve members of the communities, not just businesses. The mass media should also adopt a pro-people angle in reporting on initiatives aimed at benefiting the people to ensure that the initiatives do meet their goals. The watchdog role of the mass media is a vital one. What challenges you have yet faced while working in a small country? Size doesn’t matter as much as the communications paradigm a country subscribes to. The main challenge is when the dominant paradigm is one of top-down communication. For communication to be meaningful it has to comprise of lively two-way flows. With the new technologies, public policies can prove to be very discouraging. For example Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is an exciting communication technology. It promises affordable interpersonal communication across the region. Migrant workers can keep in touch with their loved ones at home, isolated communities can share problems and solutions, small businesses can market and provide customer support. But all this is Silver Issue
not now possible for many in the region because existing regulations defend the monopolies of incumbent telcos to provide such services. So often you find the interest of a single company in a country over riding the broader interests of all the people in the country. What is the current scenario of ICT development in Malaysia? It is encouraging. Services are reliable and largely affordable. The government has so far kept its promise not to censor the Internet and in this way promoted trust online. However, many facets remain to be improved. e-Government services, for example, remain sluggish. What is your vision for the i4d magazine in the coming years, as we complete the 25th issue, and also are coming close to the second phase of WSIS? I hope the ‘i’ will evolve to a ‘k’. Some of us in the ICT sector assume that moving information efficiently will lead to the “d”. Experience and failures in our work have shown that how we transform information into knowledge is a complex process. And the transformation of knowledge into development is an even more complex step. Brief biography of Chin Saik Yoon Chin Saik Yoon is chair of Orbicom’s research and publications committee. He is also the publisher and managing director of Southbound, a publishing house specialising in titles on development information and communication. He served on the advisory board of the World Communication and Information Report and has been involved in a number of regional and international ICT4D initiatives since the late 1980s. He is the Editor of ‘Digital Review of Asia Pacific’. The first edition was published in 2003/4. The completely updated edition was recently released in 2005/6 containing authoritative reports on how 29 economies are using ICT in business, government and civil society written by senior authors who live and work in the region. Included are three subregional chapters on the Pacific Island States, ASEAN and APEC. It is copublished with IDRC, APDIP, Orbicom and Agence Francophonie. http://www.southbound.com.my
i4d | September 2005
Interview: Karl Harmsen, Director, CSSTEAP
Science for the end-user an MTech degree. Hence, those students that meet the educational requirements for an MTech degree at AU, may do a 1-year project, under the joint supervision of CSSTEAP and AU, and may thus obtain an MTech diploma at AU. These 1-year MTech research projects definitely contain a research component and basically all these studies relate to applications of space science and technology in the subject areas mentioned before. Karl Harmsen Director, Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP), India
What are the main activity areas of Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP)? We teach 9-month PG courses in the following subject areas: • Remote Sensing and GIS (50%) • Satellite Meteorology and Global Climate Change (20%) • Satellite Communications and GPS (20%) • Space and Atmospheric Science (10%) The percentages indicate the approximate proportion of students in each of the courses c.q. are an indication of the approximate capacity allocated to these subject areas. In addition, we give short courses in specialised topics related to the above subject areas (see www.cssteap.org). Which fields of research are mainly emphasised in this institute? CSSTEAP is an educational and not a research institution. However, students do a 3-month project as part of their 9-month PG diploma course, which may include a (modest) research component. In addition, CSSTEAP has an arrangement with Andhra University (AU) in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, to the effect that AU recognises the 9-month PG diploma course as qualifying for the course-work required for September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
What challenges have you faced in academics in Asia and the Pacific (AP)? I would not wish to speak for the AP region in general, but in India, I think, one of the greatest challenges is to effectively implement the findings of science and technology. India is producing great services and products in ICT. However, more of this should be used in development of infrastructure, sustainable rural development and poverty alleviation. As an example, some time ago Kiran Karnik, the president of NASSCOM, said in a talk in Bangalore that India produces some 20% of its ICT products and services for the domestic market and 80% for export, whereas in China this is just the reverse, 80% is used domestically and 20% exported. I am not saying that India should blindly follow China, but the information is significant: India uses only a small fraction of its tremendous potential in ICT for domestic development. In academia we see more or less the same, at least as far as Remote Sensing and spatial information science is concerned: scientists do interesting research and develop nice models and software, but not much of this seems to find its way to the end-user. Of course, there are admirable exceptions to this, but the potential does not seem to be fully used. Hence, I think a major challenge for academia in India would be to address real world problems, develop solutions, and work with local authorities, NGO’ s and others to implement these technologies for the benefit of the end-users and, ultimately, for the country as a whole. Silver Issue
What is the trend of research and development in last few decades in the field of ICT? In Remote Sensing and spatial data science there are lots of developments. Besides technological developments, I think two trends are to (a) make spatial data more accessible to the general public and (b) to develop applications that are of significance for socio-economic development, as well as natural resource management and disaster management. What role the research institutes should play to popularise the ICT application more for development purpose? Research institutes should primarily make the results of their research accessible to the general public, through publications, workshops, websites, etc. More specifically, they should reach out to academia and professional organisations, as well as to all levels of governance: central, state and district-level. There is a limit, of course, to what research institutes can do, but sometimes we see that researchers appear to be very reluctant to give others access to their technologies or share their data. This mentality should change: researchers and research institutes should be actively encouraged to share their data and research results with colleagues in related fields. Which institutes in the world are playing remarkable role in promoting ICT research for development? Too many to name. I think the World Bank and UN specialised agencies generally promote the use of ICT for development. But there are many other organizations active in this field. Which fields need more application of ICT for the development of the nations, especially the developing nations? First, developing nations need effective, low-cost technologies. Such technologies could be effectively used for infrastructure development, sustainable rural development, managing natural resources
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Research institutes should primarily make the results of their research accessible to the general public. and environmental quality, biodiversity conservation, and disaster management, to name only a few. Technologies such as teleeducation and tele-health services have some potential, but may not reach the poor as the application of such technologies requires some basic infrastructure, e.g., schools, medical facilities, (solar) power supply, hardand software, trained personnel, and so on, which are often lacking in the leastdeveloped areas. Is the extent of ICT development at present sufficient for removing the ‘digital divide’ in near future? Clearly insufficient. However, the bottlenecks are more related to poor governance, underdevelopment, poverty and lack of funding and political will, than to the technologies themselves. In India, effective, low-cost ICT technologies have been developed for application in rural areas, which have been successfully tested in pilot projects. However, the upscaling of such efforts requires political will and funding, accountable and transparent governance (e.g., in the case of e-Governance), establishment of basic physical and ICT infrastructure, and so on. What are the future plans of this institute towards remarkable contributions in the fields of Space Science and Technology? Our current strategy is essentially one of ‘consolidation’, which, roughly translated, means ‘more of the same’. Of course, we would like to receive (more) external funding, but because of CSSTEAP’s organisational arrangements and structure, this is unlikely to materialise in a big way. Also, we would like more AP countries to sign the CSSTEAP Agreement, i.e., become an active participant in CSSTEAP. However, we accept students from all AP countries
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anyway, i.e., irrespective of whether their home countries have signed the CSSTEAP Agreement, and thus the incentive to do so is somewhat limited. Hence, on this basis I would not expect major changes or remarkable new contributions to Space Science and Technology on the part of CSSTEAP. Having said this, I should note that a highlevel Committee, chaired by the Director of the Space Applications Center (SAC) in Ahmedabad, has been constituted with a view of developing a new strategy for CSSTEAP. I have high expectations of this endeavour and this may well open new horizons for CSSTEAP, so that it can develop to its full potential. One element of such a new strategy, I would expect, may well be the establishment of structural relationships with leading institutions in AP countries, aimed at applying space and ICT technology for development of the countries concerned. Such relationships would also provide a rational basis for the selection of students, which now occurs more or less at random. Also, somewhat contrary to our core operations, such special projects might well be fundable, e.g., by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, or bilateral donors. Such a strategy would focus our educational efforts and probably increase the ultimate impact of our capacity building and institutional strengthening efforts in the Asia-Pacific region.
Brief Biography of Karl Harmsen Karl Harmsen is at present Director of Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP) affiliated to the United Nations and located in Dehradun, India. Prior to that he was involved with a number of environmental and Remote Sensing organisations. From October 2005 he will join as Director of United Nations University – Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNU-INRA), located in Accra, Ghana. He was born in Netherlands and did his Ph.D from Agricultural University, Wageningen, The Netherlands on ‘Behaviour of Heavy Metals in Soils’.
Silver Issue
IFIP World Information Technology Forum 2005 12 September, 2005 The three day Second World Information Technology Forum (WITFOR 2005) organised in Gaborone, Botswana has come up now with many committments to accelerate Information and Communication Technology basing on the guidelines of Millennium declaration and the WSIS Plan of Action. The forum organised by IFIP under the auspices of UNESCO and hosted by the Government of Botswana, looked into areas like contributing to the eradication of poverty through the appropriate use of ICT, bridging the multiple digital divides of contemporary society, encouraging partnerships and promoting collaborative networks and many more. Building on their experiences, the members participated resolved to focus on eight main thematic concerns like infrastructure, economic opportunity, environment, health, education, agriculture, social, ethical and legal aspects and empowerment and participation. Supporting research, development and economic analysis for enhanced ICT infrastructure in underserved areas, exploring appropriate scalable, replicable e-Business models that promote sustainable development, using and promoting ICT for environmental protection and the sustainable use of natural resources, using ICT to improve the efficiency and equity of health service provision, promoting innovative and effective methods to exploit ICT to improve teaching, learning and knowledge generation, using ICT to improve sustainable agricultural production systems by disseminating knowledge and information, etc. are the broad themes selected to remain in focus. It is recommended by the participants to bring action on each of these areas and the national governments, parliamentarians, local authorities, civil society, the business communities and academia are invited to support such ICT initiatives through regional, international and cross-sectoral collaborative networks. Source: www.witfor.org
i4d | September 2005
CONFLUX
2005 PREVIEW III
The Grand New Delhi 17 - 19 October 2005
Organisers
Host state
Institutional partner
Co-organisers
Government of NCT of Delhi
Media partners
Supported by
ISPAI
Internet Service Providers Association of India
September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
Gold sponsor
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CONFLUX
2005 PREVIEW III
Rural Computing
NeGP
Information Communication and Technology (ICT) can greatly improve the quality of life of rural population. Introduction of cheap and robust computer devices and deployment of rural IT infrastructure are the key requirements to give computing a fillip in those regions. The session on Rural Computing during Conflux 2005 will look into understanding the needs of people in rural areas and bring out the innovations of governments, corporates and civil society organisations in addressing these issues. Topics to be covered under this session are :
The Government of India has recently launched the National e-Governanment Plan (NeGP), which is perhaps the biggest initiative launched in the country towards usage of ICT in governance. Conflux 2005 will discuss in detail about the roadmap of NeGP, the implementation plan, possible impact and ways to take the message of NeGP agenda to a much wider and deeper level within the Government system.The conference would encourage State governments to discuss their NeGP action plans, time-lines and potential areas of collaboration with industry, civil society and within the Government.
Common Service Centres (CSCs) Governments can make best use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to serve citizens, especially in rural areas, by creating access points called common service centres - as one-stop shop for a host of Government services for citizens.
e-Panchayat The success of Rural IT implementation largely depends on capacity building and enhancement of absorptive ability of personnel working at the Panchayat level. In order to discuss the strategies and know about the current developments in this sector, Conflux 2005 will have a dedicated session on the subject in association with the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India.
ICT in Agriculture Most developing nations of the world, including India, thrive on an agrarian economy. ICT has a tremendous potential of delivering crucial information to farmers and help them learn new agricultural practices. Conflux 2005 will have a session on ICT in Agriculture that will bring government officials, scientists, IT experts and grass root practioners to share ideas, expertise and knowledge in applying ICT for agriculture.
e-Health The session on e-Health in Conflux 2005 will be organised in collaboration with leading government and non-government organisations in this sector.
