[GKD] Re: International fund for digital divide?

[Nabil El-Khodari]

This is my first post to this distinguished group (GKD), so
I apologize if I am repeating some of the opinions
expressed before. However, my main objective is to respond
and brain storm about some of the recent posts and to
represent the facts from the Nile Basin region mainly
(containing 5 of the poorest 10 nations of the world).

I disagree with Zoe Young's suggestions that the World Bank
is over-stretched or the implication that the UNDP may be a
better alternative.

In fact, I believe that projects managed by both are the
best. An example is the Nile Basin Initiative (not a
communication project) http://www.nilebasin.org/

There is no doubt that the WB have its ambitions in
providing a comprehensive development web site for
development, that some are afraid that it may actually
force WB opinions on the majority of NGOs, agencies.

The UNDP on the other hand, had two projects that are
community access-related. Unfortunately, they are both in
the most 2 accessible countries in Africa, i.e. South
Africa and Egypt. (There is another project in a third
African country; Burkina Faso - Business Intelligence Trade
Points - that I believe is not related to community access.
Also the link is not working). Of course the projects have
their value in providing cheap/free access. However, the
projects could have been more valuable in other
communication-deprived countries, e.g. DR Congo (Zaire) or
Eritrea.

Here would come the value of the suggested satellite access
that can be propagated on the ground by amplifiers to cover
a considerable radius, and avoid the need for telephone
lines.

The problems however are usually political/economical.
There has been a crackdown in Tanzania on ISPs because they
are providing Internet Telephony
(http://www.woza.co.za/africa/news/feb01/tanzania15.htm).
The government-owned telephone companies have an interest
in keeping the telephone charges high (both local and
international) so they are usually against
telecommunications initiative that by-pass these. In fact,
also such services as fax-servers that would allow coverage
of an area code (or the whole country in some cases) are
usually prohibited or left to die. Cairo, Egypt, was
covered by such a service that was discontinued. South
Africa has also been recently disconnected from such a
service (surprisingly, concomittant with the announcement
of free Internet access). (For more information, please
refer to
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NileRiver/message/1244)

The political aspect is also one of censorship and control
(most pronounced for example in Syria), but also exists in
Nile Basin countries. In Egypt, for example, satellite
access to a WHO initiative to connect medical schools in
Africa with their western counterparts was not applied. A
medical school that applied for a permission of
send/receive satellite was told they can have a receive
only one! by the security organization.

More can be said about the UNDP projects, e.g. gender
issues (in Egypt 71% of the users of TACC are males), but
this may dilute the points raised.

In conclusion, ICT projects cannot be separated from all
other factors. It is not a matter of technology nor finance
(judging by the huge amounts of money spent on armament in
the recent struggle between two of the poorest countries of
the world, Ethiopia and Eritrea). It is a matter of
political will and democracy.

Sincerely,


=
Nabil M. El-Khodari
"If the people will lead, the leaders will follow." David Suzuki

Join the Nile Basin Society:
http://www.nilebasin.com/
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[GKD] Conference on Disaster Communications (Finland, 28-20 May 2001)

[Nabil El-Khodari]

The Second Tampere Conference on Disaster Communications
Tampere, Finland, 28-20 May 2001

In 2001, Tampere will host the CDC-2001. In view of its
character as a conference of experts, with the same
characteristics as the conference of 10 years ago, this
conference is called The Second Tampere Conference on
Disaster Communications. Like the 1991 event, CDC-2001 is
expected to agree on a statement of experts; the Conference
will provide an excellent opportunity for governments to
sign and ratify the Tampere Convention, but its own
resulting document will have the character of
recommendations and not that of an international treaty.

CDC-2001 is therefore open to participants from all sectors
concerned with the application of telecommunications to
disaster mitigation and response operations:

* Humanitarian organizations, such as United Nations
agencies, the Red Cross movement, and national, regional
and international governmental and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs),
* National and international regulatory authorities,
* Private sector enterprises, such as national and
multi-national Telecommunications service providers and
manufacturers of telecommunications equipment,
* Individual experts from all the above fields and from the
academic sector.

All items on the agenda of the conference have aspects,
which need the co-operation among all the above groups. The
urgently needed inter-connectivity among the communications
networks of all partners can not be achieved, unless users
and providers of telecommunications networks and tools work
together, if the regulatory framework allows the
un-hindered use of all appropriate means. Much has been
achieved, since these issues were first considered in the
1991 conference, but much remains to be done. Once again it
will be at Tampere Hall, that a decisive event takes place
on the way will be to the full application of the rapidly
developing telecommunications technology in the service of
the most noble of tasks: The prevention, and, where such is
not possible, the alleviation of human suffering caused by
disasters.

