[Telecentres] Re: RE: [DDN] Digital Divide, Telecentres and Iraq

[Ashish Saboo]

 On Mon, 09 May 2005 John Hibbs wrote :
>At 1:07 PM -0700 5/7/05, Dr. Steve  Eskow wrote:
>>The telecenter that enriches one community that lead to a deepening of
>>discord and violence in the next one.

Dr. Steve  Eskow, 
   Thanks for speaking up frankly . Your views are very important to the debate on the Telecentre initiatives . 
   Let me quote another Andy,  Andy "Intel" Grove once said when he was chosen as Man of the year by Time magazine :"asking whether technology is good or bad is like asking is steel bad or good? because the same steel that takes a life through a knife can save a life by becoming a syringe. so, its in our hands what we want to make of it" . 
 IMHO so is the case with Telecentre initiatives . The entire model is very consumer centric , What information you want is just a click away. choice is yours .
      You mentioned : "Perhaps it is more accurate to say that when people resort to violence it is because they are not satisfied with being heard: they want to prevail. "
    I beg to differ, Working with many telecenters at the grassroot level , may I add it is  because they are not as capable in articulating their views as successfully as others and the frustration drives them into violence.
   some Internet tools like blogs offer the cheapest option to experiment for all to express themselves. 
    All acceptance of technology have followed the same path, Internet's promise to help in getting hard to find data  excited people to adopt ICT tools. Its differrnet question what is this criticalliterature ?. It will be a grave mistake to 'sainitize' Telecentres. which will be considered as another prapoganda tool. Instead it is for us Telecentre advocates to bring in the message the better means for bringing progress. & when the neighbour realises the benefit of telecentres do we really require those extra security guards to mann them ? 

tHe journey for all of us is not too simple,  As you said "The telecenter that enriches one community that lead to a deepening of discord and violence in the next one."  it requires a leap of faith for us to be convinced the other way as a tool in briging closer understanding . 
    
Deploying ICT tools vehicle  as a telecentre In all the developing communities face an additional challege that of lack of literacy and articulate cpabilities and the cost. The unrestrained access to sex and voilence has terribly deprecated the telecentre's existence and have undermined many positive possiblities which requires ubiquity of tools. Till then we Telecentre advocates have to promote and inspire the  positive abilities and as sense of belonging, Do read my last two posts on my blog 
http://apiap.blogspot.com/2005/05/small-town-cyber-cafe-operator-helps.html
http://apiap.blogspot.com/2005/03/pakistans-fast-bowler-mohammad-khalil.html

Sincerely 

Ashish Saboo
President
Association of Public Internet Access Provider (ApiAp)
The voice of independent Cyber cafe operators
URL: http://www.apiap.cybernook.net
Blog: http://apiap.blogspot.com





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