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Key topics to be discussed Introduction to NeGP • Overview of NeGP • Components of NeGP (SWANs, Data Centres, CSCs) • Standards • Gateway India Portal Implementing NeGP • Capacity Building • Core Scoping of Mission Mode Projects Central Mission Mode Projects • National ID • Central Excise • Income Tax • DCA 21 • Passports/Visa and Immigration • Pensions Implementation and Policies Strategy for NeGP
Key sectors to be addressed • • • • •
Silver Issue
Citizen services Income tax/Commercial tax Municipal e-Government Police departments Transport
• • • • •
Land records Passport department Postal department Registration services Treasuries automation i4d | September 2005
CONFLUX
2005 PREVIEW III
KEY SPEAKERS Shiela Dikshit Chief Minister of Delhi
Prof V S Ramamurthy Secretary Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India
J. Satyanarayana CEO National Institute of Smart Government (NISG)
R. Chandrashekhar Joint Secretary (e-Governance), Deptt. of IT, Government of India
Deepak Maheshwari Secretary ISP Association of India
Dr K Subramanian Deputy Director General National Informatics Centre
Dr Thomas Riley Chair Commonwealth Centre of e-Governance
Jeremy Millard Head e-Governance Programme Danish Technological Institute
Dr Morten Falch Technical University of Denmark
Aruna Sundarajan Country Programme Facilitator, India gesci
Salem Khamis Al-Shair Chief Editor e4all Dubai e-Government
Dr Vijayaditya Director General NIC Government of India
Maxine Olson United Nations Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in India
Amitabha Pandey Principal Resident Commissioner Government of Punjab
Prakash Kumar IT Secretary Delhi
Ian Swann Vice President SAP AG
Prof Michael Blakemore Department of Geography University of Durham
Ajay Sawhney Joint Secretary Department of Personnel and Training, Government of India
ICT in Education There is abundant evidence that the use of ICT can lead to positive academic outputs, higher literacy rate, better attitude towards schools and better understanding of the abstract concepts. The audience that gains most from use of modern technologies in education are low income households, people with disabilities, marginalised communities if the right approach is taken. In order to focus on using ICTs for improved learning, Conflux 2005 will have a parallel conference - Digital Learning 2005 from 18-19 October, 2005. Digital Learning 2005 aims to take stock and learn from practices from a variety of perspectives. Digital Learning 2005 will showcase ICT in Education initiatives which will add value to education and drive and build digital competence in the knowledge society. The opportunities, challenges and the critical issues of concern that the convergence of new information and communication technologies with education has created, will be addressed in the conference. Digital Learning 2005 focusing on the theme ‘ICT and Education: Challenges and Practices’ will be of interest for policy implementers in government; persons associated with advocacy; managers and administrators; e-Learning content developers; ICT experts and the learning community. The following sessions have been proposed for the conference: Session I:
Tools for Learning through ICT: Availability and Scope
Session II:
e-Learning: Best Practices and Challenges
Session III:
Technology in Education
Session IV:
Policy and Advocacy: Critical Issues
Session V:
Government initiatives in ICT and Education
UNDP: In a dedicated session, UNDP will be presenting
Session VI:
Civil society and NGO initiatives in ICT and Education
NISG: A special session will focus on the initiatives of National
Session VII:
Private sector initiatives in ICT and Education
September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
Special Sessions USAID: INDO-USAID FIRE (D) project team will be conducting a special session on case studies and best practices in Urban e-Governance. select
projects from its ICTD Partners-in-Progress programme. Institute of Smart Government (NISG), Hyderabad, in spearheading e-Government initiatives in India.
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CONFLUX
2005 PREVIEW III
Delegate Registration Form Conflux 2005: The e-Government conference (17-19 October 2005) Digital Learning 2005 (18-19 October 2005) Venue: The Grand, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi-110070
First name ………………………………...…....................................... Last Name …………………………………...…..................................... Designation/Profession ...………………….......................................... Organisation ..………………………………………................................ Nature of Organisation
Govt.
NGO
Private
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Digital Learning
Both
REGISTRATION CHARGES* Conflux 2005 (only) Advance Payment All Delegates
Spot Payment
Day Registration
INR 5000
INR 6000
INR 2500
Till 30 Sept.
Till 15 Oct.
All Delegates
INR 1500
INR 2000
INR 2500
Presenters
INR 1000
INR 1000
INR 1500
Digital Learning 2005 (only) On Spot
Conflux 2005 & Digital Learning 2005 (with 25% discount) Till 30 Sept.
Till 15 Oct.
On Spot
All Delegates
INR 4875
INR 5250
INR 6375
Presenters
INR 4500
INR 4500
INR 5625
Payment Mode Demand Draft
Cheque
Pay Order
Wire Transfer
Cash (on arrival)
Wire Transfer Details : Beneficiary Name-CSDMS; Bank Name & Address-Citi Bank, Noida Branch, A-6, Sector-4, Noida, U.P. India; Account Number - 5-000890-288; Swift Code - CITIINBXAXXX DD/Cheque no.: …………………….......……….................................. Dated: …………...…………………………........................................... Drawn on: ……………………………….........................................… Amount: ...........………………………………………………................. *Kindly note that there are limited number of free registration seats for Government Delegate. Kindly register at the earliest to avoid disappointment. Government delegates are requested to carry their ID cards to the conference venue. Kindly send this form to: Conflux/Digital Learning 2005 Secretariat: Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, G-4, Sector-39, NOIDA-201 301, India Tel: +91-120-2502180 to 87, Fax: +91-120-2500060, Email: info@conflux.csdms.in URL: www.conflux.csdms.in
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Silver Issue
i4d | September 2005
Vol. III No. 9
September 2005
Information for development w w w. i 4 d . c s d m s . i n
Education Software that appraises student-teacher performance According to Suhas Gopinath, the 19-yearold Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Globals Inc in the South Indian city Tamil Nadu, the company is in talks with the Ministry of Human Resources to market its school management system to all the 870 Kendriya Vidyalayas in the country. The company has sold about 200 copies of its product in Nigeria and Europe. It is an online testing tool to appraise the performance level of students as well as that of teachers. It will send Short Message Service (SMS) or e-Mail message to parents if their children are absent at school, enhancing parents involvement in their children’s schooling activities. Source: http://www.newindpress.com/
Clinton launches tuition-free online education for Africa Former President of USA, Bill Clinton will serve as keynote speaker for the launch of Professeurs pour la liberté (PPL) on its youth-based program of tuition-free online education for Africa on October 18, 2005. PPL offers scholarships to young people globally to deliver tuition-free online education to the African continent. The programme builds synergy by blending donated course material and recycled technology from developed nations with the idealism and adventurousness of youth. The former president is particularly keen to encourage young people to serve their communities. PPL delivers real facilitators, in Africa, who will work to develop the online infrastructure, and to assist and encourage African students to learn. Source: http://www.myppl.org September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
Microsoft to train 20,000 teachers in southern India Microsoft Corporation India signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Southern Indian state Tamil Nadu’s school education department to establish an IT Academy “Partners in Learning Programme” to train teachers. As many as 20,000 teachers in the state will be trained and over one million students across the state will also benefit from the programme. Microsoft will also assist the School Education Department in designing the curriculum and providing courseware for students. Source: http://www.newindpress.com/
e-Governance State Wide Area Network for Indian villages According to Indian Union IT minister Dayanidhi Maran, the initiatives taken towards bringing Information Technology to the villages are to be made sustainable. The first step for that is the creation of core common infrastructure in terms of State Wide Area Networks (SWANs) for providing connectivity, National/State Data Centres for reliable and secured data and Common Services Centres (CSCs) for delivery of services. Out of 30 states, 17 have shown keen interest in implementing this project. Source: http://www.asianage.com/
Tanzania: ICT gets a boost The government of Tanzania has made concerted efforts to give a push to the spread of Information Communication Technology (ICT) countrywide as a key vehicle towards achievement of the Tanzanian Development Vision 2025. Silver Issue
According to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Communication and Transport, Salim Msoma, through ICT empowerment, people’s lives and business transactions were becoming even more efficient and effective. He mentioned the steps as creating a conducive environment for investing in the ICT industry, and formation of a national policy, which addressed key areas, that needed attention in order to realise ICT for all. Source: http://www.ippmedia.com/
Kenya computerises lands records All land records of Kenya will be computerised soon. To begin with, information from three million land rent payment cards will be captured in a computer by December 2005. Nairobi title deeds, maps and letters will be available in digital form by next year at an initial cost of Sh18 million. The time taken to transact business will be reduced by half once all the data gets digitised. Source: http://www.apc.org
Indian company wins e-Gov contract in Somalia Sobha Renaissance Information Technology (SRIT) has won a US$ 25 million Somalian e-Governance contract for the installation of ‘e-Passport’ and ‘e-Authentication’ systems. The Indian company will work closely with the Somalian government to roll-out a national passport programme, which is intended to formalise the passport issuance process in Somalia. The other authentication projects in the pipeline are a national ID programme, the automation of driver licences, vehicle registration and national health programmes. Source: http://www.digitalopportunity.org
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The i4d News
3000 Kisan Soochna Kendr Kendras as coming up in Indian state The Government of Uttaranchal has entered into an agreement with Jaikisan.org, a fully owned subsidiary of Soft Core Tech of Canada to install nearly 3000 Kisan Soochna Kendras (KSK) across the state in order to provide varuious IT-enabled services to people from single kiosk. All 13 districts will be covered under the new scheme, the model for which is loosely based on e-Choulpal. A Soochna Kendra will have facilities like the Internet, basic telephony, a full-fledged home theatre, call centres and other IT-enabled services that are related to weather and agriculture. Already 45 Soochna Kendras have been installed across the state. Each Pradhan of a rural panchayat will be entitled to nominate one entrepreneur who can set up the KSK at his village. A KSK would employ nearly 11 to 12 people. Source: http://www.businessstandard.com
Agriculture Agriculture info-centres opened in Southern India The Agriculture Department in Tamil Nadu, the southern India state has opened information centres in various parts of Tiruchi district for providing technical inputs and assistance to farmers. Farmers could get any information from these centres either in person or at some specific telephone numbers. The centres would continue to provide informations on holidays also. Source: http://www.thehindu.in/
Community radio Indian capital city to get community radio stations Residents of a part of the Indian Capital Delhi can now make themselves heard as the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) is about to begin its own community radio channel soon. The FM channel, to be aired on a frequency of 96.9 MHz, will span a 10-km area around the IIMC campus and will cover Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University’s South Campus, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and adjoining areas. It will have programmes on health, legal aid apart from talks, features and music, where slum dwellers can educate the community about various kinds of folk music and the residents can tell us about the water or electricity problems in the area. Source: http://propoor.org/
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Community radio for Indian engineering college A community FM radio service was inaugurated recently at Erode Sengunthar Engineering College in Tamil Nadu, India. The service is intended to develop the students’ skills in various fields. Community radio will certainly help the students to voice their problems and opinions and will help to improve the quality of education among the students. Source: http://www.thehindu.in
In Vietnam, there is a shortage of endoscopes, the diagnostic procedure used to evaluate the interior surfaces of an organ by inserting a small scope in the body which costs around $30,000. The low cost system captures images from the body of a patient, which are then passed through a webcam to an analysis machine. A Pentium 4 computer with a colour printer is all that is needed for image processing and it takes just one week to make a complete endoscope system. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk
CD on malaria prevention wins Mozambican ICT award A CD-ROM on malaria prevention has won the first prize for production of digital content awarded by the Ministry of Science and Technology in Mozambique. The CD-ROM ‘Malária – pela e para a comunidade de Manhiça’ on malaria is the first multimedia digital production in national languages produced at the community level. It was acknowledged for providing the communities with locally generated content in local languages, reaching out with the messages about malaria without being too scientific and distant to the users. Source: http://portal.unesco.org
ICT based education in Kenya In a project to promote education in Africa, in which eighty per cent of Form Four leavers would be computer literate by 2008, Education Minister George Saitoti said that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) would be taught in teachers training colleges to prepare them for the project. Kenya is keen on promoting ICT based education to its people. Nearly 8,000 teachers are employed and more would be employed as soon as the government allocate more funds to his ministry. Source: Digital Opportunity Channel
Health Vietnam medic makes homemade endoscope A hospital doctor in the poor rural area around the Mekong Delta in Vietnam has used his Personal Computer and some cheap parts to create a homemade endoscope. Silver Issue
Technology Asian broadband Internet satellite launched A satellite that promises to deliver broadband Internet access to all corners of Asia Pacific was launched into orbit on August 11 from the European space port in French Guiana, South America. About 2 to 4 million subscribers in 14 countries of the Asia Pacific region will be able to have access to broadband Internet with the launch of Thai-owned IPStar satellite, also called Thaicom-4 for roughly US$ 50 a month no matter where they live. Mobile operators will provide voice services to rural areas for roughly $2 per month. Source: http://www.infoworld.com/
US$21 million for innovative technologies in Chile Chilean government announced an allocation of US$21 million to sixty one research projects that are developing i4d | September 2005
The i4d News technologies to meet the country’s social and economic needs. Chile is one of the progressive Latin American countries. These grants were awarded by the Chilean Fund for the Promotion of Scientific and Technological Development (Fondef). Key sectors such as, education, forestry, mining, agriculture, information and communication technologies and health will be focused on for research work. Most of them will be run by universities and the remainder by other non-profit research institutions. Source: http://www.scidev.net/
Telecommunication India on a march to expand rural mobile telephony While mobile telephony in India completes a decade, Union Minister of State for Communications and Information, Shakeel Ahmad has asked private cellphone operators to provide improved access to rural telephony. As mobile telephones are now becoming tool of the masses, the Government wants to reach all villages as soon as possible, under the Bharat Nirman Programme with a target set for providing public telephones in 66,632 villages by December 2006. Source: http://www.thehindu.in/
Cellphones at cheaper price In a development that may lead to mobile handsets being sold for as little as Rs 1,000 (US$ 24), US based company Texas Instruments launched the world’s first single chip solution for cellular phones in India. This cost-effective single chip for a handset is expected to boost the production of ultra-low-cost mobile phones in emerging markets like India, China and Latin America. The operations of a mobile phone, which were performed by several chips, have been packed in a single chip, allowing GSM (Global System for Mobile ) and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) phone manufacturers to cut production costs by up to 30 per cent. Indian handset manufacturers like BPL and Quasar are also set to use this technology for their future handset models. Source: http://www.businessstandard.com September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
Implementing NeGP • Capacity Building • Core Scoping of Mission Mode Projects
The Grand New Delhi 17 - 19 October 2005
About Conflux 2005 Conflux 2005: The e-Government Conference, is a joint effort by Center for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS), Government of NCT of Delhi along with Department of Information Technology, Government of India, UNDP, Danish Technological Institute and key academic and civil society organisations and various multilateral agencies. The aim of this conference is to provide a knowledge sharing platform and a forum for policymakers, practitioners, industry leaders and academicians for converting e-Government vision to actionable program.