For registration and more information:
http://www.reliefweb.int/telecoms/conference/cdc2001/index.html

=
Nabil M. El-Khodari
"If the people will lead, the leaders will follow." David Suzuki

Join the Nile Basin Society:
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[GKD] FAO's 1st Int'l Workshop on Farm Radio Broadcasting

[Nabil El-Khodari]

I have re-formatted the outcomes of the "FAO: First
International Workshop on Farm Radio Broadcasting
''Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) Servicing
Farm Radio: New Contents, New Partnerships", held at FAO
Headquearters in Rome, Italy, from February 19 to February
22, 2001, in a MS Word 97 document that is available for
those interested from:



[***Moderator's Note: You will find the plain text version below.***]

Sincerely,

=
Nabil M. El-Khodari
"If the people will lead, the leaders will follow." David Suzuki

Join the Nile Basin Society:
http://www.nilebasin.com/
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-


Date:   Mon, 12 Mar 2001 18:13:35 +0100
From:   "Michiels, Sabine (SDRE)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:FAO First International Workshop on Farm Radio Broadcasters
To: "'[EMAIL PROTECTED]'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Dear MediaReality participants,

We thought of  sharing the outcomes of the First International Workshop on 
Farm Radio Broadcasting ''Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) 
Servicing Farm Radio: New Contents, New Partnerships", that we organised 
here at FAO Headquearters in Rome, Italy, from February 19 to February 22, 
2001. This may stimulate some additional discussion.

Regards,

MediaReality Moderator
[EMAIL PROTECTED]



First International Workshop on Farm Radio Broadcasting

Background:
Given the strategic role and development of rural radio on one hand 
(opportunity) and the digital divide on the other hand (threat), the Food 
and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), in partnership 
with the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and 
the Ford Foundation, organised the First International
Workshop on Farm Radio Broadcasting ''Information & Communication 
Technologies (ICTs) Servicing Farm Radio: New Contents, New Partnerships".

Why is rural radio strategic?
·   Rural and farm radio addresses rural communities and farmers.
·   Its mission is similar in developing countries and in the West: Inform, 
educate and entertain.
·   In much of the world, radio is still the medium of choice, the most 
accessible and the most adapted, meeting the needs and expectations of 
farmers and rural populations.
·   In the United Sates, farmers listen to radio when they rise in the 
morning, to get the latest weather, market information or to learn about 
farm legislation.
·   In rural areas of developing countires, where over two billion people 
live, radio remains the most popular, accessible and cost-effective means 
of communication, due to cultural, technological and institutional reasons.
·   Rural radio covers a wide range of strategic outcomes: it informs on 
vital topics, educates, gives a voice to the actors of rural development 
who will express themselves in their own language, builds social awareness 
and mobilizes, accelerates change...and entertains.
·   Rural radio has changed considerably within the last decades: from 
vertical to interactive communication, from centralized to local, from 
state monopoly to associative radios.
·   In summary, rural radio has become a means of communication of the 
community rather than for the community.

Rural radio covers a wide range of strategic missions:
·   Inform and communicate on vital topics - agriculture techniques, 
production tools, natural resources, rural development - to secure food 
supply for rapidly expanding populations.
·   Educate for the transfer or exchange of knowledge and techniques. rural 
radio acts as a substitute for formal education and plays an extension role.
·   Provide rural communities with the information needed to adapt to 
technical, economic and social changes, as development implies change.
·   Build social awareness and mobilization.
·   Allow rural communities to express their views, to dialogue and debate 
among themselves and with partners, and to share experiences, using their 
own language.
·   Give a voice to the actors of rural development, especially women.
·   Make farmers participate in decision making.
·   Finally, entertain. entertainment, mainly music, guarantee that people 
keep the radio tuned in, all over the world.

Workshop objectives
1.  Create a forum for rural radio broadcasters from developing countries 
and farm radio broadcasters from the United States.
2.  Share experience on approaches and lessons to disseminate knowledge and 
to support rural development.
3.  Explore possibilities for partnerships and South-South and North-South 
collaboration.

Expected outcomes
·   Connect rural radios from developing countries with Western farm radios 
through the Internet
·   Provide rural radio broadcasters with permanent on-line access to all FAO 
vital information, including food security, early warnin

[GKD] Satellife: ICT for Health in Africa

[Nabil El-Khodari]

The following is a part of an article published at:


"The goal of SATELLIFE's information services is to connect the health
practitioner in the developing world with a range of high-quality
information resources in a cost-effective manner, by making use of the
most affordable, efficient and appropriate technology," stated SATELLIFE
executive director, Holly Ladd. "The Public Health Channel will employ
the technology of the WorldSpace system to exponentially increase the
amount of information health practitioners throughout Africa can access
- information that most health practitioners in the United States and
Europe take for granted."

