Dear Colleagues,
I will not make this a long post. From what I learned as an engineer and
economics student, and then as an accountant and involved with business
management and consultancy, and then relief and development ... it is
absolutely clear that profitability is needed for sustainability.
Dear GKD List Members,
On Friday, November 26, 2004, Shahid Uddin Akbar wrote:
Still we didn't find any single project which can claim itself as
Sustainable in terms of being financially viable and serving the local
rural communities anywhere in the world.
..snip...
Why are the
Dear Colleagues,
I am not sure if the time on this focused discussion is up, but it would
be too bad if it was, because I feel there is much to discuss and the
discussion here has been continual and robust.
[***Moderator's Note: Although today is the last day of the focused
discussion, the GKD
Dear GKD Members,
I too will keep this short. But first, per instructions, a brief
introduction:
I am currently in Mali working on sustainable (from a profit-seeking
standpoint) business models for Internet access in some of the poorest
regions of the world. Not only is the profit motive an
Dear Colleagues,
Sustainabiliy is a very critical issue for any ICT for Development
project with the focus on rural areas. Still we didn't find any single
project which can claim itself as Sustainable in terms of being
financially viable and serving the local rural communities anywhere in
the
Something I may have missed from this conversation is upfront rigorous RD
traditionally required before launching innovations out into the business
mainstream... (legal) drugs are a good metaphor...maybe profit is down the
road, but to get to the stage where that is possible, big (business) risks
Dear Colleagues,
Vickram Crishna's comment But only if I wasn't prepared to think that
maybe there are other paybacks taking place, just that my monetary or
even my measurement system hasn't learned to be flexible or inclusive
enough is my cue to introduce myself.
My name is John Rogers. I am
Answer: Of course not. But it might be the best answer in many more
cases than we think.
***
Take any given activity deemed socially worthy -- an educational radio
boradcast, for example. If it is socially worthy, then by definition it
**should** happen. How, then, shall the costs of
On Tuesday, November 9, 2004, Adriana Labardini wrote:
If someone is still skeptical about the potential impact of ICT...just
take a look at this very discussion forum...
..snip...
4. Working on the demand side training people on the use of IT and
developing useful LOCAL applications that
While believing that info-kiosks can reduce poverty, especially in rural
areas, we espouse the socio-economic role of an info-kiosk in a rural
community. Given the decreasing costs of wireless access equipment in
general, access to rural wireless networks seems to be profitably
feasible in some
I would like to react as follows to Lee Thorn's comments on
sustainability and profitability:
For any project or venture to be successful, there has to be a return on
investment, tangible or intangible. Without this, the initiative is
deemed unproductive and hence a waste.
Preferably, for
The main problem here are the vague philosophical concepts and ideas,
like the so called social justice that can not be defined, but can be
infinitely distorted to suit the theories and demands of incredibly
powerful would be rulers and pressure groups, who invented a new
language and new meaning
On 11/9/04, Jean-Patrick Lucien wrote:
How about an NGO running a franchise where they license those
cyber-cafes to small entrepreneurs.
Jean Patrick Lucien, to add to your comments, perhaps, better still
would be to allow these individuals to run the cyber cafe on a day
basis for a small fee
John, my quick response is that regulation follows public sentiment and
values, thus, for me an appeal to branding is a consistent touch stone
in that persuasion of the public, involving people in a values shift. We
don't pay the gas taxes they do in Europe because our higher value is
the open
My comments:
How about an NGO running a franchise where they license those
cyber-cafes to small entrepreneurs.
1) The NGO provides the training and investment seed to individuals who
want to start their cyber-cafe.
2) The individuals purchase a franchise license to run the cyber-cafe.
3) The
Dear GKD List Members,
If someone is still skeptical about the potential impact of ICT in
productivity, knowledge opportunities, finding resources and expertise
and social capital, just take a look at this very discussion forum that
without the Internet would take hundreds of people having to pay
Dear Colleagues,
Once again I have mixed views.
I think that Jim Forster's point about the public sector role in
investing in part of the infrastructure for ICT is very important and
indeed important from a country's e-readiness perspective as well, and
that there is a clear similarity here with
Dear Colleagues,
I would place the question into a broader context:
For example, if we call 'S' the benefit to society (or the community) and
'I' the benefit to the individual (profit), any type of human action can
be grouped as follows:
S 0 and I 0 : social investment
S 0 and I 0 :
On 11/3/04, Andy Lieberman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
While I feel comfortable with the above-stated model at the local level,
I am struggling a bit with the ethics and reality of whether a mid-sized
local NGO should build its sustainability off end users. For example,
some people have
Dear Colleagues,
This really is a fascinating discussion. So fascinating that I feel
compelled to make my first post - so please be gentle.:)
One observation to the comment on Branding.
I'm not sure I agree with Kevin Jones (or maybe I just missed the
context?) that
...the pricing changes
Dear GKD Members,
It is great to hear all the thoughtful ideas and I am encouraged by them
particularly as a nice counterpoint to the recent political setbacks in
US.
I am working with a start up social enterprise called the oneVillage
Foundation http://www.onevillagefoundation.org. We are
Jim Forster makes some good points below. One thing I'd like to add is
that the pricing changes coupled to getting externalities to be included
in the cost of goods sold is a branding issue that extends all the way
from state fiscal and monetary policy down to the level of consumer
purchases
This question is really two questions. The first part is Must a
venture/project earn an adequate return to be sustainable? The answer
is an obvious yes, but leaves open what is meant by an adequate return.
An adequate return must generate a revenue flow to sustain operating
expenses. It should
Dear Colleagues,
I realize I left out one other point about ICT development and
profitability:
I was making the case for profit as an important metric, and indeed I
think that private, for-profit companies can and should take the lead in
much of ICT, but profit is not the only metric and there
Al Hammond's posts on GKD are wonderfully articulated. And I think they
are on target. They validate the models developed by Harvard's Clayton
Christensen (Seeing What's Next) for example.
The focus on this list seem to me to be formed around social justice and
similar issues, where the ICT's are
Bettina Hammerich and Jim Forster both make useful points. Of course,
markets don't attend well to everything. But the core of providing
useful services at prices people will pay--and the market discipline of
listening to customers that Forster underscores--is a strength of the
business approach,
Dear GKD Members,
I would like to add to Meddie's comments with a couple of things that
have worked well for us in Guatemala. I would also like to describe a
dilemma I am going through on the issue of profitability in a NGO.
With the help of USAID/AED/EDC and World Learning, we have set up 28
Dear Colleagues,
Whether profit is essential on not for successful ICT for Development
activities depends on the nature and over all mission of the activity
under question. Profits are certainly necessary for financial
sustainability.
As far as I know, however, the profit is not the
Dear GKD Members,
I'm Jim Forster. I am a Distinguished Engineer at Cisco Systems and have
worked here since close to the beginning.
Bettina Hammerich made some very good points in her recent posting that
also pertain to the current question of the role of profitability,
including:
*
Initial remarks: the Moderator's question does not contain a definition
of profit; it might be a monetary return on invested capital, it might
be an excess over pure operation-costs, it might be equal to the
operation costs but those who use the offered ICT-services do better by
using those
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