Latest Updates •
•
•
USAID has joined as a supporting organisation of Conflux 2005. There will be a special session on urban egovernance to be hosted by USAID, during the conference. NASSCOM Foundation has also joined as a supporting organisation of Conflux 2005. Conflux 2005 organised its First Advisory Board Meeting on August 19, 2005 at New Delhi.
Key Sessions Rural Computing Topics to be covered under this session are : • Common Service Centres (CSCs), • e-Panchayat • ICT in Agriculture • e-Health
Central Mission Mode Projects • National ID • Central Excise • Income Tax • DCA 21 • Passports/Visa and Immigration • Pensions Implementation and Strategy for NeGP
Policies
Overview of First Advisory Board Meeting of Conflux 2005 Conflux 2005 organised its first Advisory Board Meeting on August 19, 2005 at India International Centre, New Delhi. The meeting was aimed at bringing the honoured members of the advisory board on a common platform to discuss the vision and strategies of Conflux 2005 and review the progress made so far. The meeting witnessed an active interaction among the delegates to brainstorm the present needs and priorities of e-Government, which need to be addressed through the conference. The meeting was attended by key stakeholders of e-Government representing the Central Government, Delhi State Government and the IT industry.
Important contacts Submission of papers: Vikas Kanungo - +91-9312722591 papers@conflux.csdms.in
Registration: Lipika Dutta - +91-9871481708 registration@conflux.csdms.in
Sponsorships/Exhibition: Rakesh Tripathie - +91-9810331208 sponsorship@conflux.csdms.in
NeGP
Conflux 2005 Secretariat
Key topics to be discussed:
Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS)
Introduction to NeGP • Components of NeGP (SWANs, Data Centres, CSCs) • Overview of NeGP • Standards • Gateway India Portal
G - 4, Sector-39, NOIDA - 201 301, India Tel: +91-120-2502180 to 87 Fax: +91-120-2500060 Email: info@conflux.csdms.in URL: www.conflux.csdms.in
www.conflux.csdms.in Silver Issue
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The i4d News
e-Volunteers come of age, e-Volunteers extend v virtual irtual helping hands e-Volunteering or virtual volunteering - the kind of volunteering for a social cause through the Internet is fast catching up among today’s busy professionals with a heart to serve for the less privileged. Virtual volunteering allows non-profit agencies to expand their volunteer programme by opening opportunities for more volunteers to participate and also by utilising volunteers in new areas. Famous Indian NGOs like Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF), Deepalaya, AVJM are already harnessing the immense potential of online volunteers to run their various initiatives. Source: http://www.financialexpress.com/
Wireless Old Town of Alexandria offers free wireless network access to visitors The city of Alexandria’s Old Town district of Virginia, USA is offering visitors free wireless Internet access as part of an experiment to boost tourism, test the service for municipal operations and market the city as a high-tech hub. The programme’s major goals is to help improve government efficiency. Sensors installed in trash cans, e.g., will let officials know online when the receptacles need emptying. The city spent about $14,000 for equipment and $650 a month for the required Internet bandwidth. Source: http://abcnews.go.com/
Open Source Google launches new open source software Google launch new Desktop 2.0, its free software, allows users to launch programs on their Personal Computers in its latest encroachment on Microsoft’s ground. It features a “sidebar” a single-column stand-alone strip of information that includes news, weather, stock data, a notepad, photos and easy links to frequently accessed data and programs. The upgraded software, which allows users to launch programs, search their hard drives and access recent documents and emails, could be used as an alternative to Microsoft’s operating system. The market seems responsive to this initiative. Source: http://www.businessstandard.com
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General India, Japan agree on cooperation in ICT India has signed a joint statement with Japan for bilateral co-operation in communications and Information Technology (IT), under which the two sides would seek to develop joint proposals in Research and Development (R&D), Human Resource Development (HRD), e-Governance, IT Enabled Service (ITES), e-Commerce, and rural telecom. The first meeting of the India-Japan Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Ministerial Forum would look at opportunities for increasing ties in the sectors of IT and telecommunications. The Forum is the outcome of a programme of co-operation comprising eight-fold initiatives chalked out by the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, and his Japanese counterpart, Junichiro Koizumi. Source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/
Computerisation of police stations in India Computerisation of all police stations in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh is nearing completion and the e-Cops network will start functioning by September 2005, ensuring effective policing, according to a recently released news. According to the Superintendent of Police, Naveen Chand, once the e-Cop network became operational, all police stations should feed the data on First Information Reports (FIRs) and CD files in computers to help in effective monitoring of cases.
European Union takes up new research projects on e-Security The European Union (EU) is working on thirteen new security research projects, which would aim to combat the growing trend of e-Terrorism across the world. The Preparatory Action on the ‘Enhancement of the European Industrial Potential in the field of Security Research 2004-2006’ (PARS), of the European Commission (EC) particularly focuses on the development of security research agenda to bridge the gap between civil research, as supported by EC Framework Programmes and national and intergovernmental security research initiatives. Source: http://europa.eu.int/
Insurance settlement is just an SMS away Short Message Service (SMS) comes as a new age saviour to settle your insurance queries in minutes, forget now the woes of settling your insurance claims through time-consuming correspondence. More and more insurance companies are adopting the practice of settling claims and renewing policies using this new age medium. Most players in the insurance business are reporting a good customer response following the introduction of the SMS facility. Source: http://www.economictimes.com/
Local language voice portal adds value to telecom firm The Indian telecom firm Tata Teleservices has launched Telugu (a south Indian langauge) Voice Station which is offering more than 1,000 voice clips in the form of ring tones, dialogues, songs, astrological predictions and jokes in local language. Although the company is already running such voice portals in English and Hindi language, this is the first time they created a local language portal. The service is charged on the basis of 10 paise/minute for prepaid users and on the basis of Rs 6/ minute for others. Source: http://www.businessstandard.com
For daily news on ICT4D log on to www.i4d.csdms.in
Source: http://www.digitalopportunity.com Silver Issue
i4d | September 2005
V IEWPOINT
ON
i4d
Everything starts with an idea... In the midst of one of those conferences filled with formal speeches, Ravi Gupta lent across the table and asked something in a conspiratorial tone. Did one think, he wanted to Frederick Noronha know, whether an ICT4D Bytes for All, India magazine would succeed? fred@bytesforall.org That caught one quite in a bind. Did I really think it was possible? Surely not! But obviously, one had to be economical with the truth here. Simply because it’s unfair to discourage someone else to do something which you might not understand fully yourself. Or, without having the full insights and confidence that the other person has. After all, miracles do happen. So many times things you thought were absolutely impossible do come about. Just this week, the mainstream Indian media has been felicitating Satyanarayan Gangaram “Sam” Pitroda, the man who “changed the telecom landscape of India in the 1980s”, to quote the Indian Express. Yes, he did. But, at that time, he was widely perceived as not more than one of the tech boys Rajiv Gandhi was bringing into play costly techie games, which we all thought, were bound to fail. Ravi Gupta made i4d a success. And, from the record so far, a sustainable one too. Thankfully, one didn’t discourage Ravi at that time. And this young, focussed, serious, hardworking man with a vision his soft-spoken nature and conceals, all these - made his dream come true. In the interim, i4d has become a useful tool. One that takes the debate to a wider community, beyond the already converted. One that expands the debate beyond just NGO (non-government organisation) circles and international development organisations. And, above all, one which rightly acknowledges India’s work in a field where solutions thrown up here can be replicated without too much difficulty across the so-called ‘developing’ world. More than reaching the milestone, the journey has been interesting. i4d is the fruit of the hard work September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
of its entire team, and they have all persisted. If you have doubts, just take a look at my inbox, and the persistent mails, reminding one about an overdue article, arranging to get across a book for review from the other end of this sub-continent, and in other ways. What was surprising to me personally was the determination with which Ravi (and the team, of course) followed up every idea. He would squeeze in a few spare moments during a chance meeting in Delhi, to catch hold of his visitor, ferry him across to his NOIDA offices outside the national capital, and discuss issues en route. Perhaps Ravi was under the mistaken impression that because we were somewhat early starters, we were necessarily better informed or even wiser! As much as Ravi believes in planning and working out every plan - perhaps a legacy of his IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) education - our work at BytesForAll has been as chaotic and unplanned. Serendipity has played a huge role in our unplanned experiment, as much as Ravi’s was guided by design. In a region marred by pessimism and a form of working chaos, i4d is surprising with its calendar-ofthemes announced months in advance! Undeniably this is a good effort, which needs to grow. But while appreciating its work, there are also some areas which surely could be looked at more closely. Rather than looking at i4d as just another publication, it probably needs to build up a group of close supporters - not an easy task. It would itself benefit from such a possibility. i4d needs to grow as part of a wider community, which is not only influenced by it but also in turn influences the magazine. Entry to this community should not be open just to a select-few friends, like this writer, but to whoever is keen about the ICT4D field. In the past half-decade or so, the need for i4d (or ICT4D) is widely accepted. International donor groups have accepted this debate, and bodies like the UN are supporting Free Software through the Unesco and UNDP-APDIP’s International Open Source Network IOSN.net. On the flip-side, Silver Issue
Thanks for all your labours in ICT information dissemination to the entire world. The issue of IT education to the rural areas in the developing countries like Nigeria is of utmost importance to me. This is because, I have a dream that the rural subsistent agricultural based economy can easily be transformed into an information and knowledge based economy by mediating rural-urban migration through investments in Information and Communication Technology. This rural-urban migration is a hard nut to crack in the South East Nigeria, but I believe with this opinion pursued vigorously, the percentage of dropouts in the Nigerian School system especially in the rural South East Nigeria will be greatly reduced. Elochukwu Ukwandu Imo State University, Nigeria eloukwandu@msn.com
This is with reference to your magazine Vol III No 5. We request you to kindly give permission to reproduce the article on ‘Communication for Development’ in the Special Issue of Journal of Rural Development on the same subject. S Rajakutty CIEC Nird, India ciec@nird.gov.in
Thanks for sending me the i4d magazine, it is excellent idea, much needed for the sector. Viji Balakrishnan vijibalakrishnan@yahoo.co.in
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I receive your print magazine as well as e-Updates. I would be grateful if you could send ‘soft’ copy of the article ‘Mixed signals of expectations’ in the June 2005 issue of i4d. I am an operator of a ‘mobile women’s community radio station’ in Fiji as well as member of AMARC where at the upcoming Asia-pacific conference we are going to be addressing regulatory issues and I would like the steering committee to also read this article - as well as others here in the pacific island region. Sharon Bhagwan Rolls fem’LINKpacific: Media Initiatives for Women, Suva, Fiji Islands femlinkpac@connect.com.fj
I would like to appreciate the work you are doing. This is just amazing! Good work! I would be happy to collaborate with your organisation and the magazine. My interest lies with ICT4D. M. Nazrul Islam Relief International-Schools Online, Bangladesh nazrul07@gmail.com
Congratulations, the online version of the July 2005 i4d magazine looks very good. I’m looking forward to the printed version! Juulke Brosky Hivos, The Netherlands j.brosky@hivos.nl
I have read some contents of ‘FLOSS’ issue of October 2004 on the web and it is inspirational. We will use the excerpts in our FLOSS campaigns around Africa. Bildad Kagai FOSSFA , Africa bill@circuitspackets.com
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the money entering the field is ending up NGOised, in the form of often unreplicable and unscalable projects. We don’t seem to be learning the basic lessons from the Free Software world that made so much possible - a purer form of volunteering, genuine sharing rather than unhealthy competition for funding, sharing ideas on an unprecedented scale in humankind, and so on. Governments are also willing to give their support to ICT4D concepts, even if this remains lip service and mostly don’t get translated into solutions that work and scale-up. After all, ICT4D holds out the (untrue?) promise of development without tears, where poverty can be fought without either the rich sacrificing any of their privilege or the bitterness of social conflict! Those who care about which direction this debate is going on need to extend it beyond the narrow walls into which it is getting constrained. India has a large based of software skills (and this extends into South Asia and beyond). Many of these educated and privileged knowledge workers feel the pressing need to do something for those less fortunate than them. The Azim Premjis and Narayan Murthys speak a different language from the sweatshops that South Asia is otherwise accustomed to. So, are we extending the debate to its natural allies? Are we taking ICT4D to fields where it is needed most and can bring in huge changes simply by harnessing the power of existing infrastructures in education, in agriculture, in health, in governance that works? It doesn’t seem to be happening. And this needs to be a priority for all of us. In a word, i4d has a big role to play in bridge building. As things stand, the ICT4D community is largely unaware of, or disinterested in, the far-reaching work going on in the Free Software world. One is not only talking about Free operating systems like GNU/Linux, distros like Debian which bring you a package of some 15,000 softwares at an affordable price (that of copying 14 CDs!). But, more important are the social software and other collaborative tools that the world of Free Software is throwing up. Their contribution makes the Internet workable and Silver Issue
stable. Or the tools that permits for new, unprecedented forms of collaborative work - such as wikis; and create new spaces for expression in a world where the majority had no voice - such as blogs. On the other hand, the Indic language-computing programme seems to be working in an isolated ghetto. Teachers and educators, for the most, don’t have much of a clue of what ICT can do for them. And, those of us talking the language of ICT4D haven’t spent enough efforts at identifying educational needs of the left-outs and finding a mechanism to meet these needs. So many tens of thousands of students go through engineering colleges and an IT education, without even encountering the debate about whether India’s IT talent needs to serve India primarily or simply focus on the unnecessarily over-valued export dollar. Can i4d enter new grounds, and create new marriages among partners who otherwise simply won’t see all those benefits of working together? In this process, it would help vastly if i4d itself took on more collaborative and open models for itself. Small things matter: instead of drawing the reader to the i4d’s site itself with URLs for breaking news, could we not be taken direct to the source of the news? That apart, on this milestone of 25 issues of i4d, it was a nice present indeed to learn that i4d is already being released under a CreativeCommons.org sharable license. And that all the issues of the magazine have already been archived in a ‘pdf ’ format “for global researchers and practitioners to benefit from this effort” at www.i4d.csdms.in. Surely, we need to show our own faith in what we are talking about, and implement it ourselves. i4d is a good contribution in terms of the knowledge and information it throws up. We are grateful for not just what you do, but how you do it! Frederick Noronha is co-founder of BytesForAll [http:// groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers] and a journalist who has focussed on ICT4D since the late nineties, before the topic became “fashionable” in the development discourse. He has been a supporter of the i4d magazine from the first issue, and continues to provide editorial perspectives, such as this one to make the endeavour of i4d successful.
