[DDN] grants and resources

[Champ-Blackwell, Siobhan]

After School Advantage Program. GTECH provides community organizations with 
state-of-the-art, Internet-ready computer centers. Computer centers are 
designed to provide inner-city children aged 5-15 with a meaningful learning 
experience in a safe environment during the critical after-school hours. 
Eligible applicants include nonprofit organizations. There is no deadline date 
for applications. For further information, contact GTECH at or [EMAIL 
PROTECTED]; or go to: http://www.gtech.com/about_gtech/proposal_guidelines.asp

Bricks and Mortar Projects. Kresge Foundation announces funds to strengthen the 
capacity of organizations to provide effective programs of quality. The 
Foundation primarily makes challenge grants for building construction, 
renovation, purchase of real estate and major equipment. Eligible applicants 
include nonprofit organizations and community-based organizations. There is no 
deadline date for applications. For further information, go to: 
http://www.kresge.org/

Innovative Technology Uses for Nonprofits. TechSoup has created a new website, 
NetSquared (Net2) which is based on the belief that both online and offline 
work of every organization can be enhanced by an online community in which 
organizations and users support one another. Net2 is actively seeking the 
involvement of nonprofit organizations, companies, funders, and innovators who 
care about the strategic, organizational, operational, and technical challenges 
facing nonprofits today. For further information, go to: 
http://www.netsquared.org/

Nonprofit Internet Techniques. Groundspring.org offers its Internet Techniques 
Series, a collection of free learning topics to assist nonprofit organizations 
in making effective use of the Internet in a variety of areas. The series 
covers topics such as strategies for success, online fundraising, email 
messaging, driving traffic to your site, online advocacy campaigns, searching 
on the Web, and more. For further information and to access the series, go to: 
http://www.groundspring.org/learningcenter/series.cfm

Funding Alert is a free service of the Office of Partnerships and Grants 
Development. To start your own online subscription to Funding Alert, simply 
register with DC.Gov and subscribe at DCDocs 
http://dc.gov/registration/dcdocs.asp. For archives, visit http://opgd.dc.gov, 
Information, Grant Funding Alerts.

Siobhan Champ-Blackwell
Community Outreach Liaison
NN/LM-MCR
Creighton University Health Sciences Library
2500 California Plaza
Omaha, NE 68178
402.280.4156/800.338.7657 option#1,#2, then #1
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://nnlm.gov/mcr
http://medstat.med.utah.edu/blogs/BHIC/ 
 
http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/siobhanchamp-blackwell 
  
 
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[DDN] HELP: ICT Data and Indicators

[Ismael Peña]

Dear list,

I'm trying to gather all kind of resources providing data and indicators
about the state of the Information Society, specially those more related to
development, digital divide and so.

Of course we've got ITU's indicators and some others, but it's getting
really difficult to map the whole thing, from infrastructures to content and
uses, including digital literacy, digital rights, etc.

I humbly ask for your help in this gathering of resources, with the promise
I'll be publishing the list in my ICT4D Wiki under one of these categories:

http://ictlogy.net/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Data
http://ictlogy.net/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Data_Development
http://ictlogy.net/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Data_ICT
(or just a new one, we'll see)

Hearty thanks in advance :)

Best regards,

Ismael Peña
Public Policies for Development and ICT4D
Faculty of Law and Political Science
Open University of Catalonia


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[DDN] article - Switching Art Students to GNU/Linux

[Phil Shapiro]

hi DDN community -

   i found this article interesting. bold. timely.

http://digg.com/linux_unix/Switching_art_students_to_GNU_Linux

  - phil

-- 
Phil Shapiro  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/pshapiro
http://digg.com/users/pshapiro/submitted
http://www.his.com/pshapiro/stories.menu.html

"Wisdom starts with wonder." - Socrates
"Learning happens through gentleness."


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[DDN] Why Moodle could revolutionize how CTCs work

[Dave A. Chakrabarti]

Hi all,

I sat down and took some time to look at Moodle today. For those of you 
who don't know, Moodle is a free, open sourced program that's designed 
to allow a website to offer online courses, just like Blackboard or 
Chalk. It has an impressive number of features, including the ability to 
manage massive numbers of students, instructors, and courses, and seems 
to offer full email -> forum integration (something I haven't managed to 
get working in Drupal yet, annoyingly enough).


Why should you care?

I think Moodle could revolutionize efforts to bridge the Digital Divide. 
If it's truly as easy to use as it seems (and I've seen nothing to 
contradict this assumption so far), then this is a package that *any* 
community technology organization could, and should, be using.


Consider this: say we have a group of 50 community technology groups 
across a city. One of them has a staff member who's skilled in search 
engine optimization, but the organization desperately needs some help in 
developing a sustainability plan. Another may have good fundraising 
efforts in place, but offers only basic computer literacy courses...and 
doesn't know where to send their students when they ask for more 
involved instruction, for example in website design. A third 
organization has a wealth of experience in community outreach and 
development and holds advanced classes in digital video editing, but 
lacks the capacity for developing basic literacy courses for ESL 
populations.


What I'm describing is pretty much the status quo of the community 
technology field. We have tremendous resources in our network, of which 
knowledge is perhaps the most important. We also suffer from serious 
drawbacks, since very few organizations have a perfect mastery of every 
area needed for a successful program.


