[Telecentres] Re: telecentres Digest, Vol 20, Issue 6

[vineeta dixit]

Dear Shahid,

Your initiative to invite debate of the various issues related to
telecentres is indeed timely and welcome. I believe that most of the issues
faced by the telecentre projects are socio-political in nature. While
technology does play an important role and is becoming increasingly
pervasive, it perhaps is in today's context the least issue.

From my perspective the following five are key chanllenges in the
implementation and sustianability of telecentre projects:

1. Community mobilisation for ownership: Most telecentre projects are
conceived and implemented from outside of communities that they are meant to
serve. Even in cases where the input is taken, it is more about taking
consent rather than understanding the requirement of community. In any case,
it is only in rare cases that the promoters of the telecentres conclude that
telecentre may not be a priority for the community at that given moment. In
such a scenario, it becomes critical that community needs to be mobilised (
e.g. Akshaya Project and MSSRF projects in India) and their needs understood
before a telecentre is made available for the community. So long as the
telecentre  is viewed as an outsider's project - be it Government, CSO or
private sector initiated  - its viability will be limited.

2. Political committment: Since most of the telecentre projects are meant to
connect the isolated communities to the wider knowledge world, enhance
democratisation and open more avenues for opportunity, it may not receive
the desired support, also, telecentres in many countries are also a source
for delivering critical government information and services and finally,
monies for such projects is often controlled by large donor agencies and
governments that fund these agnecies. As has been demonstrated amply in the
last 50 years of AID industry, political committment to cause is fickle at
best and based on political expediency. As such, political committment to
such projects becomes essential to ensure its success.

3. Long term financial committment: Owing to increased focussed on
commercialisation of social initiatives which get reflected
in demands related to sustainability and returns on investment, most
agencies/organisations are unwilling to commit or avail long-term funding
for telecentre projects. Very few are willing to face the fact that
telecentres are meant to serve hetherto under serviced communities who have
faced decades if not centuries of oppresion and isolation. How do we expect
them to get mobilised, become committed and ready to exploit the
opportunities presented by the project within a span of few years. we also
need to understand that unlike every business initiative that must make
profit, we cannot demand that every social initiave needs to make profit and
must provide adequate returns on investment. As a society we have certain
social obligations that must be fulfilled irrespective of whether they are
profitable or not.

4. Appropriate content: Although content now is being given some attention,
it is perhaps an equally important if not the most important factor
determining the success of the telecentres. Initial content though may be
created by promoters of the project, but subsequent updates, and new content
must be created from the benefeciaries of the project (with the help of the
promoters if required) for they know best about what they need. Also, it
cannot be emphasied enough that the content is created in the local
language. While this issue may seem simplistic, it is perhaps one of the
most important challenges being faced.

5. Appropriate technology solution: There are many technological challenges
and most of them are widely known and discussed. Among them last mile
connectivity, appropriate standards for interoperability of software and
hardware,  life span, cost, upgradability of technology and finally
technology related to content creation especially in languages that do not
work very well with ASCII are being addressed at different levels. I believe
that what we do need to do is encourage technology that can be easily
adapted across the world. Thus open source and UNICODE movement must be
supported by the initiators and promoters of the telecentre projects.

I look forward to receiving comments from all the ideas presented here.

Regards,


>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 03:56:03 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Shahid Uddin Akbar <shahid_ictdpb at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [Telecentres] Challenges in implementation of telecenters
> To: bytesforall_readers at yahoogroups.com, Telecenter
>        <telecentres at wsis-cs.org>,      Telecenter <
> gta at vancouvercommunity.net>
> Message-ID: <20060430105603.22818.qmail at web53810.mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Dear All,
>
> The telecenter is becoming an important development agenda in this days. J
>
> ust for sharing our thoughts, I would request you to forward 5 major
> challenges which are critical for implementation of telecenter.
>
> Lets see whether we can identify the problems and then move to solutions.
>
> Thanks,
> Shahid Uddin Akbar
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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> End of telecentres Digest, Vol 20, Issue 6
> ******************************************
>



--
Vineeta Dixit
Senior Consultant
National e Governnance Plan
Programme Management Unit
Department of Information Technology
Electronics Niketan, Lodhi Road
New Delhi 110003
Tel: +91 11 24301460
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