[Telecentres] Basic Telecentre Items/ICT Definition

[Gáspár Mátyás]

Dear All
 
Talking about what the telecentre is, in Hungary, on local level we are
looking at telecottages as a community - mainly civic (NGO) -
controlled, public-private partnership based (contracts between NGO,
local government and local business org/person) service organisation
providing IT and organisational/management "intelligence" to all
individuals, groups, organisations. All telecottages are independent
legal entities, the more developed now started providing affordable
wi-fi based, broadband Internet service. 
 
On regional and country level, we understand telecottages as local
community embedded general access points to all kind of network
services, govenmental, business and also civic. The telecottage network
is organised and served by a nation-wide NGO (Hungarian Telecottage
Association - HTA - protecting the interest of telecottages), a public
benefit company (100 % owned by the HTA, mananging all non-profit
activities of the telecottage network, like grant programmes,
governmental and international projects, cooperations), contracted
business consortia (providing business network services).
 
Matyas Gaspar
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: telecentres-bounces at wsis-cs.org
[mailto:telecentres-bounces at wsis-cs.org] On Behalf Of David Leeming
PFnet
Sent: Monday, October 04, 2004 6:39 AM
To: telecentres at wsis-cs.org
Subject: Re: [Telecentres] Basic Telecentre Items/ICT Definition
 
Then perhaps a definition of a Telecentre needs to map out the functions
these human resources perform. There are also functions that are
required for useful information exchange to take place, that may not be
strictly associated with the telecentre. These include awareness
raising, training, mobilisation of the stakeholders all along the
information "chain" including the "knowledge centres" (in a country like
ours, CRM is not widely practiced....the central institutions are often
the worst at communication). ICT strategy building is important, too. In
fact it is difficult to see where to demarkate a telecentre, looking at
it from the "information flow" point of view.
 
As a simple example, to allow rural people to obtain legal advice by
email, it was not as simple and notifying them of the (say) Public
Solicitor's email address. We had to train (remotely) the rural ICT
operators to publicise it and raise awareness, hold meetings with the
Public Solicitor and other stakeholders and discuss the procedures
required and other practicalities, and above all get everyone on board.
(now it works marvellously). Information doesn't just flow - it needs to
be driven by the knowledge owners as much as their "customers" or
"clients". 
 
I suppose we are getting into a defination of "content" as well as
"function".
 
David
 
 
 ----- Original Message ----- 
From: Elizabeth Carll, PhD <mailto:ecarll at optonline.net>  
To: David <mailto:leeming at pipolfastaem.gov.sb>  Leeming PFnet ;
telecentres at wsis-cs.org 
Sent: Monday, October 04, 2004 12:48 PM
Subject: RE: [Telecentres] Basic Telecentre Items/ICT Definition
 
David,
 
Thanks for the clarification.  I always thought that such staff support
would be available at all telecentres and considered that to be in the
category of human resources.  It is always interesting to hear how
others view and designate telecentre support activities.
 
Elizabeth
-----Original Message-----
From: telecentres-bounces at wsis-cs.org
[mailto:telecentres-bounces at wsis-cs.org]On Behalf Of David Leeming PFnet
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2004 8:36 PM
To: telecentres at wsis-cs.org
Subject: [Telecentres] Basic Telecentre Items/ICT Definition
Elizabeth et al.
 
Well, how about living ones - human intermediaries. Community
intermediaries to help people understand their needs, to interpret and
respond to incoming information, for consultative processes, to learn
how to filter information appropriately. Technical intermediaries
(commonly known as "assistants" or "operators") to help people use the
ICTs, when there are no existing skills, and to train them as the demand
and awareness grows. The community driven ethic is extremely important,
these are facilitators only.
 
David
 
David,
 
Excellent point, as ICTs are certainly only a means to the end product
of learning and participating.  To what other appropriate tools are you
referring, in addition to ICTs?
 
Elizabeth
-----Original Message-----
From: telecentres-bounces at wsis-cs.org
[mailto:telecentres-bounces at wsis-cs.org]On Behalf Of David Leeming PFnet
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2004 7:04 PM
To: telecentres at wsis-cs.org
Subject: Re: [Telecentres] Basic Telecentre Items/ICT Definition
Hi,
 
If we're talking about the Information Society then we should
concentrate on the information activities and not the techology. A
telecentre may be simply described as a place where people can
participate (and learn to participate) in the wider emerging information
society, using appropriate tools including ICTs. 
 
David
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/telecentres/attachments/20041004/8cc9951f/attachment-0001.htm