Do you have an opinion, suggestion or a story? Write to us at info@i4donline.net i4d | September 2005
i4d A DVISORY B OARD M EMBERS ’ P ROFILE
A global think tank The advisory board members of i4d serve in an honorary capacity for a tenure of two years which may be extended for additional term. They provide advise on the operation of the servivces of i4d from a user perspective and act as a sounding board for ideas for new developments. While representing leading agencies and a wide network of stakeholders, they ensured that the services of i4d maintains its reputation as an independent source of high quality information. They also advise on ways to enhance outreach and impact. We are grateful to our global think tank who have provided their support to the growth of i4d.
MP Narayanan, Chairman, CSDMS M. P. Narayanan, a mining professional having over 40 years of experience. He retired from public service as Chairman, Coal India Limited. He served as Chairman, Neyvelli Lignite Corporation Limited and Chairman, Environmental Appraisal Committee for Industries, Ministry Environment and Forests, Government of India. He is the Chairman of Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies.
Amitabha Pande, Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Government of India Amitabha Pande, a graduate in English literature, joined the Indian Administrative Services in 1970s and served as Joint Secretary in Department of Science and Technology from 2000-2005. He has been instrumental in creating awareness about maps and development of National Spatial Data Infrastructure in India. Currently he serves as Principal Resident Commissioner, Government of Punjab.
Chin Saik Yoon, Southbound Publications, Malaysia Chin Saik Yoon is chair of Orbicom’s research and publications committee. He is also the publisher and managing director of Southbound, a publishing house specialising in titles on development information and communication. He served on the advisory board of the World Communication and Information Report and has been involved in a number of regional and international ICT for development initiatives since the late 1980s. http://www.southbound.com.my
Muhammed Yunus, Grameen Bank, Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus is founder of the Grameen Movement. He was in the International Advisory Group for the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing from 1993 to 1995. He is on the boards of many international organisations including Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (a Grameen replication project), the International Rice Research Institute, Philippines, and Credit and Savings for the Poor, Malaysia. He has received numerous international and national awards. http://www.grameen-info.org September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
Richard Fuchs, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada Richard Fuchs joined IDRC in January 2001 as Director of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Development Programme Area. He was also the founder and CEO of the Enterprise Network Inc., a Crown corporation that established Canada’s first rural online and telecentre services. In 1996, he set up Futureworks, a firm specialising in the development of distance technology systems and services. http://www.idrc.ca
Karl Harmsen, Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific, (CSSTEAP) India Karl Harmsen was appointed on 23 April 2002 as Director of the Centre of Space Science Technology Education for Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP), which is located in Dehra Dun, India, on the campus of ITC’s sister institute, the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing. Prior to that he was involved with a number of environmental and Remote Sensing organisations. From October 2005 he will join as Director of United Nations University – Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNU-INRA), located in Accra, Ghana. He has a PhD on behaviour of heavy metals in soils. http://www.cssteap.org
Kenneth Keniston, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA Kenneth Keniston is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Human Development in the Programme in Science, Technology, and Society and Director of the MIT India Programme at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has twice been Sir Ashutosh Mukerjee Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. He is founder of the MIT India Programme, whose goal is increasing the presence of India in the education of MIT students. He was the Chair of Decennial Review Committee of NIAS in 2003. He has authored over eight books and hundreds of research papers. http://www.mit.edu
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Ichiro Tambo, OECD, France Ichiro Tambo is the former Adviser on Science and Technology in OECD’s Development Co-operation Directorate. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has 30 member countries sharing a commitment to democratic government and the market economy. http://www.oecd.org
Nagy Hanna, e-Leadership Academy, University of Maryland, USA After serving the World Bank for 3 decades, Nagy Hanna currently serves as the Co-Director and Senior Fellow at the e-Leadership Academy of University of Maryland in USA, and as a Senior International Development Strategy Consultant for the National e-Strategy and Corporate Strategy in the United States of America. He is an innovator and e-Strategist. http:/ www.rhsmith.umd.edu
Srinivasan Ramani, Research Director, Hewlitt Packard Labs India (HP Labs) Srinivasan Ramani, one of the stalwarts of the Indian IT industry, is the Director of HP Labs India. Ramani is the Executive Vice-President of the International Council for Computer Communication. He also serves on the United Nations High-level Panel of Advisors in Information and Communications Technologies. Earlier, Ramani served as President of the Computer Society of India and as Chairman of the board of directors of the Commonwealth Network on Information Technology for Development. http://www.hpl.hp.com
Walter Fust, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Switzerland Walter Fust is Director-General of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) since September 1993. He is Chairman of the Board of the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP). He is also a member of the Panel of Advisors of the United Nations Task Force on ICTs. He is member of the Steering Committee of the ‘Global Governance Initiative’ of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and of the Policy Committee of the Global Coalition for Africa. http://www.sdc.admin.ch
Wijayananda Jayaweera, UNESCO, France Wijayananda Jayaweera took office as the Director of UNESCO’s Communication Development Division in 2003. Mr Jayaweera worked at the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, he served as Project Organiser for the implementation of the UNESCO/DANIDA Mahaweli Community Radio project. He worked with the AsiaPacific Institute for Broadcasting Development as a Training Director. He joined UNESCO as a Programme Specialist in the Communication Development Division. http://www.portal.unesco.org
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Pan Asia ICT R&D Grants Programme October 2005 Competition Round The Pan Asia ICT R&D Grants Programme is pleased to announce the October 2005 Competition round for ICT R&D grant applicants from the Asia Pacific region. This open theme competition welcomes proposals in the following areas: • Research and development into innovative ICT applications, with a clear focus on practical and replicable approaches and techniques • Research on Internet infrastructure design, performance, management policy, and related topics • Development of practical solutions based on the application of proven and readily available Internet technologies with minimum basic research. • Research with clear learning outcomes and social impacts of specific ICT policies and interventions and application of Internet technologies • Research on policy matters affecting Internet networking in the Asia Pacific region, especially where linked to areas such as health, environment, culture, policy impacts, gender equity, social equity, sustainable communities, and technology diffusion/transfer, and benefits to rural areas • Technology related issues such as broadband connectivity, last mile innovation, mobile and wireless technologies for the developing world, and increasing the capacity or efficiency of existing network infrastructures. We will not entertain proposals outside the scope of the grants programme. Interested organizations or institutions from the Asia Pacific region may apply for either of the following types of grants: • Grants up to a maximum budget of US$9,000 over a term not exceeding 12 months. • Grants up to a maximum budget of US$30,000 over a term not exceeding 24 months. Deadline for applications for this round is 15 October 2005. Late applications will not be considered for this round, but may be considered in future rounds. The grants committee will screen all proposals, and the results will be made known by mid December 2005. The funds for the ICT R&D Grants are provided by the Pan Asia Networking Program of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Internet Society (ISOC), the Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC) and the Microsoft Operations Pte Ltd. The Programme is administered by Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC). The programme is overseen by a committee established by Pan Asia Networking, APDIP, APNIC ,AMIC, ISOC and Microsoft. Please read the Guide to the Programme http://web.idrc.ca/ en/ev-9609-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html to learn more about the Scope, Criteria, Grants awarded, before completing an application form with the full details of your proposal. Please note that proposals must satisfy all of the programme requirements in order to be considered for funding.
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i4d | September 2005
Rendezvous W ORLD S UMMIT ON THE I NFORMATION S OCIETY , 16-18 N OV 2005, T UNIS , T UNISIA
A curtain raiser “The requirement of this time is to build an Information Society”. This year is going to experience a unique event to build up a ‘unique’ society, ‘information society’. –Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General
Info insight The digital revolution, with the support of ICTs, has brought basic changes in the way of our thinking, behaving, communicating, working and earning our livelihood. The new ways to create knowledge, educate people and disseminate information are most important product of this evolution. And it has been strongly felt that the access to information and knowledge is a prerequisite to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It enhances better communication between people that further helps to resolve conflicts and attain world peace. But behind this enlightened future of information dissemination pertaining to betterment of livelihood in an ICT way, lies the huge shadow of uncertainties which is termed as ‘digital divide’. It is the typical gap between the rich and the poor, between knowledge and ignorance, between enlightened and non-enlightened. Recognising that this new dynamic requires global discussion, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), following a proposal by the Government of Tunisia, resolved at its Plenipotentiary Conference in Minneapolis in 1998 (Resolution 73) to hold a World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and place it on the agenda of the United Nations. In 2001, the ITU Council decided to hold the Summit in two phases, the first from 10 to 12 December 2003, in Geneva, and the second from 16 to 18 November 2005 in Tunis. This was endorsed by the UN General Assembly on 21 December 2001 (Resolution 56/ 183). The Resolution 56/183 further recommended that preparations for the Summit take place through an open-ended intergovernmental Preparatory Committee or PrepCom that would define the agenda of the Summit, decide on the modalities of the participation of other stakeholders in the Summit, September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
and finalise both the draft Declaration of Principles and the draft Plan of Action. It invited the ITU to assume the leading managerial role in the Executive Secretariat of the Summit and invited governments to participate actively in the preparatory process of the Summit and to be represented in the Summit at the highest possible level. In Resolution 56/183 the General Assembly also encouraged contributions from all relevant UN bodies and other intergovernmental organisations, including international and regional institutions, non-governmental organisations, civil society and the private sector to actively participate in the intergovernmental preparatory process of the Summit and the Summit itself. The first phase took place in Geneva hosted by the Government of Switzerland from 10-12 December 2003. The second phase will take place in Tunis hosted by the Tunisian Government, from 16-18 November 2005.
This message is to let you know that we have entered a summary of ‘ICT and Human Rights Promotion in Bangladesh’ in the Strategic Thinking section of the website of The Communication Initiative. Petra Ellis The Communication Initiative pellis@comminit.com
The Women’s Media Centre of Cambodia (WMC) would like to thank you very much for sending a copy of The First monthly magazine on ICT4D to us. Tive Sarayeth Women’s Media Centre of Cambodia wmcc@online.com.kh
I would like to thank you for the article you published and look forward to Euro-India ICT Co-operation and i4d working together in the future. Douglas McKinley, Metaware SpA, Italy d.mckinley@metaware.it
WSIS session in progress, Geneva, 2003
Geneva to Tunis – the long way The UN General Assembly Resolution 56/183 endorsed A High-Level Summit Organising Committee (HLSOC) has been established under the patronage of Kofi Annan. The UN agency that holds the leading role in the organisation of the Summit is the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), based in Geneva (Switzerland). The host countries, Switzerland and Tunisia, have also established Executive Secretariats, as also the ITU. WSIS, invites representation from governments at the highest level and also invites participation of all relevant UN bodies and other international organisations, non governmental organisations, private sector, civil society, and media to establish a truly multi-stakeholder process. Silver Issue
I got the opportunity to browse some of the previous issues of i4d distributed at the seminar at India Habitat Centre. I was really delighted to see the contents and the quality of the magazine. Congratulation! Dr. Ravindra K. Gupta rkgm@bol.net.in
It will be great if you could send me a complimentary copy of December 2004 issue of your very valuable and informative magazine, i4d. Dr R K Gupta rkgmk@softhome.net
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I have gone through the i4d website and seen my article and other articles. I want to show my appreciation for the nice editorial touch and layout. I think the magazine is great and has a much brighter future to come. I wish to receive the hard copy of this magazine.
