[Telecentres] Basic Telecentre Items/ICT Definition

[Taran Rampersad]

Don Cameron wrote:

>A recent discussion on another forum really strengthened the need to clarify
>just what the term 'Telecentre' means. A proponent of South Korea's 'PC
>Bangs' (Korean parlance for an Internet Café) described the 20,000 South
>Korean 'PC Bangs' as Telecentre's. The use of this descriptor was argued by
>other respondents as inappropriate because not one of these commercial Cyber
>Cafés is community based or driven by development objectives (most are
>simply computer gaming venues). None are true Telecentre's as all commenced
>life as commercial ventures vying for an ever decreasing market; a market
>where home PC adoption makes 'PC Bangs' largely obsolete (South Korea is the
>worlds most wired nation and while there were more than 50,000 PC Bangs in
>year 2000, today there are less than 20,000 due to changing market
>conditions). I can only wonder at a market where 30,000 small businesses
>vanish in the space of 4 short years!
>  
>
And when those businesses disappear - what will happen to the community?
So the community may not have originally been the driving factor, but
the community is now a driving factor...

>There are many lessons to be learnt from the Korean experience and to me,
>the two most evident are:
>
>1/ Sustainability is not as simplistic as a choice of software or venue as
>it contains many variables of importance; not the least being the matter of
>a mission driven by need and supported by the community. A Telecentre that
>looses community focus is doomed to the anonymity of being 'just another
>provider' in a highly competitive market.
>
Well, this goes back to the Cluetrain Manifesto - 'Markets are
discussions'. Telecentres are water, and we can provide water, but
people have to want to drink it. In a business, it's in the interest of
the business to create something attractive, but in the case of funded
Telecentres... is there such a need? So there's also the issue of
motivation of the Telecentre itself. Those that meet a need or want of a
community survive, and are good investments. Those that do not...

>2/ WSIS makes scant reference to the threat of ICT's and totally fails to
>provide deliverables for threat mitigation other than a few oblique
>references to Spam and security - yet South Korea teaches that development
>is also not as simplistic as 'build it and they will come and prosper'. The
>populace of this highly wired nation are increasingly called to deal with
>the downside of interactive ICT's. Quite apart from the loss of 30,000 small
>businesses, one-third of South Korea's online population; more than 20% of
>the total population are now considered to be 'Internet Addicts'. The
>Government is so concerned about the social implications that South Korea
>has established a "Centre for Internet Addiction Prevention and Counselling"
>that receives thousands of requests for help per day.
>  
>
Wow. I wonder why people feel that they have become addicted. Do they
surf the internet to the point where they lose interest in other things?

>We are potentially opening Pandora's Box and WSIS seeks to hasten the
>process by placing unrealistic timeliness on Governments to achieve a vision
>yet to be tested or evaluated, even less understood. If Telecentre's can
>promote anything to this process I hope it is that of caution; of slowing
>down the zealous nature of WSIS to drive change overnight. Telecentre's have
>a long history of promoting managed and contributory development and
>acknowledge that development does not occur in quantum leaps - I hope we can
>bring our culture, ethos and work ethic to the table of WSIS. 
>  
>
This makes a lot of sense. Could we talk about this some more? I think
this is pretty important...

-- 
Taran Rampersad

cnd at knowprose.com

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