The Public Health Channel will be launched in four countries: Zimbabwe,
Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia. After an initial testing period, the project
will expand to other African countries as funding becomes available. "We
are limited only by our resources," said Ms. Ladd. "We envision a time
in the near future when the Public Health Channel is available to every
doctor and nurse throughout Africa, no matter how remote their
location." WorldSpace receivers will be placed in hospitals, medical
schools, medical libraries, health clinics, health ministries and
research settings.

WorldSpace receivers provide crystal clear digital audio channels, and
can also serve as a modem, downloading text-based material and dynamic
images from the AfriStarô satellite directly to computers. The
WorldSpace system transcends the difficulties of unreliable telephone
systems at a fraction of the cost of most Internet-based projects.

"WorldSpace Foundation is the embodiment of the WorldSpace network's
commitment to social development and humanitarianism," said Ms. Hillman.
"We work with NGOs and other humanitarian groups to bring important,
life-saving information to people who are disadvantaged by poverty,
rural location and the digital divide."

Read more about Satellife (an NGO) at:
http://www.healthnet.org/

=
Nabil M. El-Khodari
"If the people will lead, the leaders will follow." David Suzuki

Join the Nile Basin Society:
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[GKD] Private sector and ICT projects funding

[Nabil El-Khodari]

Dear Rosemary:

Your posts are stimulating. My comments follow within
your text.

--- Rosemary Amondi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 > Secondly, the major challenge with dealing with the
 > private sector is that they lean too much on what is
 > in it for them in terms of marketing; which in
 > itself is not a bad thing but they tend to sway the
 > projects to adapt to their products or services. In
 > most cases the support we get in terms of
 > Computers/software are from private organization who
 > will normally want to brand the place and push for
 > use of proprietary software - we somehow try
 > to reach a compromise with them.

The private sector should be involved in any major
effort to introduce the Internet into new market. It
is true that it is mainly motivated by profit, which
should be huge at first, particularly if monopoly
exist. The way is actually in more open markets and
transparent procedures. In time, the market will
stabilize to the benefit of both the private sector
and the consumer by the old market mechanism of supply
and demand.

We have to understand that sustainability is the least
requirement for introducing new technologies, the
private sector look for 'profitability' and not just
'sustainability'.

As for software, I urge the NGOs to use Linux and GNU
software, available for free, instead of 'branded'
software. This require re-education of the NGOs
themselves to depart from what most of us are used to.
 >
 > We have not also been able to make much headway in
 > the rural areas due to lack of power, telephony
 > network, low literacy levels (this we can work
 > round). We need funds to move in and sensitize the
 > rural communities as well as get feed back so as to
 > get something going.

There are ways to get over this, that is if you can
get funds and approval to use them, i.e. use of
satellite communications and solar-powered
servers/computers. According to a friend of mine, a
server can serve an area of around 10 miles in
diameter through use of dishes similar to those used
in mobile telephony.

 > We need all the help we can get.

Of course, you should contact the funding agencies
with a well-written proposal. The infoDev of the World
Bank is a good start.
http://www.infodev.org/projects/prhome.htm

For more contacts, please visit:
http://www.infodev.org/about/other.htm

Keep up the good work.

Sincerely,



=
Nabil M. El-Khodari
"If the people will lead, the leaders will follow." David Suzuki

Join the Nile Basin Society:
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[GKD] Digital Dividends Conference

[Nabil El-Khodari]

The Digital Dividends conference was held last Sept in Seattle. The
website is 

You can see online Real Video of almost all the speeches, including ones
by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos (Amazon.Com CEO), Carly Fiorini (Hewlett
Packard CEO) and other leaders. I attended the conference, most of the
speeches were incredibly interesting. There were amazing ideas for
bridging the digital divide and using info technology to promote
sustainability.

The best presentation was Radically New Business Models: Strategies for
the Bottom of the Pyramid, by Prof CK Prahalad. He got the only
standing ovation of the conference and he deserved it. The speech by
Bezos is very interesting for its data about how much waste and
pollution is reduced by the use of e-commerce. I recommend both these
to start.

The videos are pretty good and the sound is quite good. The video clips
can be downloaded for offline viewing. They would be great for a
high-tech classroom with PC projector.
  
