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

[Gurstein, Michael]

I'm not sure that I agree with the Steve Eskow's relativist position
"The telecenter that enriches one community leads to a deepening of
discord and violence in the next one"... 

I would prefer to see telecenters as part of a broad process of enabling
communities with ICTs which I do see overall as a universal public good
with some bad applications.  I think we should see the development of
"effective uses" of ICTs in the same way as we see for example,
widespread access to clean water, sanitation, and vaccinations against
things like polio--as universal advances in public welfare with
side-effects and potential risks that need to be anticipated and
managed. 

Structured or usable access to ICT enabled information and services is
supporting the development of educational and health service in
aboriginal communities throughout the Canadian North; increased
transparency and accountability in government services in North Africa;
improved training for para-medics in sub-Saharan Africa, opportunities
for local economic development in communities in Central America; and so
on and so on... 

And yes, there are bad and even dangerous applications, and certainly
access in itself is insufficient
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue8_12/gurstein/index.html but
providing the means at the community level to participate in the rapidly
emerging benefits and opportunities of the Information Society seems to
me to be worth whatever risks may attend to this.

Mike Gurstein

Michael Gurstein, Ph.D.
Editor in Chief: Journal of Community Informatics
http://ci-journal.net

-----Original Message-----
From: telecentres-bounces at wsis-cs.org
[mailto:telecentres-bounces at wsis-cs.org] On Behalf Of Ashish Saboo
Sent: May 9, 2005 2:14 PM
To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group
Cc: John Hibbs; drseskow at cox.net; telecentres at wsis-cs.org
Subject: [Telecentres] Re: RE: [DDN] Digital Divide, Telecentres and
Iraq


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.h
tml
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