Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Bringing Connectivity to Under-Served Communities
Peter Burgess wrote: There can be activities to bring connectivity to the underserved, but it will never be done with the organizational and funding framework that dominates development space today. The technology is available. The people are available. But the business model and value chain being used does not optimize what is available and use it to support development, but organizes to reward investors and corporate management OR government and the repayment of WB/IMF debt. The big corporate world has actually created a connectivity monster ... with $zillions of investment that now is unbelievably surplus to their needs and obsolete as well. To some extent we have a replay of the ATT fiasco of the early 1980s when they suffered from an earlier version of the corporate obsolescence crisis. If anyone wants to invest in solutions that use best technology and can deliver affordable connectivity in the SOUTH, I would like to hear from them. Peter Burgess is right in zeroing in on the connectivity monster created by the big corporate world, the business model and value chain being used. The globalization being promoted in the North marginalizes the South by binding it with huge NON-PERFORMING LOANS that are self-perpetuating and exponentially growing. The overall solution is to convert those NPLs into investments in a technology that achieves macrodynamic equilibrium between North and South. The North has a huge surplus of producer goods and services (e.g. country-wide chains of giant factories for producing hardware and software and giant laboratories for research into innovative techniques). The South has a huge deficit of consumer goods and services in that they are UNDER-SERVED in connectivity (and in everything else needed for survival). The South will not prioritize connectivity if they have prior concerns for survival. The overall solution has already been discussed here on GKD as early as April 16, 1997 and for the succeeding 36 months. In 1999, it has already been published as a book entitled Macroeconomic Dynamics: An Essay in Circulation Analysis by B. Lonergan. My point now is that the best technology that can deliver affordable connectivity in the South can be deduced with precision from this MD-ECA. (A review article entitled Macroeconomic Dynamics and the Work of Nations: Lonergan and Reich on the Global Economy, by Paul Hoyt-O'Connor, appears on pages 111-131 of Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies Vol 17 No. 2 for the Fall of 1999.) This is in reply to the request for a solution from Peter Burgess. Vicente Marasigan This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by the dot-ORG USAID Cooperative Agreement, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org provides more information. 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 For the GKD database, with past messages: http://www.GKDknowledge.org
Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Bringing Connectivity to Under-Served Communities
Dear GKD Colleagues: I am following up on the series of emails that have gone back and forth on this topic. I am a consultant who spent 19 years with HP prior to taking early retirement last year. My last role was National Business Development Manager for Education and Healthcare and I was engaged to find the next disruptive technology that could change how technology-assisted teaching, learning, and wellness could be sustainably delivered in developed and developing countries. Advanced Interactive, a Vancouver-Canada RD organization, had partnered with Canarie, the Canadian Government Internet RD agency in 2000 to develop a solution for providing high speed access to Internet resources in schools, even when there was only a slow dial-up modem connection from the school to the Internet. The outcome was the commercialization of this distributed and remotely managed technology, which has evolved and brings financially self-sustainable connectivity to under-served communities, including those lacking electrical or communications infrastructure. I have 2 White Papers which will provide a comprehensive view of how they have addressed this challenge. This is currently installed in remote Aboriginal communities in Canada, in Uganda, Ghana, and soon in Senegal. It will also be used as the secure delivery vehicle by several Canadian Universities establishing bi-lateral campuses - one is rolling out with 12 Universities in China and the other 40 Universities in India. The curriculum provided by the Canadian University and a US College is monitored and managed constantly, refreshed nightly, and all student information is available at all times in any school that student touches. For more information or to discuss in more detail, please contact me. I look forward to your response. Regards Bob Robert Miller EVP Global Inc. Direct: (416) 423-9100 Mobile: (416) 464-7525 Fax: (416) 696-9734 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] enabling virtual projects that narrow the digital divide This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by the dot-ORG USAID Cooperative Agreement, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org provides more information. 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 For the GKD database, with past messages: http://www.GKDknowledge.org
Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Bringing Connectivity to Under-Served Communities
The E-Commerce for Non-Traditional Exports Project being implemented by the Ministry of Food Agriculture, Ghana, and supported by the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) seeks to: provide efficient promotion and increased market transparency to improve the negotiation position for small and medium scaled producers and exporters/traders of non-traditional exports in the local and international markets by the bringing together of the supply of and demand for critical marketing information at the local level. Ultimately, the project aims at enhancing the standard of living of small and medium scaled producers and traders in rural areas in Ghana. In practice, the project aims at providing Internet-based (or alternative) marketing information services to small producers and traders/exporters of Ghanaian non-traditional export products. Apart from providing information, producers and traders can promote their products via the web-based information system. On longer term, the information system will develop into a market place for supply and demand of products. The system will as such provide better access to export markets. In addition it will function as a market place for the national market. In meeting the set out aims above, one of the main activities of the project was to set up what is call District Agricultural Information Centres (DAIC) in the districts. These centres are the information access points for the producers and traders/exporters. Connectivity has been the main challenge for this project, considering the fact that infrastructure in general is limited to the major cities in the country. Computers with mostly dial-up internet connections have been set up in most of these centers. Although the dial-up is slow and expensive, considering the fact that users have to make a trunk call to the capital city, it is the cheapest connectivity so far. Some areas are without telephone facilities at all. In these cases, the project is experimenting with some radio equipment that is able to transfer a telephone link from a range of up to 100km and can carry data at speeds up to 32 kbps. The other altenative being used is to send the information on CD ROMS to these centres. Recently (Sept. 2003), the District Assembly (DA) in one of the districts (Twifo Heman Lower Denkyira District Assembly) in the Central Region has put up a VSAT for internet and voice telephony for mostly the government departments in the district. This is a breakthrough that will be replicated at other districts if it works well. The major problem being considered here is the ability of the DA to pay for the recurrent costs (which are quite high in our part of the world). The main people expected to use this system are the few schools in the area, a couple of Banks and some agro-based industries in the district. These are expected to contribute to the payment of the recurrent costs. It is expected that if this cost issue is worked out well, it will greatly open up the district because information, which is the life-blood for development, will be available to all. This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by the dot-ORG USAID Cooperative Agreement, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org provides more information. 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 For the GKD database, with past messages: http://www.GKDknowledge.org