If these organizations had a centralized online system for coursework, 
however, we can see some major potential for change in this model. 
Consider an organization that is considering adding a website 
development course to their offerings. How much easier would it be to 
implement if this organization could simply have a staff member take an 
online course in website development and then in teaching website 
development, while offering the same online website development course 
to students in a lab, with the newly trained staff member as a course 
instructor / facilitator? Instead of developing their own curriculum, 
they'd have access to curricula developed by several experienced 
organizations to draw from. Similarly, their staff members would go from 
having relatively few opportunities for professional development to 
having multiple courses available to them at any given time, on a 
variety of topics. Courses can also be controlled, so participation can 
be limited to members affiliated with a partner institution, or those 
who've paid a sliding scale fee, for example. In the event of a highly 
successful program, courses could even be provided for corporate or 
other participants willing to pay commercial rates for training, which 
would be a welcome stream of income. Courses could be used as-is, or 
used as the basis for a classroom course in a specific area...for 
example, a CTC in Dhaka could use a course on website development as an 
accompaniment to a classroom course taught in Bangla on the same subject.


This has implications for how we conduct our workshops and training 
sessions, too. If I'm leading a panel discussion on search engine 
optimization, for example, I can reach a fairly limited audience. How 
many more people can I reach if I've developed that same content into an 
online course, which any participating institution can make available to 
its members? How many organizations are thinking "sure, we could use a 
staff member training in search engine optimization, but we can't 
justify the staff time to send someone out during the day" ...but would 
gladly have staff members participating if the workshop were online, 
self-scheduled?


As organizations in the field of education, our network is in a position 
to benefit from Moodle in a big way, both in terms of directly working 
with our constituencies and in professional development for staff and 
volunteers. We need systems like this in place to really establish our 
work as a field, and to begin to tap the potential already hiding in 
various pockets of our network.


Anyone using Moodle already? Other ideas, comments, suggestions?

  Dave.

---
Dave A. Chakrabarti
Projects Coordinator
CTCNet Chicago
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(708) 919 1026
---


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Re: [DDN] Laptop Vs. Cellphones (used to be: Digital Divide grows wider, UW research finds)

[Dave A. Chakrabarti]

Interesting...this research project seems to support an idea Taran 
voiced earlier, that developing nations will take to cell phone 
technologies faster than mobile computers / laptops, and that these 
technologies should be where the focus is.


I'm interested in the logistics of this. India already has a more 
developed cell phone market than the US. No, I'm not kidding. The latest 
and greatest models available here have frequently been out in India for 
six months...sometimes even a year. Most (if not all) plans in India, 
including prepaid ones, have free incoming minutes for as little as $5, 
for a card that lasts three months. The US simply has nothing on that 
scale, because the telecoms here are trying to wring as much out of 
people as possible. In India, there is *always* a gigantic new market 
waiting to be tapped if you can lower your price point even a little.


The problem, as I see it, is that lower-income populations in India use 
very basic cellular services. The latest and greatest phones with data 
communications features, photo sharing, cameras, and other gadgets are 
still excusively the realm of the well-to-do ...and the hardware costs a 
lot. Far more than the $100 Negropointe is pitching his laptop for.


If we're going to promote cellular technologies as an answer to the 
Digital Divide, or even suggest that the market might be moving in this 
direction, then I agree wholeheartedly that the infrastructure is in 
place (or is being rapidly developed) where it needs to be. But what 
about the cost of the handsets? Providing features from a top-end phone 
(which actually is a phone / pda / portable gaming and media device) 
down to an affordable price point for lower income population is a 
challenge...perhaps more daunting than the idea of the $100 laptop, 
since we're talking about making the technology even more compact.


A third option might be to look to mobile computing devices that 
operating on both the GSM band and the 802.11b/g/a bands. One machine 
connected to a cellular tower could act as a repeater for a mesh network 
model on both bands. This could solve some of the infrastructure costs 
of deploying wide-scale wireless networks, but would also require 
collaboration with the resident telcos, and (perhaps) increase the cost 
of the hardware slightly.


Thoughts?

  Dave.

---
Dave A. Chakrabarti
Projects Coordinator
CTCNet Chicago
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(708) 919 1026
---




Charles Brennick wrote:

From Seattle Times

Global digital divide grows wider, UW research finds
See
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002878653_digitaldivide21.html





Charles Brennick
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.interconnection.org


This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.

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[DDN] Nigerian Question

[Matt Armstrong]

All, 
I am working on a policy paper arguing for ICT4D as a stabilizer for failing
/ weak states. The country I'm targetting with this study is Nigeria.
Between increasing telecom privatisation (including relatively low Skype
rates that fell lower Jan 06), corruption, ethno-religious-socio divisions,
influence of foreign investment (China), Nollywood, some projects and
statements to further empower women... And illiterate Shari'a judges, bin
Laden's statement that Nigeria is a great place for "liberation" (i.e. bad
potential for the Sahal region)... Any information on successful ICT4D
projects ongoing in country? 

Any suggestions would be appreciated. 

Matt Armstrong
USC Center on Public Diplomacy
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/ 
Personal website: http://mountainrunner.us
c 310 926 1942

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