[Telecentres] Intro

[Donald Z. Osborn]

Thanks for this list which seems like a great opportunity to learn and share
info & ideas. And sorry for the belated intro.

I've been interested for several years in telecenters and other points of public
access to ICT in the context of development in the global South. Although my
development work (most recently in Niger) has not directly involved
telecenters, it has involved some limited ICT4D activities in the field (Niger
is one of the poorest and least well connected countries). 

Part of what interests me in the area of ICT4D is the possibility of adding
value to current and planned telecenter projects in Africa by facilitating
their accommodation of the first languages of rural users. To that end I've
been working on a small-scale initiative named Bisharat since early 2000. This
has dealt largely with technical issues and the providing of informational
resources for multilingual content development and aspects of localization.

The intended audience of Bisharat includes people who might be working on
funding & running projects that include telecenters or public computers, or on
setting up and running the telecenters themselves. Although I've had occasion
to meet or communicate with people involved in telecenter projects, I see this
group as an opportunity to learn more about telecenters in practice and to
share perspectives about how they can best serve their user communities.

Don Osborn, Ph.D.         dzo at bisharat.net
*Bisharat! A language, technology & development initiative
*Bisharat! Initiative langues - technologie - développement
http://www.bisharat.net