Re: [GKD] Launch of Digital Opportunity Channel
Alan Levy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is a classic example of where ICT infrastructure money goes... to another one of countless channels: To amplify our power, there is the blendability of the new digital technologies, the multiplying power of networks, the interdependability of human beings - and, most important of all, the boundless power of goodwill. What does this mean? It means nothing, and for reason. What is their goal? Visibility. For what purpose? To qualify for funding. What are they offering? Nothing, save one more website talking about collaborating to learn what they should be talking about. But it places them in the forefront of funding. For what? More talking. The idea being that, through talking, we can make the world better. Of course, someone better figure out what those grandiose words mean first... and maybe even learn a little ICT too. Dear Alan, I can feel your frustration but please try not to undermine the efforts and the vision that goes with these efforts. I guess the North still has to learn from the South. It is easy for the North to look at these iniatives as another statistics. But believe you me with all the lists I have been to including the digital divide list and this new website which I have not had the chance yet to participate or support due to lack of time it is working wonders for our nation a poor country from the South. There are problems at the top be it at government level and so on. But with these initiatives it is empowering people at the bottom up level. Which is may be why it is not gaining much recognition. May be in five years time I can tell you what we have achieved for Somaliland. But in the mean time I will not support the idea that a new opportunity regarding digital opportunity is a waste of time and resources. My hat is off to these hardworking individuals who have travelled that extra mile to make difference for the South. And with luck someone will figure out you actually need networks. I believe that networks take time and patience. Talking won't cure the divide, nor marginalization (nor hunger). This is not a mysterious disease. There are certain technical requirements, and political requirements. Nothing more. And the problem isn't technical. My advise is that if we wait for these political and technical requirements time will pass us by and opportunities will be lost. There's a fine art to collaboration, if there's a legitimate goal. This is how the digital divide dollars are (mis)spent. Governments promised millions for digital divide infrastructure initiatives... where's the money? You need only one sustainable network. Where's the network? Governments need to be pressured to help those initiatives but unless the iniatives and the projects are ready it will be difficult. And puhlease don't shoot the messenger. India already has top-shelf research, a proactive government, and busy universities and foundations genuinely working on real ICT access issues. Maybe it is time for us to learn from the South iniatives. At the end of the day it is all about collaboration and learning from each other's experiences. This is more about money and power than the divide. And the buzzwords that long ago lost their sincerity are now losing their meaning. Read it again. What year is this? What year are we supposed to learn to discuss which applications should be minimally universal? When are we supposed to learn to demand unrestricted deployment of VoIP? Or, to learn to discuss funding for infrastructure? Or, to demand governments provide spectrum to non-profits? What else is needed? This is an issue for North governments who promised to help digital divide be it for the North or the South and have not reached their targets. We have developed networks from a lot of lists including this list who are making a real difference for the nation of Somaliland. All I could say is let us focus on the initiatives at the grass roots level and help out in the best way we can. Time is what we don't have and I am sure with more support and the will to overcome barriers at the grass root level is all we need. With these efforts children of Somaliland will be saved from death, hunger and their education improved. It is happening and thanks to all those visionaries who came forward to make a difference for those people. You and I are insignificant when it comes to the next century, it is the output of our collective efforts which the future children of this globe will inherit. We can not leave it to others to do it for us. Take care all and let us not forget each journey starts with one step. We have crossed so many steps and we should not look back. Mrs. Lulu Todd [EMAIL PROTECTED] UK ICT Liaison for: http://www.somalilandforum.com http://www.iprt.org http://ednahospital.netfirms.com http://www.tawakal.co.uk Somaliland Health and Education Project European Somaliland NGOs ***GKD is solely
Re: [GKD] Launch of Digital Opportunity Channel
Alan Levy is somewhat vitriolic in his condemnation of yet another talking shop. Like him I lurk in some of the Digital Divide listservs. But, unlike him, I don't know or pretend to understand the detailed politics of the actors involved in digital divide dealings. Unlike him I don't contribute so much to the discussions afforded by my relatively privileged status in the world - I have access to an online computer whenever I want it. However, I am still frustrated by the prevalence of the technologically determined thinking that assumes that there are soft- and hard- ware solutions to development problems and which doesn't address the question So what!. Anuradha Vittachi, one of the founders of OneWorld provides just such an answer in her essay as part of the Digital Opportunities site. I quote a part of it here without her permission but in the spirit of the interconnectedness of networks I understand her essay alludes to. Pakkialouchme is a 24-year-old Dalit woman in India, not the sort of person one immediately thinks of as being online. Being a woman and being a Dalit woman