Information Policy

Telecentres.Europe

The TelecentreEurope network runs across 19 NGO’s in 19 countries (with more possible) and provides e-skills to more than 80000 people every year. The training happens through the 600 training centers that these NGOs manage and support. The network aspires to play a prominent role in the development of citizens’ e-skills and the innovative implementation of large scale information technology programmes for e-Inclusion, quality of life and social enterprises in Europe. We see our efforts as completely consistent with the objectives of the Lisbon Agenda’s principles and frameworks.

Telecentres.Europe follows a project-driven approach in its development based on recognizing leadership in different telecentre areas of competence. It is establishing an effective communication and operational environment for national telecentre projects to collaborate, partner, and integrate resources toward achieving the EU strategic goals for building the European Information Society. It is incubating project development and project management capacity to seek project funds and implement international projects with EU and other funding. It will develop a strategy paper on eSkills for Employability and Inclusion with recommendations to the European Commission for utilization of joined telecentre resources and practices. Technology

The technologies used by the NGOs within the network range from very basic to highly sophisticated portals and collaboration tools. State of the art e-learning and more conventional off-line approaches are used to train people in cities, very rural environments or even through mobile classrooms. Similarly, management of the centers is accomplished using both state-of the-art tools and web portals and more conventional means. Consistent across all efforts is recognition that training and using technology successfully does require investment in face to face interaction to maximize the benefits and relevance of technologies’ promise.

http://www.epractice.eu/cases/2443

MAKING THE CONNECTION: Scaling Telecenters for Development

This is an effort to share experience from a large number of existing telecenter programs, to those seeking to start anew or to scale up existing pilots. Barbara Fillip and Dennis Foote, Academy for Education Development, March 2007.

http://connection.aed.org/main.htm

British Airways to Support IT Centres in Kenya's Rural Schools

As part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), British Airways is to invest 100, 000 pounds (Sh13.5 million) to assist four rural schools of Kenya to establish Information Technology centres. The four rural schools are in Nairobi's Mukuru area.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200711051292.html

Telecentre.org: From the Ground Up e-book

Telecentre.org has released a very complete booklet focusing on telecenters and community-based access to information technologies. This book provides a quick glimpse into the lives of a few of the people who are leading the telecentre movement in their own countries, and of the people who are benefiting from their local telecentres. From the introduction: "Just like the telecentre movement, creating this book was a collective endeavour. From the very start, we invited others into the process, asking for ideas on the most interesting telecentre projects in the world. From there, we spoke with dozens of people in each country that we visited, all of them committed to the values of the telecentre movement. In the end, this book is built from the words, images, ideas and passion that so many people shared with us so generously. These people comprise a list so long that we could not possibly capture every name, although we have tried to do so on the final pages of our book. It is to these people, and to the thousands like them in the telecentre movement around the world, that this book is dedicated."

http://ebook.telecentre.org/

Kenya: Ericsson to Give Digital Villages Online Access

Okuttah Mark

Kenya's digital villages will get Internet connection from Ericsson, the world's leading telecommunications supplier.

Ericsson said, it had partnered with The Earth Institute at Columbia University to provide connectivity to the Millennium Villages project.

Digital villages are communication centres equipped with computers, fax, scanners and Internet connection. In Kenya the Government intends to build such villages in each district so that when it rolls out e-government services people can use the centres to access information easily.

The partnership is designed to bring mobile communication and the Internet to approximately 400,000 people in Kenya among other nine African countries where the project is working.

Ericsson will tap into relationships with African operators, including MTN and Zain (formerly known as MTC) and its subsidiary Celtel, to develop a comprehensive end-to-end telecommunication strategy in the villages and to drive mobile phone connectivity and coverage build-out to selected areas.

Alongside digital villages in Kenya, other millennium villages expected to benefit from the partnership include Bonasso in Ghana; Mwandama in Malawi; Potou in Senegal; Mbola in Tanzania; Ruhiira in Uganda; Koraro in Ethiopia; Tiby in Mali; Ikaram and Pampaida in Nigeria; and Mayange in Rwanda.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200710290020.html

Telecenter Sustainability using the Free and Open Source Software CatGen E-commerce Client

Telecenters are a noble approach to democratizing the benefits to ICT. However most of them struggle for sustainability precisely because they target users of limited means. The key to their viability, however, is providing services to relatively prosperous enterprises in any community. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly feeling the necessity to establish an on-line presence and are willing and able to pay a small amount ($10 per month for example) for hosting and also purchase additional services such as computer/camera rental, training, and technical assistance. Once the fixed costs of a telecenter (rent, equipment, staff payroll, Internet access) are covered with e-commerce services to local SMEs, the marginal cost of offering Internet services to low income users (peasants, students, residents of slums, etc.) is modest.

http://topics.developmentgateway.org/ict/rc/filedownload.do?itemId=1118233

IN: 3 firms interested in setting up CSCs

CHENNAI: Reliance, TVS group and 3i Infotech have evinced interest, during the pre-bid stage itself, in setting up 5,440 Common Services Centres (CSCs) in Tamil Nadu as part of e-governance to provide information and communications technology services to the common man for a minimum of four years.

http://www.hindu.com/2007/10/24/stories/2007102459080500.htm

NSN wins BSNL deal to provide broadband to 7,000 villages

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has announced that it has won a contract from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) to deploy broadband access to 7,000 villages across the country. The contract is a part of the greenfield rural tender from BSNL. The new access network will allow BSNL to deliver high speed data services including video-on-demand, IPTV, videoconferencing and VPN. The network will also enable BSNL to provide connectivity to community service centres and other e-governance locations.

The two year agreement includes supply, installation, commissioning and training as well as annual maintenance for five years. As part of the contract, NSN will deploy its Gigabit Ethernet-capable IP DSLAMs Surpass hiX5625, as well as end-user devices that will enable BSNL to provide speeds of up to 24Mbps for ADSL2+ subscribers over its existing copper infrastructure. The first phase of deployment will be completed by Q1 2008.

This is the second rural broadband access tender BSNL has awarded to NSN. The company is also deploying the urban broadband access for BSNL across 15 circles. First phase of that rollout is close to completion, with 800,000 lines installed.

http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=20064

BSNL to go to tender for 50,000 WiMAX kiosks

State-owned telco BSNL is set to launch a tender for 50,000 WiMAX-based ICT kiosks. Although frequencies appropriate for WiMAX-based networks have still to be awarded by the government, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has sought approval to allocate some 2.5GHz spectrum to BSNL for this project immediately, so as to not delay the planned completion date of August 2008.

http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=19950

E-Halli: information centres for rural areas

The state government of Karnataka has launched an e-governance initiative called E-Halli, for disseminating important information in rural areas. The E-Halli centres will be located in the village Panchayat premises and around 5,628 centres in all will be established.

The E-Halli centres will provide services and information about various schemes of Government departments, both Central and State, gram panchayats, banks, hospitals, blood banks, diagnostic centres, veterinary centres, market prices, agricultural farming, business, educational institutions and so on. Interestingly, the centres intend to charge an annual fee of Rs. 90 from each villager for access to all information, which is nominal and affordable.

Source:
http://www.digitalopportunity.org/article/view/153674/1/1138