<div>Dear Shahid,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Your initiative to invite debate of the various issues related to telecentres is indeed timely and welcome. I believe that most of the issues faced by the telecentre projects are socio-political in nature. While technology does play an important role and is becoming increasingly pervasive, it perhaps is in today's context the least issue.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>From my perspective the following five are key chanllenges in the implementation and sustianability of telecentre projects:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>1. Community mobilisation for ownership: Most telecentre projects are conceived and implemented from outside of communities that they are meant to serve. Even in cases where the input is taken, it is more about taking consent rather than understanding the requirement of community. In any case, it is only in rare cases that the promoters of the telecentres conclude that telecentre may not be a priority for the community at that given moment. In such a scenario, it becomes critical that community needs to be mobilised (
e.g. Akshaya Project and MSSRF projects in India) and their needs understood before a telecentre is made available for the community. So long as the telecentre is viewed as an outsider's project - be it Government, CSO or private sector initiated - its viability will be limited.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>2. Political committment: Since most of the telecentre projects are meant to connect the isolated communities to the wider knowledge world, enhance democratisation and open more avenues for opportunity, it may not receive the desired support, also, telecentres in many countries are also a source for delivering critical government information and services and finally, monies for such projects is often controlled by large donor agencies and governments that fund these agnecies. As has been demonstrated amply in the last 50 years of AID industry, political committment to cause is fickle at best and based on political expediency. As such, political committment to such projects becomes essential to ensure its success.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>3. Long term financial committment: Owing to increased focussed on commercialisation of social initiatives which get reflected in demands related to sustainability and returns on investment, most agencies/organisations are unwilling to commit or avail long-term funding for telecentre projects. Very few are willing to face the fact that telecentres are meant to serve hetherto under serviced communities who have faced decades if not centuries of oppresion and isolation. How do we expect them to get mobilised, become committed and ready to exploit the opportunities presented by the project within a span of few years. we also need to understand that unlike every business initiative that must make profit, we cannot demand that every social initiave needs to make profit and must provide adequate returns on investment. As a society we have certain social obligations that must be fulfilled irrespective of whether they are profitable or not.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>4. Appropriate content: Although content now is being given some attention, it is perhaps an equally important if not the most important factor determining the success of the telecentres. Initial content though may be created by promoters of the project, but subsequent updates, and new content must be created from the benefeciaries of the project (with the help of the promoters if required) for they know best about what they need. Also, it cannot be emphasied enough that the content is created in the local language. While this issue may seem simplistic, it is perhaps one of the most important challenges being faced.
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>5. Appropriate technology solution: There are many technological challenges and most of them are widely known and discussed. Among them last mile connectivity, appropriate standards for interoperability of software and hardware, life span, cost, upgradability of technology and finally technology related to content creation especially in languages that do not work very well with ASCII are being addressed at different levels. I believe that what we do need to do is encourage technology that can be easily adapted across the world. Thus open source and UNICODE movement must be supported by the initiators and promoters of the telecentre projects.
<br> <br>I look forward to receiving comments from all the ideas presented here.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Regards,<br> </div>
<div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><br>Message: 2<br>Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 03:56:03 -0700 (PDT)<br>From: Shahid Uddin Akbar <<a href="mailto:shahid_ictdpb@yahoo.com">
shahid_ictdpb@yahoo.com</a>><br>Subject: [Telecentres] Challenges in implementation of telecenters<br>To: <a href="mailto:bytesforall_readers@yahoogroups.com">bytesforall_readers@yahoogroups.com</a>, Telecenter<br> <
<a href="mailto:telecentres@wsis-cs.org">telecentres@wsis-cs.org</a>>, Telecenter <<a href="mailto:gta@vancouvercommunity.net">gta@vancouvercommunity.net</a>><br>Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:20060430105603.22818.qmail@web53810.mail.yahoo.com">
20060430105603.22818.qmail@web53810.mail.yahoo.com</a>><br>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<br><br>Dear All,<br><br>The telecenter is becoming an important development agenda in this days. J<br>
<br>ust for sharing our thoughts, I would request you to forward 5 major challenges which are critical for implementation of telecenter.<br><br>Lets see whether we can identify the problems and then move to solutions.<br>
<br>Thanks,<br>Shahid Uddin Akbar<br><br><br>---------------------------------<br>Blab-away for as little as 1�/min. Make PC-to-Phone Calls using Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.<br>-------------- next part --------------<br>
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http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/telecentres</a><br><br><br>End of telecentres Digest, Vol 20, Issue 6<br>******************************************<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>
Vineeta Dixit<br>Senior Consultant<br>National e Governnance Plan<br>Programme Management Unit<br>Department of Information Technology<br>Electronics Niketan, Lodhi Road<br>New Delhi 110003<br>Tel: +91 11 24301460