Taken individually, each phase of the Summit marks the culmination of many months of consultations and negotiations among Member States, UN experts, the private sector, and nongovernmental representatives. These consultations and negotiations take place prior to the Summit itself and constitute the Preparatory Process. Phase 1 in Geneva, 10-12 December 2003 The objective of the first phase held in Geneva (1012 December, 2003) was to develop and foster a clear statement of political will and take concrete steps to establish the foundations for an Information Society for all, reflecting all the different interests at stake. At the Geneva Phase of WSIS nearly 50 Heads of state/government and Vice-Presidents, 82 Ministers, and 26 Vice-Ministers and Heads of delegation from 175 countries as well as high-level representatives from international organisations, private sector, and civil society provided political support to the WSIS Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action that were adopted on 12 December 2003. More than 11,000 participants from 175 countries attended the Summit and related events. The scope and nature of this ambitious project requires new public-private partnerships, many of which were formalised during the Geneva Summit.
Lawrence Kweku Yamuah Armauer Hansen Research Institute, Ethopia yamuahlk@yahoo.co.uk
I am impressed by your print magazine, which I received for the first time in May this year. I am moved by the features based on real life experiences in developing world and how IT is helpful in enhancing learning. I would like to contribute features on ICT4D based on experiences in East Africa.
Phase 2 in Tunis, 16-18 November 2005 The road to Tunis involves a process of monitoring and evaluation of the progress of possible actions laid out in the Geneva Plan and a concrete set of deliverables that must be achieved by the time the Summit meets again in Tunis in November 2005. Efforts are made to put the Plan of Action into motion and working groups are being set up to find solutions and reach agreements in the fields of Internet governance and financing mechanisms. In supporting the first phase of the WSIS, the ICT Task Force of the United Nations, set up in 2001 by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, successfully helped in placing the United Nations development
Menda. A S JustaAfrica justafrica2001@yahoo.com
Shahzad Ahmad Pakistan shahzad@isb.sdnpk.org
I was interested to read about the articles based on real life experiences and IT to enhance learning. I would like to send a brief summary about the success of the National Galleries of Scotland website. Anne Buddle National Galleries of Scotland abuddle@nationalgalleries.org
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Credit: www.wsis-si.org
Many thanks for sending me this beautiful, informative issue of i4d. It indeed was excellent and refreshing experience going through the content of this magazine. Keep up the great work.
Panel to welcome delegates to PREPCOM 1 in Tunisia Silver Issue
objectives at the heart of the Summit and mobilised the participation of the multi-stakeholder networks, organised a series of side events and launched new initiatives, including on education. The Task Force intends to contribute actively to the preparations for the second phase of the WSIS leading up to the Tunis Summit in November 2005. Based on internationally agreed development goals, including those in the Millennium Declaration, which are premised on international cooperation, indicative targets may serve as global references for improving connectivity and access in the use of ICTs in promoting the objectives of the Plan of Action, to be achieved by 2015.
Joining hands at Tunis Like all UN Summits, WSIS is mainly an intergovernmental process. Decisions are taken by States. Ultimately, if voting is done, only government delegations can vote. However, the other stakeholders in the Information Society can participate in WSIS as observers. The Rules of Procedures of the Preparatory Committee and the Summit distinguish several categories of observers: • Entities and organisations having received a standing invitation to participate as observers in the sessions and work of the General Assembly; • UN Secretariat and organs; • UN Specialised Agencies and other invited intergovernmental organisations; • Associate Members of Regional Commissions; • Accredited civil society entities (including NGOs in consultative status with ECOSOC, which, as a rule, are considered as accredited); • Accredited business sector entities (including all ITU Sector Members, which are automatically accredited). Participants from accredited civil society entities (including NGOs in consultative status with ECOSOC) and from accredited business sector entities (including ITU sector members) can sit as observers in public meetings (plenary, committee or subcommittee meetings). Upon the invitation of the presiding officer of the body concerned, and subject to the approval of that body, such observers may make oral statements on questions in which they have special competence. If the number of requests to speak is too large, the civil society and business sector entities shall be requested to form themselves into constituencies, which will then speak through their respective spokespersons. There are also variety of ways observers from civil society and business can contribute and influence the negotiation process, even if they do not act as negotiating partners: Interacting with States, briefing governments on the concerns of their constituencies, i4d | September 2005
circulating information, advocating positions at the national level, underscoring links between national actions and international commitments, organising caucuses to strengthen advocacy work, forging connections between the UN and NGOs around the world, and drawing the media’s attention to the issues at hand. For more information about participation of NGOs in intergovernmental meetings of the UN in general see: http://www.unngls.org/d_making.htm
Corners of conclaves WSIS is no more an isolated event, rather it is going to be an event of many people of various thoughts and innovative ideas. The WSIS Human Rights Caucus, for example, includes 50 organisations from around the world, has been working since the first preparatory meeting of the first phase of the Summit, in July 2002, to ensure that human rights are not left off the WSIS agenda, neither off its process. The Caucus has been created to put human rights on the WSIS agenda, with full respect of their universality and their indivisibility. The Caucus will, during the Tunis process, monitor the conditions in which this process is proceeding, and will report on obstacles to the exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the host country. In light of the general human rights assessment made in 2005, all the participants to the process, governments, international organisations, private sector and civil society, will be called for making their decision. The WSIS Gender Caucus traces its beginnings to Bamako 2002 when organisations responded to an invitation by UNIFEM to contribute to ensure that gender dimensions are included in the process of defining and creating a Global Information Society that contributes to sustainable development and human security. It is a multi-stakeholder group of women and men from national governments, civil society and non-governmental organisations, the private sector and the United Nations system. It takes as a starting point the importance of aligning the WSIS process and outcomes with the achievement of the MDGs and urges governments to acknowledge gender equality and women’s rights as fundamental principles in the creation of an Information Society. It has developed a portal containing useful resources on gender equality advocacy in the ICTs arena: http:/ /www.genderwsis.org The Youth Caucus of the World Summit on the Information Society is a loose group of youth who are active leaders in all kinds of areas. The WSIS Youth Caucus isn’t an official organisation, but both TakingITGlobal and September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
SchoolNetAfrica provide logistical and technical support. There is no official list of members, because the Youth Caucus is open to membership; there is no application process, therefore members are not listed. There are however, various ways to ascertain the member base of the Youth Caucus - mainly the WSISYouth mailing list (hosted by TakingITGlobal), a central virtual ‘shouting board’, which allows important information to be communicated to caucus members. The WSIS Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus expresses its strong support and appreciation for the process and outcome of WGIG. We believe WGIG achieved the mandate set for it by the WSIS Geneva Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action. With regard to public policy issues, the caucus expresses its appreciation for the background document’s comprehensive coverage and prioritisation of issues requiring immediate attention, as outlined in the WGIG report. The first phase of World Summit on http://www.wsis-cs.org the Information Society (WSIS) agreed to pursue the dialogue on Internet Governance in the Declaration of Principles and Action Plan adopted on 12 December 2003, with a view to preparing the ground for a decision at the second phase of the WSIS in Tunis in November 2005. The first phase of the Summit requested the United Nations Secretary-General to establish a Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG). The WGIG will present the result of its work in a report ‘for consideration and appropriate action for the second phase of the WSIS in Tunis 2005’.
Tunis phase coming up… In his message, Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, has stated that “This Summit is unique. While most global conferences focus on global threats, WSIS will consider how best to use a new global asset”. We will have to wait for another month for this unique event which may prove the statement of Kofi Annan once again: “Information and communication technologies are not a panacea or magic formula. But they can improve the lives of everyone on this planet. We have tools that can propel us toward the Millennium Development Goals; instruments with which to advance the cause of freedom and democracy; vehicles with which to propagate knowledge and mutual understanding. We have all of this potential. The challenge before this Summit is what to do with it.” May Tunis event show the right way! Saswati Paik, saswati@csdms.in Silver Issue
Thank you for responding positively on our request to publish the article from Zimbabwe carried in your February 2005 issue, in our newsletter. We did enjoy reading your publication, which carries information of interest to us. We will keep you updated on developments in Zimbabwe. Best wishes in your endeavours. W. Moyo Embassy of Zimbabwe zimdelhi@vsnl.net
I am in Dublin attending a UN ICT Task Force meeting on ICTs in Education and saw the i4d print magazine for the first time. Looks great. Well done! Shafika Isaacs SchoolNet Africa s.isaacs@schoolnetafrica.org
Greetings from Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC). I was deeply impressed by the form, style and content of the i4d. I congratulate everyone of i4d family, for the novel, trend setting and path breaking printing and smart presentation that immediately captures attention and provide excellent reading. AHM Bazlur Rahman Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication info@bnnrc.net
I just received a copy of the i4d. Do let me know how we could regularly subscribe to the magazine, as it certainly seems to be a resource all of us would like to have here. Prashant Sharma ICIMOD, Nepal prashant@mtnforum.org
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i4d P ARTNERS
Amplifying the voices Several strategic partners have joined hands in providing a shape and direction to i4d as an outreach and documentation resource. The partners include UN organisations, international funding agencies and several other not-for-profit organisations focused on ICT4D. These partnerships have helped us in raising the knowledge, diversifying the content, obtaining critical resources and content and widening the readership. New partnerships are being built with organisations like IDRC and Telecentre.org. We share with you profiles of partners who walked with us up to these first 25 issues, and are grateful for their continued support to make i4d truely a global multi-stakeholder partnership.
National Institute for Smart Government (NISG)
HIVOS
National Institute for Smart Government (NISG), Hyderabad, India is a not-for-profit company incorporated in 2002 as an institution of excellence in the area of e-Governance. NISG is playing a lead role in the implementation of the ICT for Development (ICTD) project, which has been conceptualised by UNDP, together with Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India. A four page coloured newsletter of ICTD project called the ‘ICTD section’ goes every month with i4d for sharing the updates on the ICTD project and research results of NISG activities. NISG prepare articles/newsletters on the NISG activities every alternate month and in other months i4d team prepare covering stories on the pilot projects being implemented under ICTD project.
International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) The International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) assists developing countries to realise locally owned sustainable development by harnessing the potential of ICTs. IICD works with its partner organisations helping local stakeholders to assess the potential uses of ICTs in development. The iConnect series of articles showcase the pilot projects having focus towards emphasising the impact of ICTs for development. i4d helps in disseminating experiences from the grassroots level through i4d magazine which has helped us to further diversify our content base with articles from Africa and Latin America. The articles are produced by local journalists in IICD’s focal countries.
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is Switzerland’s international cooperation agency within the Swiss Foreign Ministry. The agency undertakes direct actions, supports the programmes of multilateral organisations, and helps to finance programmes run by Swiss and international aid organisations. SDC has supported i4d programme since October 2004.
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Hivos is a non-governmental organisation, rooted in the Netherlands and guided by humanist values. Hivos has helped in bringing out issues on FLOSS, e-Culture and Human Rights and ICTs. Hivos partners also contribute content. Hivos will collaborate with us again for the HIV/AIDS issue scheduled on December 2005.
UNESCO UNESCO is the first UN body to support i4d. i4d has partnered with UNESCO New Delhi for the issue on ICT for Poor in May 2004. We partnered with UNESCO, France for Telecentre issue in September 2004.
Digital Opportunity Channel Digital Opportunity is the first partner of i4d. Digital Opportunity Channel brings together over 360 organisations who are using modern ICTs to promote sustainable development, social justice and human rights. We partnered with them for e-Governance issue on November-December 2003.
Bytes for All Bytes for All is an online discussion forum on various developmental topics related to ICT4D. i4d helps in dissemination of content of discussions and debates through print magazine.
Planet Finance i4d had a very small time partnership with Planet Finances, an international organisation on microfinance based in Paris. We together published the January 2004 issue on microfinance. The parent organisation CSDMS is a member of the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP). As apart of this partnership, the winners of Youth and ICT Award 2005 will be profiled in i4d. We take this opportunity to thank our partners for their support which has facilitated i4d’s journey through many leaps and bounds. We hope to get the same help and encouragement from our partners in future also.
Silver Issue
Sejuti Sarkar De, sejuti@csdms.in
i4d | September 2005
September 2005
ICTD Project Newsletter
Mahila Samakhya meeting in progress
Engaging Communities in ICT for development initiatives Though much has been said and written about the role of technology in providing ICT interventions; little has been documented about the integral role people play in such projects and about the necessity of engaging communities in their own development. This paper highlights the importance of this key issue and stresses that a participatory approach from the project initiation stage be adopted for the sustainability of development initiatives. The whole act of engaging a community in the development process is about giving people a voice. While technology can only act as an enabler in providing services or alerting the social landscape with tailor-made interventions, the role of people and communities as active participants in the process of their development cannot be discounted. This paper is based on the experiences and insights from six pilot initiatives under the ICT for Development (ICTD) Project, being implemented by the National Institute for Smart Government (NISG). 11 nation wide
pilot initiatives that use ICTs are being implemented under the ICTD Project in areas of Integrated Citizen Services, rural governance, rural livelihoods and women’s empowerment. The projects featured in this paper are: Ashwini: Implemented by Byrraju Foundation, this project seeks to enable a platform for multi-dimensional interaction between experts and service providers in towns/cities and defined target segments in 32 villages of the West Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh in order to empower rural population
through access to information and services. DRISTI: Implemented by the West Bengal State Rural Development Agency, the Decentralised Rural Information Services and Technology Initiatives DRISTI project aims to provide an IT based solution for all the major functions of Panchayats (village level administrative body) including microplanning at village level at 20 Panchayat Samitis of Burdwan district and 50 Gram Panchayats under these Panchayat Samitis. Mahiti-Mitra: Implemented by Kutch Nav Nirman Abhiyan, the project envisages the creation of ICT kiosks through the existing Setu centres, and developing the kiosks as a platform which enables the Gram Panchayat bodies and Gram Sabhas to access the various ICT technology applications. This will cover nearly 380 villages in the Kutch district of Gujarat. Village Information Services (VIS): Implemented by the Gujarat Informatics Limited, the VIS (eGram) project seeks to integrate all the projects under the Government of Gujarat’s e-Governance initiatives that are proposed to roll out in all the 18000 villages of Gujarat. The pilot will cover 100 villages in 5 Talukas (sub-district level) across 2 districts of Gujarat State. Creating rural entrepreneurs through ICT enabled enterprise development services: Implemented by Development Alternatives, this initiative focuses on providing entrepreneurship opportunities in the areas of micro concrete roofing and non-farm based activity using natural recyclable poultry, to nearly 8000-9000 entrepreneurs from Bathinda Cluster, Punjab Tikamgarh Cluster and Bundelkhand in the pilot period.