=
Nabil M. El-Khodari
"If the people will lead, the leaders will follow." David Suzuki

Join the Nile Basin Society:
http://www.nilebasin.com/
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[GKD] Powerline or power struggle?

[Nabil El-Khodari]

03/23/2001 
Technology delivers Net access via power outlets
  
HANOVER, Germany (AP)  Imagine every electric socket in your home
transformed into a phone jack that delivers phone calls, e-mails and
video to your fax machine, computer and even television set.

That's what a group of companies are promising at CeBIT, the world's
largest computer and technology fair, with a Florida firm saying the
technology will be in U.S. stores by June.

Known as powerline, the system transmits telephone call data over
regular electric wiring. It is catching on in Europe and Asia and could
turn local power companies into competition for global telecom
companies.

"Everybody has electric wiring already all over their house," said Amit
Yudan, director of Main.net Communication, an Israeli company developing
the technology. "This turns every socket in the house into a
communication point."

Main.net is testing the system in six European countries, with its
biggest project in Mannheim, Germany, where 200 families get their
telephone and high-speed Internet service through local power company
MVV.

The country's biggest electricity provider, RWE, is also on board with
plans to hook up 20,000 people with Internet connections by the end of
the year, and another 130,000 with Internet and phone connections in
2002.

Source:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/review/2001-03-23-plug.htm

SIEMENS DISAGREES

German electronics group Siemens AG said on Tuesday it was halting work
on powerline, because it saw no chance of a mass-market application in
the short term.

It said it expected better growth opportunities in sales of asymmetric
digital subscriber line (ADSL) technology, which provides high-speed
Internet connections through traditional telephone networks.

Analysts say powerline's ability to take off will depend on whether it
can compete on price with broadband ADSL services offered by Deutsche
Telekom, which has already sold 850,000 lines.

Smaller German utilities have already announced plans to launch
powerline Net access this summer. Mannheim-based MVV is expecting to
connect 3,000 homes and EnBW will link up 7,500 customers in the
southwestern town of Ellwangen.

But RWE's main domestic rival E.ON, which is testing powerline with
Finnish telecom operator Sonera, is not yet ready to offer the service
to customers.

Source:
http://digitalmass.boston.com/news/daily/03/032301/powerline_net.html

=
Nabil M. El-Khodari
"If the people will lead, the leaders will follow." David Suzuki

Join the Nile Basin Society:
http://www.nilebasin.com/
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[GKD] Call for Proposals: infoDev E-Readiness Assessments

[Nabil El-Khodari]

Dear friends:

I would like to attract the attention of African
participants to the following grant opportunity from
the World Bank to assess e-readiness. However, the
grants are offered to governmental institutions.
Deadline for submitting proposals is May 1st.

Call for Proposals: infoDev ICT Infrastructure and
E-Readiness Assessments

http://www.infodev.org/ereadiness/

You should review this site periodically as it will be
updated as new information becomes available.

Sincerely,

Nabil M. El-Khodari






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[GKD] Rockefeller's Making Waves discussion on ICTs

[Nabil El-Khodari]

I do not know if any of you have read Making Waves (by the Rockfeller
Foundation) or is following the current on-line discussion.

However, I find it very disappointing for the fact that the author thinks
very low of the potential of the Internet as a communication method for
social development.

For more information (and links to the online edition), please visit
http://nile.ca/ and look under ICT: Making Waves). The discussion is also
listed there.

I would appreciate if any organization with practical documented/evaluated
experience in using Internet technology to affect social development would
actually share in the discussion (which will end July 6).

Sincerely,
Nabil El-Khodari
Founder & Ceo, Nile Basin Society
http://nile.ca/
http://nilebasin.com

"If the people will lead, the leaders will follow." David Suzuki

904-20 Carabob Court
Toronto,ON M1T 3N1
Canada
(416) 298-2627




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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Cyber-Security and E-commerce

[Nabil El-Khodari]

I believe that the problem facing developing countries is not one of
'systems' or 'technical'; it is the lack of 'enforceable' laws that
handles cyber-crime in particular and the lack of the rule of law in
general.

Until such laws are in place and it is evident that they are enforced,
we can cry 'wolf' all we want.

Sincerely,
  
Nabil El-Khodari
Founder/Treasurer
Nile Basin Society
Tel.: +1 (647) 722-3256
Fax: +1 (647) 722-3273   

http://nilebasin.com
http://nilebasin.net
http://nile.ca  
108 Waterbury Dr.
Toronto, Ontario, M9R 3Y3
Canada   


"If the people will lead, the leaders will follow."
   - Dr. David Suzuki




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