the answer to timely emergency info lies ultimately in widely available
(and reliable) hand-held devices.... if you put together the mobile
phone stories from the asian tsunami disaster with the way that
internet and email comms can keep pace with fast moving events, many
lives might have been saved if some form of legitimate and credible
alarm buzzer could have been activated on just a few hand held devices,
and the word could have spread accordingly and quickly through affected
communities ....
governments alone cannot be relied upon to provide timely evacuation
info... or even adequate emergency evacuation plans that make any
sense.... just look at the average evacuation plan for nuclear or even
natural disasters in the US.... roads are frequently jammed at rush
hour every day now... the idea of anyone escaping anything in a hurry
by vehicle is ironically laughable, yet most community evacuation plans
in the US are premised on road access, and public services (and public
officials such as traffic cops) that would stay on beat and on message
throughout... 9/11 showed us the best of public service in New York and
Washington, but lower Manhattan was a disaster that could literally be
walked away from, as thousands testified to by the memorable and tragic
exodus on that day.... cellphones however were (I am told) notoriously
unreliable because lines were jammed.... however somehow, I believe we
have to get beyond the key first step of telecenters to hand held
communicators that do it all!
John Lawrence
UNDP consultant and
Adjunct Professor, SIPA
Columbia University.
Ashish Saboo wrote:
Don,
I can't agree more with your observation, yes they number as many as
Barber shops or news agents in the Asian countries . I just read a
Philiphines based news digest columnist share the same view.
http://www.mb.com.ph/TECH2004122825305.html .
Given the low entry & exit barrier, the float remains constant to
reducing .
The Best estimates between 20,000 to 2,00,000 are just wild guess.
I remember reading news stories of China itself host to 200,000 cafes.
In South korea where "PC Bangs" are regarded as the strongest
driving forces to raise Korean software industry had over 20,000 cafes
in 2002 . http://mcel.pacificu.edu/aspac/papers/scholars/parkb/park.htm
but with abundance of broadband , they are diminishing.
Here in India, Bangalore city Police estimates 5000 centres , on whom
they have enacted a law which demands you to prove your identity before
you access the Internet. add Mumbai another 5,000.
Maybe a reverse hypothesis may work , lets say how many minutes of
information access is required which can be best served by telecentres
of all the hues. At least this number will give us the relevance &
scope of our operations . Look forward to you all members comments.
Thanks
Ashish Saboo
India
On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 Don Cameron wrote :
>This does make for an interesting exercise...
>
>Of the figures available, the "best estimates" seem to place the
total
>number of global cyber-cafes and Telecentre's at somewhere between
20,000 to
>200,000 - quite a variation! - although perhaps not surprising
considering
>earlier this year China closed 8,600 cyber cafés in just a 3 month
period(1)
>comparable to the 3,300 cafes closed in China over a 6 month period
in
>2002(2).
>
>Counting Telecentre's and Cyber Cafés is probably akin to counting
take-away
>hamburger shops or newsagents... There are so may opening and
closing
>simultaneously that I doubt you could achieve anything near a
qualitative
>assessment of the real number at any given time - but good luck in
your
>efforts.
>
>(1)
>http://computercops.biz/article1962.html
>
>Rgds, Don
>
>
Ashish Saboo
President
Association of Public Internet Access Provider (ApiAp)
The voice of independent Cyber cafe operators
URL: http://www.apiap.cybernook.net
Blog: http://apiap.blogspot.com
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