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Mahiti Manthana: Implemented by IT for Change, this project is situated in context of Mahila Samakhya (MS) – an established grassroots initiative of the Govt. of India. The objective of the pilot will be to develop appropriate ICT-based processes and systems best suited for MSKs resource centre activity. A multipronged strategy to provide content on education, health, and other social and legal issues is envisaged. After highlighting the individual community interaction experiences of these projects, the paper would focus on steps that can be taken to engage the community while implementing ICT for development initiatives.
Initial community response to pilot initiatives Before embarking on any ICT for development initiative, it is important to understand the local culture and social dynamics before approaching the people for their inputs. As IT for Change discovered in the Mahiti Manthana project, most communities today have good exposure to audio-visual media in form of the television, telephones and radio. However, most people had not connected the use of technology for empowerment purposes. The need thus is to simply highlight through real-life examples, the impact technology can make in the lives of people. Having worked in the Kutch region, the Kutch Nav Nirman Abhiyan’s Mahiti Mitra Project was able to critically analyse the macro developmental scenario vis-à-vis the issues at the community level. The community expressed an eagerness for information about governmental schemes. This resulted in valuable learning for the project and a pilot was crafted to suit that needs. After highlighting the expectations of the services offered by the project, the residents of villages where the VIS project is to be implemented spoke about
their hope of technology directly impacting corruption. When confronted with desires such as the above, discussing the project in detail with the people and facilitating them to set realistic timeframes for results, can prevent unnecessary complications and avoid future animosity arising out of unrealistic expectations. Any new technology brings with it bundles of fears and hesitations especially among the middle aged and older people of the society. It was noted that while the youngsters take to the ICT intervention relatively easily, the same is not the case for the established village elders who often confront technology before embracing it. The adage ‘seeing is believing’ holds true even today. Project Ashwini received a wait and watch response from most communities till they showcased a proof-of-concept and a pilot by connecting two villages. It
juncture, showcasing other similar successful ICT for development initiatives as well as responses from other villagers who use ICT interventions successfully, helps induce a certain degree of comfort and makes people more receptive to what donor agencies propose to implement. The emphasis of all initial interactions must, not remain on extracting information from the communities but to help them understand the project better.
Inhibitions expressed
While familiarity with a local setting can work as an advantage, it can also prove to be a setback for governments and NGOs especially if they have not been very successful in winning the hearts of the people earlier. e-Governance projects in particular often encounter great resistance from the government agencies themselves because of pre-conceived and incorrect opinions about the use of ICTs. Stakeholders from the government departments of DRISTI project expressed inhibitions about using computers as they feared its usage would challenge their existing jobs. The fear of technology is immense. The video-conferencing experiment of Project Ashwini created the challenge of clearing the apprehensions of communities to follow systems that takes them away from Communities learn from experts, Byrraju foundation the conventional system of proved that creating a proof-of-concept interaction. Some of them expressed fear always serves as a great introduction to that they would not be able to use the the project and helps to showcase the system and also understand the language advantages better to the local residents. that the experts speak. The community’s initial response is The Mahila Samkhya women in the often determined by the agency Mahiti Manthana project on the other implementing the project. The hand, had reservations and inhibitions Entrepreneurship Development Services over the usefulness and accessibility of (EDS) project idea was well received by the actual content that would get the community as was Mahiti Mitra’s produced through the introduction of idea, as the implementing agencies video cameras and community radio in already had a presence in the village and their daily activities. They also raised hence found it easier to engage the concerns over the proposed use of community’s attention. At this initial ‘expensive’ technologies like computers.
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Communities, in Gujarat, that have already experienced non-working computers at government offices due to frequent power failures and have borne the brunt of standing in long queues outside government offices because of this unreliable power supply, tended to question the efficiency of ICT-based services. As experienced by the VIS project implementers, the village level functionaries raised apprehensions about human resource requirements, administration and the revenue sharing of the money generated through such services being offered at the village level. Pricing of services offered at such centres was another key issue that all felt must be done keeping in mind the economic status of the community. The Development Alternatives team observed that the communities were reluctant to experiment with new technologies due to the fact that they had previously not experienced the tangible benefits, the use of ICTs can bring. Many villagers also feared there would be no ready markets for the enterprises that are being offered, and found it difficult to associate business with the computer based training that was being offered. The above experiences clearly demonstrate the varied fears that accompany any intervention. Understanding the inhibitions of the locals can help the implementing agency to encourage neutral decision making about the project from the grassroots level, rather than adopting a top-down model and making the residents feel technology is being thrust upon them.
Involving the communities Once ample knowledge about the community’s needs and apprehensions has been gained, it is important to address all their fears suitably. Ensuring sustainability becomes easy once the community sees itself not as a beneficiary but as a stakeholder and accepts the project as its responsibility. In the case of Project Ashwini, the Gram Vikas Samiti members, a local voluntary body
of village residents constituted by the Byrraju Foundation, acts as equal partner. Involving and educating select community members who then act as change agents in the community were seen to be beneficial. These local people who possess a better understanding of their community then act as messengers and help in communicating the initiative’s scope to the other residents. Isolating the local educated youth to actively participate is also a innovate step as was demonstrated by the Gujarat Informatics Limited (GIL) during their needs assessment study conducted in
Participatory decision making in an SHG
over 20 villages. Such a participatory approach is also being used in the Mahiti Manthana project. The executive committee members of the Mahila Samkhya help decide on the nature of content and processes of Mahiti Manthana. Direct consultations with the Self Help Group (SHG) women are also a regular activity in this project. Incorporating the thoughts and ideas of the community at all stages ensures that the community’s choices are part of the project design. Right from the selection of the enterprise to the final implementation, the community is being involved in every step in the EDS project as the enterprises selected for ICT based Enterprise Development Services (EDS) have been identified in consultation with the locals and the existing entrepreneurs. Conducting events, fairs, peer group discussions, group meetings and awareness building programmes such as those conducted by Mahiti Mitra, has proven to assist in easing the
introduction of ICTs. Apart from building confidence among the users, such events and communication processes also help to disseminate project related information easily. This helps reduce the initial inhibitions raised by the stakeholders as was observed in the DRISTI project, which conducted workshops to allay the fears expressed by the stakeholder government employees.
Benefits observed Local people’s knowledge of the ground realities enables them to be the best judge of their priorities. The team from Development Alternatives noticed that sharing experiences with the locals and the existing entrepreneurs, before the actual implementation, gave them insights into the intricacies involved in the implementing process. An important lesson learnt was that the locals cannot afford to have their money involved in a single business for a long period and therefore prefer those activities that have short gestation periods. Byrraju Foundation felt that the biggest gain from community participation remains the confidence and support that emanates from the residents. This aided them to gain a fresh perspective in delivering more accurate programs targeted at local needs. Suggestions on linking the village level kiosk to the primary level school to enhance computer literacy and increasing the future use were received from the communities in Gujarat. Information needs of a community continue to constitute what impacts them on a daily basis. While information about old schemes is sought, information about newer schemes and the agencies involved continues to be demanded repeatedly. e-Governance initiatives or initiatives by NGO that focus on dissemination of information of governance related initiatives must have an informational needs assessment on an ongoing basis, as that conducted by the Mahiti Mitra project.
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People from outside generally perceive that they can help solve problems of the rural people through the introduction of technology. But engaging communities helps in giving a wider perspective on issues related to content development, operating mechanisms, financial viability and the identification of requirements not initially planned for during project scoping. While ICT based systems can be utilised to bridge the gap in information asymmetry by providing the information required across all classes, caste and gender, the introduction of technology innovations may not always lead to the participation of communities in the initiatives. As the Mahiti Manthana discovered, people are ready to engage with any new process and activity if they are convinced of sufficient gains, but for this, a systematic contextualisation of these technologies and their applications has to be made which can only be done through a process, that may be prolonged in some cases, of engaging closely with the community.
How to engage the community In summation, following are the steps that must be taken in order to engage the community in an ICT for development initiative: 1) Understanding local dynamics: Understanding the local people, their environment, needs and identifying ways to better their life with them is an important activity in ICT for development projects. ICT for development has made its presence felt widely and for many communities having an ICT intervention in their village is now a matter of pride, more than necessity. Ascertaining what the community actually needs rather than desires, thus assumes great importance. 2) Setting stage for the project: Deciding what the project must aim to achieve and how best the local residents can use the technology being given to them, is a decision that cannot be taken
in isolation by project implementers. This has to be the prerogative of the community who has to choose to use what is given. Studying and understanding the projects implemented in the region in the past along with the reasons for their success and failures, also helps to refine the current project and then evolve better ways to engage the community in the process. 3) Creating a communication platform: The primary step must be the establishment of a two-way communication system which allows implementers and the local residents to establish a relationship. Once the trust has been built, an environment conducive to free expression of thoughts, ideas and fears of the diverse local populace is created which helps participation of all. Communication strategies must be devised and communication tools identified by the project implementers along with the communities, to help put in place an on-going mechanism of information exchange, sharing and documentation. The role of varied media in project propagation must be explored in context to the social and entertainment habits of the residents. 4) Understanding responsibilities: Usually, the community contributes a certain portion of the project cost and is encouraged to think of itself as an equal owner or partner. But the act of ownership also must primarily result in the idea of the intervention itself being generated from the grassroots level itself and not just engaging the community as a neutral recipient of services. This responsibility of the community towards the conceptualisation, implementation and sustenance of the project has to be realised, understood and accepted by all involved. Volunteerism must be encouraged, paving the way to make the project truly sustainable. 5) Defining roles: After systems have been established there is a need to define roles for the varied stakeholders.
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Making the community visualise the direct impact the intervention will have on the lives of their family and friends, will build a desire to see the project implemented. Sometimes what the community thinks as a desired ICT intervention may be a spontaneous decision taken without much thought. Questioning them about their responses helps to engage in further serious discussions and think carefully about their goals and plans. Once the community sets realistic goals to work towards, creating a plan with them as a group helps see through the project implementation relatively easily. 6) Facilitating actions and supporting goals: The role of an implementing agency must be that of a facilitator. ICT for development initiatives require predominant local level leadership and initiative to ensure success. The funding and implementing agencies must work with the community to equip them with requisite information and resources. Engaging the community helps make ICT interventions an economic and social choice, and not something they are compelled to adopt and accept. The community must constantly be part of the project, at every juncture and stage of the project. ICT for development initiatives when implemented democratically taking into consideration the benefit of all social groups and classes in the village, can change the social dynamics and disturb previously existing power balances, by empowering previously marginalised groups. It is also necessary to engage professionals such as social scientists who can help support the community through constant information exchange and aid them to face and resolve their internal issues in a pro-active manner. Š Anita Satyajit (with inputs from Sandeep Paidi), National Institute for Smart Government NISG and i4d reserve the right to reprint articles produced for the ICTD section of the i4d magazine and website, with due credits to NISG and i4d. Please write to the editor for any request of reprints.
