Uncle Kit is 73. Under his father’s tutelage, he first started making higher-end bronze metal-craft when he was 8. Some of his most recent products are on display at the local telecentre, which opened a year-ago in the Prabittorakan community-centre on the outskirts of Bangkok. He not only displays them at the telecentre, he’s now being helped to market his superb products on the web.  When we earlier visited his workshop, he showed us how the recent Bangkok floods damaged the clay moulds that he uses to shape the different products he and his many home-based workers produce. It will take much more than a massive flood to stop Uncle Kit!

In the same telecentre, and at the same time, a group of mostly young women take their seats to continue their training in accounting and MS Excel. The one young man among the numerous Thai gals doing the training is effusive about how he enjoys this particular class at the telecentre. Their energy, and Uncle Kit’s experience, wisdom, and community leadership, all in the same place are a clear indication that this telecentre is serving inter-generational markets.

Tawat is the telecentre manager. He recently started his new job. Today is his 25^th birthday. He’s completed his Junior High School diploma and is enrolled in continuing training to complete the rest.  He has an aptitude for computers, networks, and the Internet. That’s what got him his new job. The previous telecentre manager, who worked there for a year, was hired-away by the private sector.  Tawat looks at this as a great opportunity for him and his community.

The local community organizations that launched the telecentre, with Dr. Chim’s guidance and support, had help.  The national Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies provides the financing for the broadband for the first year.  After that the local community has to select its own Internet Service Provider and find the financing for the rest.

Community Under the Skyway

Bangkok has a legendary series of concrete overpasses that go no-where. They were supposed to expedite the infamous Bangkok traffic’s connection to the old airport. The airport moved. The huge concrete pillar foundations didn’t. Instead, a new Skyway was constructed leaving the original ones as concrete orphans from a different era.

Underneath 7 of these concrete behemoths some of the poorest of Bangkok’s poor have established a new home. A bit like squatter settlements, they have built ram-shackle dwellings in the shadows of the near-by railway and begun to take root. The community we visit has two of my favourite things: a basketball court and a telecentre!

This is a very different neighbourhood than the one where Uncle Kit presides. Here there is crime, a vibrant drug trade, and suspicion about anyone who doesn’t belong. The local telecentre reflects this. It’s closed during the day so the local children will attend school. Its windows are shaded and protected by barbed-wire. The telecentre is open in the evenings and on weekends. The community has to provide both the building and security to keep it in operation.

Sit is the local telecentre manager. He is a volunteer and brings some of his buddies from the university computer science program he attends to help-out. When he graduates he wants to be a computer programmer. Rung is the community leader. She navigates the different ethnic and interest groups in this bottom-of-the pyramid community to help people understand and come to use the telecentre. Her community skills are a necessary complement to Sit’s computer knowledge.  Together they are a formidable telecentre team.

This Pakdi telecentre thrives in the most unlikely of places. Its principal market are young people and local women who are seeking to upgrade their life chances. Immigrants from Myannmar and Laos, many of them “undocumented”, are part of this community. Anyone with the gumption to navigate this immigrant voyage didn’t come here to be poor. They are highly motivated and see the telecentre as part of their way up the food-chain in Thailand.

Sustain-ABILITY

Our next telecentre stop is another very different place. It’s a series of buildings on the outskirts of Kasetsart University, Thailand’s principal agricultural college and centre for related research and development and rural extension. The 100,000+ students enrolled at the neighbouring university come mostly from the outlying regions of the country, not from Bangkok.

We drive by a large entrance sign that reads “Handicapped Foundation of Handicapped Empowering Centre”.  I’m sure the name of the place works better in Thai. Inside we find a marvellous learning centre for the handicapped. Time doesn’t permit us to visit the other two buildings that serve young-people with autism and learning disabilities.

The 60-70 young men and women here all have physical disabilities. It’s a live-in institution of learning with separate dorms for the boys and girls. Families from all over Thailand try to get their physically disabled children admitted to this place. Here the focus is on learning technologies that can help these young people develop ICT livelihoods when they return home to their rural communities after 18-24 months enrolled in this special school.

Along with the usual basics that telecentres offer, the staff here teaches students the essentials of hardware and software maintenance and repair. Thailand has among the highest penetrations of mobile telephony in the world. More than 70% of the adults in the country own at least one cell phone. Even in far-flung Thai places, the computer is finding its way into everyday life. Once these students graduate they will be the advance team for helping to service, repair, and up-grade the digital transformation in rural Thailand. A 24/7 call centre also operates from this place. A national insurance company agreed to locate and finance its help-desk from this facility employing three of the students.

There is an unmistakeable energy, excitement, and bond among the young people here. Separated by their physical disabilities from most others in their far-flung corners of the country, it’s clear they enjoy being in one another’s company. Here their social and intellectual abilities are much more important than the physics of their lives. This is a very happy time in their life. The skills they learn and networks they develop here will hopefully sustain that happiness for the challenges they will face anew upon their return.

So What?

The Thai experience and leadership clearly demonstrates how telecentres remain relevant, even central, to the inclusion of all segments in the Information Economy. The market solves some, but not all, problems. Despite the musings of some to the contrary, even after 25 years of history, telecentres can have a central place in social and economic policy for development.

Among the reasons it was established, Telecentre.org Foundation can help to highlight these very interesting national examples and stories. These achievements deserve global profile. They also need to help inform and to learn from achievements in the telecentre sector from other parts of the world.

Rich Fuchs [3]
Vice-Chair, Telecentre.org Foundation

[1] My appreciation to Dr. Chim and her colleague, Mrs. Ning, for taking the time from an already over-burdened schedule to tour Thai telecentres with us on Feb. 1^st in and around Bangkok.