should be enough to exclude you from such elite male pursuits! But each morning she goes online at a public telecentre in South India to collect data from a US Navy space satellite that measures wave heights, which predict storms at sea. Then she voices the gist of this data, in Tamil, onto the Internet -- and every afternoon, at the time the fishermen sit on the beach to check and mend their nets, her storm warnings pour out through a series of loudspeakers planted along the shore. I asked someone at the telecentre whether Pakkialouchme's efforts had made any measurable difference to the fisher families. Well, he said, mildly, there used to be five to 10 deaths each year from drowning. But in the two years she has been doing this work, there have been no more deaths. Many of us would be glad to be able to say we had made that much difference in our whole lives. How many times have I heard Northern experts championing one technology or another as the politically correct technology for poor Southerners? It has to be low-orbiting satellites, or radio, or mobile telephony. Imagine if the fishermen had been stuck with one of these bores! Luckily for the fishermen, everything from loudspeakers to space satellites had been incorporated into Pakkialouchme's technical network. She would probably have added a Brillo pad, or a hearing aid, if they had helped. And as a result of this promiscuous ingenuity, she had enabled a group of fishermen who were neither rich nor literate to get the information that was up-to-date, highly relevant to their lives, in the language they spoke, at a time and place that was convenient to them, at no cost -- and which came from the fanciest state-of-the-art satellite technology in existence. But of course Pakkialouchme hadn't saved the fishermen's lives alone: she too was part of a network. There was the NGO that had set up the telecentre -- the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation. There were the people who managed the US Navy Web site. There were the people who managed the space satellite. And one of the most intriguing aspects of the people linked in this global network was that most of them on it didn't know that they were part of this network. Did the people managing the satellite know they were playing on Pakkialouchme's team? Probably not. Did it matter? Not a scrap. When you throw a pebble into a pond, you don't know where the ripples will spread or with what other ripples they will intersect. All you do is throw your pebble, and it generates all kinds of unintended consequences. We can't predict them: all we can do is celebrate them. Alec Leggat Project Development Panos London 9 White Lion Street London N1 9PD tel +44 (0) 20 7239 7608 fax +44 (0) 20 7278 0345 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.panos.org.uk ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, an NGO that is a GKP member*** To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
[GKD] Simputer's Commercial Rollout Pushed to July
Simputer's commercial rollout pushed to July By Imran Qureshi, Indo-Asian News Service Bangalore, May 22 (IANS) The commercial rollout of India's most promising IT product, the common man's low-cost PC called simputer, is now expected in the second week of July. The simputer was originally planned to hit the markets in August last year. Its release was rescheduled for November and then May this year. The postponement of the commercial rollout after successful field trials has not dampened the interest of prospective buyers, with requests coming in from North America, Africa, South America and the Far East. It is taking long because it is a typical chicken and egg situation. But we have received orders for a couple of thousand units already and we have tied up for its manufacture abroad as well because the volume from abroad will explode soon, Vinay Deshpande, CEO of Encore Software, told IANS. We had to entirely depend on internal resources to fund the pilots for field trials. That roughly comes to Rs.15 million. But the good news is that we have begun commercial production of the new version that is more stylish. Deshpande, three of his colleagues from privately held Encore and four scientists from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) joined hands to produce the simputer in 1998. The scientists have set up a separate company, PicoPeta Simputers, whose products are being tested in Chhattisgarh for an education project in association with World Space Radio. PicoPeta's simputers are manufactured at the state-owned Bharat Electronics while Encore's products are produced at its sister company, Peninsula. Producing 500 units for, say, 10 or 15 parties would cost Rs.10,000 a unit. And we had already invested quite a lot in developing the product, says Deshpande. But the delay has been, to a large extent, fruitful. Encore's improved version is now aimed at all sections of society. Apart from the common man's version, it has other versions priced at Rs.15,000 and a high-end version that costs Rs.24,000. The low-end product has a black and white LCD screen and 16 MB RAM with MB flash while the high-end one has a colour screen with 64MB RAM and 32 MB Flash. The high-end version can be attached to a GSM, GPRS cell network, wired LAN, a micro printer or even a bar code reader. The Rs.15,000 product is inclusive of all taxes. Taxes alone account for Rs.4,500. But the original target of reaching the common man is still achievable. If the government exempts taxes for the simputer, then the cost would fall to Rs.6,500 from Rs.9,000 for the low-end product, says Deshpande. Encore has received orders and enquiries from countries like Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Nepal, Canada, Mexico and Argentina. We would have two high volume manufacturing units to meet the demand from abroad and within India. Both would be capable of scaling up operations, says Deshpande. --Indo-Asian News Service ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, an NGO that is a GKP member*** To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