B OOK R EVIEW
Globalisation + ICT = ? Globalisation, ICT and Developing Nations Authors: Sumit Roy Publisher: Sage Publications Pages: 247 Price: Rs. 340 Of late, India has become the poster-boy around the theme “ICT for Development” and offshore outsourcing & e-governance as the flavours of the season. Hence, it is not surprising to see a plethora of publications playing up the remix versions of the thematic song. Sumit Roy is an economist with high qualifications, affiliations and experience with a keen interest in researching the role of globalisation and development – especially in the developing nations. He dares to go beyond the usual veneer of the e-seva kiosks and takes a hard look at the underlying complex and interdependent dimensions of labour, employment, human capital and the way developing nations interact with the multilateral agencies. When computerisation in Indian banks began in the 80s, most of the unions were up against the move since they dreaded that some day, all (well, almost) the staff would be replaced by superefficient and moronic-looking faceless computer screens. They added that we do need development – mostly, it used to imply ‘economic’ – but without sacrificing the social commitments. Circa, 2004 – modify the language to comply with the CMP and one can say “Development with Human Face”. In this perspective, this handy book traces the underlying the role of ICT and globalisation in the context of the developing nations. True, ICT offer a unique opportunity for developing nations to leapfrog yet this pathway is neither insulated from the overall policy regimen nor exists without its own set of challenges – most of them in unfamiliar territory, where few dare to tread ahead. India is used as a crucible for the test-case in this data-rich book that traces the origin of the Bretton Woods Institutions, evolution of various developmental and aid agencies that offered aid, grant and loans for specific purposes but always linked to their own specific agenda that willy-nilly gave rise to the evolution of the multinational corporations. Focus is more on the process of globalisation and the interplay amongst various players involved therein and the ICT dimension looks like a mere add-on rather than intrinsic as one would expect it to be. Yet, the role of regional and spatial clusters as well as that of gender-equaliser role of ICT in the labour market is analysed in great detail. September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
The commentary on the political economy is succinct, concise and yet breathtaking in its ambit and the East Asian miracle, crisis and recovery well documented. Yet, the book is likely to be confined to be a footnote as the author seems to be over-reliant on secondary research and data, without incisive and scorching familiarity with the ground realities. The first two chapters may be skipped if one wishes to focus on the ICT – India – Development theme only. Editing is trite and the numbering of sections would have been reader-friendly. Overall, though the author never promises any quick-fix solutions, one tends to be caught in too much of analysis and it seems like a sincere attempt that takes one almost there, well – almost! Reviewed by: Deepak Maheshwari Secretary, ISP Association of India
Tsunami: The Indian Context Authors: S.M. Ramasamy, C. J. Kumanan Publisher: S. M. Sachdev Pages: 232 ISBN: 81-7764-823-3 Price: Rs. 500 ‘Tsunami- The Indian Context’- the book can be better termed as a special effort towards bringing comprehensive strategies for Tsunami mitigation for India. The two-day brainstorming session at the Centre for Remote Sensing, Bharathidasan University, Tamil Nadu on 25 and 26 February, 2005 and the multiple brain actions of scholars, scientists and technocrats there in, resulted into this compendium that focuses on all aspects of Tsunami, right from the triggering mechanism up to the societal issues of the affected coastal community. Prof. SM Ramaswamy, and Dr. C. J. Kumanan are the editors of the book who have taken up over 30 frontline scientific articles by leading scholars on all aspects of Tsunami to bring out this volume. It has five sections addressing Tsunami in Indian context – The Overview, Triggering Mechanisms and Propagation, Run Up and Inundation, Vulnerability and Impacts, and the Mitigation strategies. Besides being a tribute to the immortal souls of the Tsunami victims of December 26, 2004, the book also presents the vast experiences of the editors and contributors on earth system dynamics to serve bringing solutions to natural disasters like Tsunami. The book probably is the first of its genre on Tsunami and thus, is expected to go far beyond in carving out strategies for Tsunami mitigation.
Silver Issue
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Conference Preview C ONFERENCE
ON
ICT
AND
E DUCATION , 18-19 O CTOBER 2005, N EW D ELHI
Digital Learning 2005 How do you teach a class of (mostly bored) students, regular dry subjects of the school curriculum, retain their interest enough for the forty-five minutes of the class hour and also stimulate them enough to ask questions? How do you initiate self-learning and peer learning in a group of pre-teenagers and early teenagers in urban slums or remote rural villages who cannot afford the basic necessities of life? How do you teach adult women and men who have left school in pre teens? Today a host of ICT tools are doing just this. But then can it benefit education especially in countries where the limited resource could be better used for increasing the number of schools in rural areas than investing in expensive ICT infrastructure for select schools? Quite a large group of people seems to think it can! The MDG goal 2 read as ‘Education is development…For nations it creates a dynamic workforce and well-informed citizens able to compete and cooperate globally - opening doors to economic and social prosperity’. Today the nations envision a knowledge society with well-informed digitally competent people. These nations are increasingly using ICTs to address the need to expand the scope of learning beyond formal instruction based education to knowledge construction that is in consonance with the need, priorities and aspirations of nation in a digital economy. So what can ICT do for education? ICTs in education can stimulate innovation and creativity in all areas of pedagogy including new educational methods, techniques, and new contents. ICTs can be an effective tool for knowledge creation; expand the domain of learning and education and making education more learner and community centric. ICTs hold promise of revolutionising not only effective learning for school children but also educating the community deprived of the knowledge environment associated with formal education. This conviction has furthered the rise of a network of practitioners advocating for the integration of ICTs in education and learning and spearheading the growing global movement ‘ICTs in Education’. A paradigm shift in education with emphasis on constructivist approaches are going hand-in hand with huge technological advancements and computing that are affecting the whole educational and learning arena. The successes of the countless initiatives of technology education and application of educational technologies in learning have compelled the policy makers to take notice and support the movement. Government support has been extended through National ICT policies, IT education policies, computers in schools etc. A National Policy on ICT for Education is not far behind. Nevertheless, ‘ICT in Education’ to achieve the status of a nationwide-movement in developing countries like India, require not just
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national policies but also the concerted efforts of practitioners and ample knowledge sharing among all groups involved in extending and integrating ICT in Education. The Centre for Science Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) is organising a two day conference on ICT and Education on the 18-19 October 2005, that will provide a platform for interchange of views among experts, professionals, researchers and academicians on theoretical and practical aspects of ICT implementation in education. Digital Learning 2005, as the conference is titled will showcase ICT in Education initiatives, take stock and learn from practices from a variety of perspectives that will add value to education and training and drive and build digital competence in the knowledge society. The theme of the two day conference is ‘ICT and Education: Challenges and Practices’ . The conference will discuss technology solutions that keep ICT integrated with education and debate whether the education problem of productivity-a balance between inputs (resources) and outputs (learning outcomes), has been achieved in the existing education process and to what extent these technologies been able to improve learning environment. Mainstreaming ICT in teaching and learning by developing countries has mainly happened as introduction of computers in school curriculum. Even though in most developing countries (including India) computer literacy still remains the major rationale for ICT use in education, its overwhelming effect in bridging the digital divide, atleast for a section of the unreached cannot be ignored. Along with initiatives where the private sector and civil society has taken the lead in introducing ICTs in learning, the conference will also showcase government initiatives to create a technically literate workforce, distance education programmes, education programme for the adult and other initiatives using ICT. Even with Government support and insistence of using technology in education, many obstacles to implementation still exist. Digital Learning 2005 conference will analyse the challenges for e-Learning, strategies to fill the current gaps in practices, identify the factors and components that are essential for effective ICT integration in education, be it education content development, supporting policies or public–private partnerships. Education is central to long term well-being of the society and there is a need to consider the potential of all available technologies. Although technologies can be effective tools, it is better not to fall into the trap of what is commonly referred to “techno-centric thinking” and focus on ICTs benefit in improving the learning environment. Digital Learning 2005 aims to debate and assess the potentials of ICTs and to define clear strategies for a global goal of improving learning and education.
Silver Issue
Rumi Mallick, rumi@csdms.in www.DL.csdms.in i4d | September 2005
i4d N EWS S ERVICE
Bringing the world at your doorstep Welcome to i4d, the information for development news service! The news service reaches the audiences either through print, or by online resources or as an email newsletter delivered by name to the subscriber, flashing in-depth coverage of information, communication and technology for development affairs.
i4d news service i4d news service coming into the info world is virtually the story of progressive India. The desire to make news info-centric and to make it one-dimensional with the ‘d for development’ factor in the field of news supply was at the heart of this evolving thought. The evolution of the concept of a news service first of its kind in the field of information communication and technology for development (ICTD) was the direct consequence of the spirit of advancement (synonymously development) that sweeps the country every day in every moment. The idea that India needs its own base to place news focusing on ICT4D issue sparked off in early 2003 with the fact that the country is closely watched globally standing at the same front.
Setting its goals i4d has reported the progressive march of ICT towards development as it happened, blow-by-blow, in the best traditions of news supply service, with speed, accuracy and objectivity. In just a few months, i4d has come a long way, growing in target, database and stature as the largest and best among ICT4D news services of the countries that come contemporary. i4d services reach the target in a threeway news mode. i4d monthly magazine in print is today the only monthly in the world of ICT for development. It has a circulation base of about 4000 print copies, of which September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
2500 are distributed within India and the other 1500 overseas copies are read across Asia, Europe, Latin America and Africa. Besides regular monthly circulation, about 1000 copies of i4d are distributed to ICT4D experts at major national and international conferences and workshops. Today, i4d in print has proved growing older while reaching its silver issue mark. The second medium of i4d news service is i4donline.net, i4d’s online venture that hosts a range of up-to-date, interactive and informative forms of news, features, and articles supplementing the news content of the print version.The news comes in a dozen of thematic categories like agriculture, health, technology, telecommunication, wireless, open source, livelihood, education, community radio, e-Governance, e-Commerce and general. The portal also allows for reader interaction via discussion forums, regular e-Newsletters, letters to editor, and other intelligent online activities. The contents of the portal can be accessible in nine international languages (German, Chinese, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and English), making it again the first of its kind in its field, using the Babelfish translator service. The third mode of news dissemination is the email newsletters sent as either daily, weekly or monthly digests. i4d’s searchable archive of news and articles is updated on a day-to-day basis. One can try a search for free. The entire service is available for individual users and multi-users or domain-wide access. i4d news service swaddles ICT in development in a greater perspective taking into account its scope in sectors like Rural Development, Gender, Governance, Microfinance, Education, Health, Wireless Communication, ICT for Poor, Local Content, Environment and more. Silver Issue
i4d target profile i4d news service makes the ‘pulse-run-fast’ of every person thinking development at the ICT front. Government departments, ministries, policy makers and relevant institutions, educational institutions and R&D organizations, grassroots organisations and NGOs, Academicians, students, researchers and administrators, Donors, IT industry organizations and United Nations bodies and the individual readers are the ones to name who quickly grew to rely i4d news service. Manjushree Reddy manjushree@csdms.in
i4d news – the special touch • Its collective worldwide expertise taps into international media and helps one to manage a multinational update on ICT4D. • Maximum exposure is secured with narrowing the burden through simple electronic transmission. • Special lists of news beats are provided to suit specific audience. • A daily set of news releases over each 24hr period is sent down electronically, a teaser directing development persons back to full text version of ICT4D every 24-hr. • The periodic deliveries ensure longer life positioning news for use as a prime backgrounding resource. • Provide a vast online audience, depositing any ICT4D announcements/ events in many websites and online databases to give it multiple exposures. • Unedited transmission of media release gives another privileged exposure. • News is media tailored by in-house researchers and media persons that maximizes the chance of the content being grasped fully.
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Bytes for All... e-Commerce
Partnering with i4d... I had been planning to meet the i4d team since the time I came to work with UNESCO in New Delhi last year. I have read and heard about the magazine and Fred (Co-founder, Bytes for All) was already in the editorial board of the magazine. Because of our different involvements with the team, we always thought to do something together. There were other encouragements too. Ravi Gupta, the founder of i4d magazine has been very supportive to ‘Bytes for All’ and was an easy person to communicate with. Anyway, we met sometime in June/July last year at CSDMS office. The fact that I didn’t meet Fred in real life in the last 6 years of working together at B4All- was a big surprise for him (I met Fred at last in January this year and that myth is gone!) and for me the surprise was to talk to Jaya (Editorial Consultant to i4d) by miming or by writing as she was on ‘no-talk’ mode that day. But it was all too fun as we all had been friends and colleagues. I proposed a number of ideas on collaboration. I thought I would need to give explanation on each of these but surprisingly whatever I proposed, Ravi replied with confidence- ‘Yes Partha, lets do it’. It means, we didn’t have much paper work on collaboration but had trust and goodwill to start with. So, we simply jumped on and worked out other details as we proceed. Well, I wouldn’t say, all the plans are materialised as of now but at least one has clicked very well and that is what you are reading here – a collaborative space for Bytes for All. At this age of networked environment, collaborative craziness probably has a value. Few crazy ideas on the network can create a sane trend. We started ‘Bytes for All’ in a similar fashion – without any formal planning or paperwork and our simple experimentation ended in creating a formal network of ICT4D imitators and observers in South Asia – a region where even people to people contact is seen as a subject of conspiracy theory. The discussion summary that we’re compiling and publishing here has other objectives too. Our ‘Bytes for All Readers Forum’ was bustling with ideas, debate and discussions and we had been looking an option so that these can be shared with a wider audience. This is particularly important in a region such as, South Asia where a significant majority is without Internet connectivity. Therefore content dissemination thorough mainstream print media or through TV-radio media is an important option. Bytes for All discussion summary published through i4d is a small step to that direction. i4d and ‘Bytes for All’ both being kindred spirit, aim to provide a platform for thinkers, initiators, observers to interact with each other and to contribute the practice, through an open ended content management system. I congratulate i4d for completing a milestone of 25th issue publication. It is a big achievement in overcoming its childhood. We plan to do more work with i4d and wish all the successes in the coming years. Partha Pratim Sarker Co-founder, Bytes for All (www.bytesforall.net)
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Economics of a website One of our readers Dipti, had a poser “How does Google.com benefit when we use it?” Thejesh of techmag.biz shared that giant portals like Google, Yahoo and Amazon earn revenue by way of advertisements, which are also context sensitive, i.e. the ads are related to the search key given by the user. A few cents per user click are paid to the portal by the ad agencies. Some portals like Amazon.com also sell products, which gets a percentage (as high as 10 percent) for every buy made by a user. Some portals are exclusively e-Commerce sites. If a website has value added content, it could charge the user for viewing this content. Some websites send their content to subscribers as a newsletter, either free or for a fee. If you are a budding writer and cannot find a publisher, then some websites (www. lulu.com) can do that for you. Publishing is free but the website charges commission for each book sold. The criteria for success is that the website must be famous, reliable and get a few million hits every month! Another reader Reuban added: A search engine, can power other sites e.g. Yahoo, used to be powered by Google. Of course, the search engine charges for all these facilities that it provides.
Environment Flood in Mumbai Mumbai (India) was at the mercy of the rain gods this monsoon. It is now, faced with tackling the after effects of the floodwaters, death and disease. With floodwaters standing 13 feet deep in some places, the blame game, so effectively played by the politicians and bureaucrats can wait. Mumbai needs help. Help in whatever way you can. Check out the following sites: http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com; http://cloudburstmumbai.blogspot.com/
Education Recent happenings in Pakistan • The Government of Pakistan has decided to launch two IT educational channels by mid July 2006 for the promotion of information technology in the country. • Pakistan is taking a step towards e-Governance by initiating computerisation of land records or Patwars. • The Government of Pakistan has decided to launch an IT awareness campaign in the capital city of Islamabad. No roads, no problem we have boats! Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, a Bangladesh NGO (www. interconnection.org/sss/) has come up with an innovative method to reach to the rural masses in the Bangladesh watershed. The NGO uses indigenous boats that have been converted into mobile libraries, schools, and mobile Internet educational units. These boats rely on generators or solar energy power and mobile phones for Internet access. Through this programme, farmers, women and children benefit with livelihood information like agriculture prices.
Silver Issue
i4d | September 2005
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Bytes for All... Students develop FM radio software Engineering students in Chandigarh (India) have developed software ‘Music on Demand’ that will enable FM jockeys to play songs to their listeners immediately. Thus making the programme live. Currently radio jockeys have to manually scan through their music libraries, resulting in most programmes being telecast after being recorded. All this is set to change if the ‘Music on Demand’ software finds its way into the recording studios. http://in.rediff.com/money/2005/aug/10radio.htm
Livelihood Rags to riches story: How digital photography changed the life of a rural youth Shumon a youth in rural Bangladesh was not even a matriculate and had no computer experience. Given this background, Shumon knew that it would be difficult for him to get a lucrative job, or even start a profitable conventional business. Shumon learnt about the cost effective business opportunity in digital photography. He set up his own studio in his village. To click a photograph, the villagers had to earlier travel to nearby townships. They could now do it locally. He not only caters to identity card photographs, but also takes photography contracts at marriages and other social functions. He now makes a handsome profit every month by rural standards and even encourages and guides his contemporaries to be similarly self reliant. All this however was achieved through sheer hard work and self-learning. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/message/6381
Technology Nepal using cheap and simple technologies The Tansen CMC (Community Multimedia Center) in Nepal has been recognised for the use of cheap and simple technologies. The CMC combines diverse technologies like computers, Internet, CDROMs, specialised software and the local cable TV network effectively. Using these technologies the CMC over the years has trained the local community to create multimedia content for marriages and other social functions. This has helped the local youth to find employment and earn income. The CMC also runs its own channel on cable TV. Wherein the host browses the net on camera for community centric websites. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/message/6480
e-Governance Framework for e-Governance IBM has presented a framework for e-Governance in the form of a paper. The paper presents a framework that simplifies the task of developing, deploying and managing complex e-Governance applications. The paper being circulated on the Bytes for All Readers list brought interesting observations from readers. One of BFA’s September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
active readers Satish Jha, felt that the IBM framework being no doubt very visionary, however, will remain only on paper and not achieve anything other than creating synergies among like minded individuals, unless we get it ‘right’ at the conceptual level. Zubair Faisal Abbasi from BFA echoed Dr. Jha’s views saying that, behind every byte jostling through e-Functionality, there is a person with socio-institutional habits and idiosyncrasies. Zubair further added that the potential in e-Governance applications must be matched by creating a demand for such applications. Ananya from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), Shillong wondered whether, today’s catchwords of transparency and right-toinformation, had any bearing on e-Governance, or vice-versa. Kris Dev of International Transparency and Accountability Network, summarised the debate saying that e-Governance must be for the citizens, of the citizens and by the citizens. e-Governance projects must not mean buying and ‘showing’ of expensive hardware that is hardly put to use later once the initial hoopla is over. http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/485/mittal.html
Community Radio Radio station in US$ 120! A low budget, ‘rough and ready’ radio station has been built for just US$ 120 by three students in Haryana, India. The developers call it the suitcase radio station. It weighs a total of 12 kg. And the raw materials were procured from the local market in Ambala (Haryana). The airwaves can be transmitted up to a radius of 15 Km. The developers also say that for a cost of around US$ 500 the radio station can be upgraded too. Though the Indian Supreme Court has passed a judgment allowing the public full rights to transmission, running a private radio station still remains illegal in India which is sad given the innovative application areas for a low budget FM radio station. Recently a volunteer organisation organised a tribal seminar for tribal communities all over India. The seminar kept playing in four different languages from four different FM radio stations live. This report sparked off a tête-à-tête in the Bytes for All readers list. Ananya Guha of IGNOU Shillong, informed that elsewhere over the world, air waves are being used for learning. Gurudutt Verma, thought that the Indian government should open up airwaves now. Being low-tech will also bring youngsters closer to physics. http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/regionalnews/stor y/2005/08/ 050823_radio_station.shtml Bytes for All: www.bytesforall.net Bytes For All Readers Discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ bytesforall_readers Bytes for All RSS syndication: http://www.bytesforall.net/index_html/ RSS Bytes for All Readers Forum RSS syndication: http://rss.groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/rss Bytes for All discussion summary compiled by: Archana P. Nagvekar, Bytes for All, India
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F EEDBACK S URVEY
FOR
i4d
Readerspeak! Dear readers, Thank you for supporting i4d. We would like to know your opinion of i4d and how far we have been able to meet your needs. Please take some time to reply to our list of questions. We are looking forward to your comments as essential inputs on i4d magazine and website i4donline.net. Please answer the following questions with a cross [ X ]: 1. Since how long have you been reading i4d magazine? [ ] 1 year [ ] More than 1 year
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Silver Issue
i4d | September 2005
What’s on Canada 24-28 October, 2005 E-Learn 2005 Vancouver British Columbia http://www.aace.org/conf/eLearn/call.htm
Switzerland
18-19 October, 2005 Digital Learning 2005 ICT and Education: Challenges and Practices New Delhi http://www.dl.csdms.in/
Italy Czech Republic 07- 08 November, 2005 Cyberspace 2005 Conference Brno http://www.cyberspace.law.muni.cz/en/
Dominican Republic 03-07 October, 2005 World Congress of Computer Law, Information Society, Electronic Government and Cyberspace Regulation Santo Domingo http://www.funglode.org/v-mundial-di/ default2.htm
Egypt 05-06 December, 2005 3rd International Conference on Information and Communication Technology Cairo http://www.icict.gov.eg/ICICT2005/index.jsp
Hungary 26 October, 2005 ICET 2005 International Conference on Educational Technology, Budapest
27-28 October, 2005 Lesser Used Languages & Computer Linguistics Bolzano http://www.eurac.edu/Org/LanguageLaw/ Multilingualism/Projects/Conference2005.htm
Netherlands
http://www.conflux.csdms.in
Tunisia 14-16 November, 2005 WFIS 2005 World Forum on Information Society Digital Divide, Global Development and the Information Society Tunis http://irfd.org/events/wf2005/
16-18 November, 2005 WSIS: World Summit on the Information Society Phase 2, Tunis http://www.itu.int/wsis
http://www.iicd.org/articles/iicdnews.2005-0721.1878475672
23-25 September, 2005 The 33rd Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy Arlington, Virginia
14-15 November, 2005 Open Source for Education in Europe 2005 Heerlen http://www.openconference.net/index.php?cf=3
Slovenia 19-21 October, 2005 e-2005 e-Challenges 15th Annual Conference supported by the European Commission Ljubljana http://www.echallenges.org/2005
United States
http://www.tprc.org/TPRC05/2005.htm
17-19 November, 2005 4th WSEAS International Conference on e-Activities Florida http://www.worldses.org/conferences/2005/florida/ e-activities/index.html
25-26 May, 2006 ICTD2006 Berkeley, California http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/events/ictd2006/
South Africa 17-19 October, 2005 Conflux 2005 The e-Government Conference New Delhi
http://www.itu.int/wsis/preparatory2/pc3/
03 November, 2005 Fill-the-Gap! Public event inspired by WSIS The Hague
http://www.ijit.org/icet2005
India
19-30 September, 2005 PrepCom-3 Third Meeting of the Preparatory Committee of the Tunis Phase Geneva
25-28 October, 2005 mLearn 2005 4th World Conference on Mobile Learning Cape Town http://www.mlearn.org.za/
Vietnam 28-30 September, 2005 COSGov Hanoi http://www.cosgov.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/ WebHome
Get your event listed here. www.i4d.csdms.in/events September 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in
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I N F ACT
Reaching the unreached i4d magazine reaches 25,000 readers • i4d magazine has a circulation of 4000 print copies, reaching nearly 120 countries. • About 1,000 copies are disseminated in various major national and international consultations, conferences and workshops on Information and Communication Technologies for Development. • The i4d magazine’s readers’ profile includes researchers, non governmental organisations, ICT4D practitioners, policy makers, donors, administrators, government departments, students, United Nations functionaries and academicians. Several of these readers are domain experts while others are grassroots workers. i4d also frequently receives reprint request. i4d magazine readers continent-wise
i4d e-News service caters to over 17000 readers i4d team is responsible for producing daily, weekly and monthly i4d e-Newsletters. It has a subscriber base of nearly 17,000 readers worldwide. At the end of every month, we also send a monthly digest that features the columns and articles of i4d magazine. i4d newsletter now reaches to more than 200 subscribers daily, 5,000 subscribers weekly and 400 subscribers monthly, and through repeat feeds taken up by Google news alerts, Digital Opportunities channel, Comminit newsletter, Development Gateway, etc. The news can also be accessed in the portal with a provision for readers to comment, making it an interactive new service.
427,590 hits, 14,144 unique visitors access i4d portal each month
Growth of i4d Portal Hits from July 2004 to August 2005
Growth of i4d Unique Visitors from July 2004 to August 2005
• i4d portal is a rich resource of valuable content aiming to built into a centre of excellence in ICT4D, providing updates on key events, news, features, profile of authors who contribute to the magazine’s content and complete archieve of i4d magazine. • The content of the portal is well researched and analysed and presented in readers friendly form. • The portal is completely indexed and searchable hosting a range of up-to-date and interractive features. • The portal allows for readers interaction via regular e-Newsletter, letters to editor and other intellegent online activities • Mini-portals on ICT and Education, FLOSS and Telecentre have been developed as thematic knowledge resources • Number of monthly hits has touched 427,590 mark in August 2005 • Number of monthly unique visitors has crossed the 14,000 mark in August 2005 • Number of monthly pages viewed has reached 65,514
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Silver Issue
i4d | September 2005
DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING L E A R N I N G 2 0 0 5 D I G I T A L L E A R N I N G 2 0 0 5 D I G I T A L 2 0 0 5 D I G I T A L L E A R N I N G 2 0 0 5 D I G I T A L L E A R N I N G DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING L E A R N I N G 2 0 0 5 D I G I T A L L E A R N I N G 2 0 0 5 D I G I T A L 2 0 0 5 D I G I T A L L E A R N I N G 2 0 0 5 D I G I T A L L E A R N I N G DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING L E A R NSession I N G 2 I: 0 0 5 Tools D I G I Tfor A L Learning L E A R N Ithrough N G L E AICT: R N IAvailability N G 2 0 0 5 and D I GScope I TA L L E A R N I N G 2 0 0 5 D I G I T A• L ForL Formal E A R Education N I N G 2 0 0 5 D I G I T A L L E A R N I N G DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL LEARNING 2005 DIGITAL L E A R N I N G 2 •0 0For5 Non-formal D I G I TEducation A L L E A R N I N G 2 0 0 5 D I G I T A L
Digital Learning 2005
Session II:
e-Learning: Best Practices and Challenges • e-Learning in Developing Countries: Digital divides • Content Development in e-Learning: Issues and Challenges • Case Studies/Projects in e-Learning
Session III:
Technology in Education • Issues in Focus • Case Studies
Session IV:
Policy and Advocacy: Critical Issues • Policy Issues in ICT and Education • Public-Private Partnership for Development of ICT for Education • ICT in Education for Governance
Session V:
Government initiatives in ICT and Education Government led initiatives, programmes and lead projects at the national and state level will be showcased in this session.
Session VI:
Civil society and NGO initiatives in ICT and Education Leading projects undertaken by civil society that have catalysed a process of change which will be highlighted in this session.
2005 Digital Learning Conference
www.DL.csdms.in
Digital Learning 2005
Sessions
Session VII: Private sector initiatives in ICT and Education This session will showcase Private sector initiatives in ICT and education.
Deadlines: Full papers: October 10, 2005 write to DL@csdms.in or call Rumi + 91-9811615009
e
e
Organisers
Gold Sponsor
Media Partners ov
knowledge for change
w w w. i 4 d . c s d m s . i n
www.egov.csdms.in
Conflux e
Promoting Global Trade & Investment
Commonwealth BUSINESS
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2005
The e-Government Conference
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Now