Question 2: How to make the telecentre.org Foundation (TCF) more influential on behalf of telecentre movement?

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Permalink Reply by Mahmud Hasan on November 12, 2009 at 5:26am

Have program to link government, develop global leaders as ambassador and influence country leaders, Specific program for Parliamentarians. Besides, a global study on Telecentre status report should be published. And global ranking system should follow that.

Permalink Reply by Cleopa Timon Otieno on November 13, 2009 at 12:59am

Close collaboration with various governments and policy makers to create enabling national policies for telecentre growth and sustainability.

Empowering the telecentre networks to reach more telecentres especially at grassroots on behalf of TCF.

Permalink Reply by Niranjan Meegammana on November 13, 2009 at 4:41am

I think this is a good move to create a wider institutional base by up-scaling telecentre.org.

I this process we need to look at how we will ensure the inclusion of grass root telecenter workers in the movement. One idea is to look at internet society model, which enables local chapters and increase inclusion.


Here is my suggestion
Telecenter Foundation could be a an International Organization founded by members in Telecenter Movement.
It can have National chapters, and Regional Chapters and local chapters.

Then comes the question of who will be the members of the Telecenter Foundation ?

For this my suggestion is that anyone should be able to become a member, through an authenticated membership application process. Considering the large number of members who would join in (we need to encourage as much as people), we will have logistical issues handling number of languages and authentication.

Hence bottom up approach is suggested.

If we setup local/district/provincial chapters and then National structure and an international structure this issue can be managed. We can consider that anyone becoming a member in local chaprter automatically become a member of all structures above.

The local members can select a number of representatives to represent them at district/provincial level.
The provincial admen can meet at National level and select them to be represented in global level, The global level also can be further segmented as Asia, Europe, Pacific, Latin America, Arabic, North America, Africa etc.

Although this is an ideal model for long term, it could be quit complex for management, yet ICTs could be used bring solutions.

For the time being I suggest a Global Organization where initial members could be formed by current telecentre.org membership. However in creation of an institutional base we will need

- A constitution
- formal application
- Membership fees
- A Board for governance

One issue we will face is individual membership criteria and membership fees, Members from Nations with better economy can pay a higher fee but Members from Nations with poor economy will have capacity to pay a smaller fee.

With regards to institutional memberships the problem also be the same

These matters to be taken into account when defining structure, membership and fees


Inclusion should be our bottom line...

After all forming Telecenter Foundation is a great idea.
Lets keep this discussion until we reach our goal...


Niranjan Meegammana
Shilpa Sayura Foundation
http://www.shilpasayura.org

Permalink Reply by Alain Berranger on November 16, 2009 at 5:01pm

There is a lot of good ideas here! I will not attempt to comment on all of them! I'll concentrate on funding and inclusiveness.

The funding model of any Not for profit organization or network is essential as sustainability first means financial sustainability - membership fees, earned income, endowment proceeds, grants, etc... It is only after you have financial sustainability -a necessary but not sufficient condition that you can ensure social and environmental sustainability (the triple bottom line applied to Not for profits if you wish - I prefer to think of Not for profits as Not for losses, an idea Muhammad Yunus was kind enough one day to share with me!). II do not know enough about the current financial situation of Telecentre.org Foundation to make relevant funding suggestions. I suspect however that the Internet Society model is hardly replicable as ISOC has no funding problems only because it get automatic annual revenues from domain names renewal fees. It is well structured by country I believe... because of the .country approach so national chapters ( I do not know if that is what ISOC calls them) are financially sustainable... so easy to have international federation/movement sustainable financially too.

Inclusiveness- I believe Niranjan Meegammana is raising all the right questions... I suspect existing traditional membership models could be replicated... (like the Academy of Management). Inclusiveness is key to the web today - so membership should not be difficult to attain and members should receive value for their fee/money: publications, services, etc... all that the tc.org seem to provide anyway. So scaling-up for me means adding a lot of paying members... and having a service mentality from the central node.

That's all for now. Looking forward to this discussion and consultation...

Alain Berranger
GKP Executive Committee Member (elected)

Permalink Reply by Niranjan Meegammana on November 17, 2009 at 6:53am

Hello All
Good to have Alain Berranger involving our discussion, who seems to have wider knowledge of International structures. It would be better if we can have the involvement of more top level players as it will pave the way for very good mix of discussion.

I too agree that funding for ICT4D is fading away, how every the infrastructure laid out by ICT4D is there, yet I see a gap in knowledge for development in the areas of key global concerns. I would like therefore telecenters and telecenter movement to focus more on MDGs which are to be achived by 2015. Women Empowerment, Environment Sustainability & Climatic Change (+Agriculture and Food Security), Universal Primary Education, HIV/AIDs prevention, Child and Maternity Health etc. Telecenters Need to take grass root leadership in this areas (e Leadership)

One of the key MGDs is global partnerships where Telecenters can really help building global partnerships among grass roots, which requires a platform. TCF can build it both technically and standards. I know this raises more questions than answers, but Technology can make it happen.

How about creating a Telecenter Market Place, I wrote about this in my paper presented in e-India 2009, "E3-Telecenter Sustainability Frame Work" , Telecenters have quite achived in e Learning , Now E Business and E Leadership seems the way ahead! (E3 means E Learning, E Business and E Leadership)

Niranjan Meegammana
Shilpa Sayura Foundation
http://www.shilpasayura.org

Permalink Reply by Alain Berranger on November 17, 2009 at 10:54am

Niranjan argues in favor of TCF focusing its work towards achieving MGDs - esssentially poverty reduction and hopefully eradiction. I agree with Niranjan, adding that TCF can only be one of many many players needed to attain these goals... every drop of water helps make the river flow! It is not easy however to link the productivity or quantify the contribution of a Telecentre or the tc movement to any particular MDG or set of MDGs. Once the drop of water has reached the river, it still contributes but has lost its original identity!That said, Telecentres need to be a big player because it works directly with the underserviced communities. The more successful the tc movement, the more poverty is eradicated... aid money going to tc reaches deeply to remove sources of poverty.... like primary schools and dispensaries... public lighting... or rural roads...

Permalink Reply by Evans MACHERA on November 18, 2009 at 6:44am

This is a very noble idea that needs a serious thought and action.

It is important to have a legislative document with structures from the grassroot upwards.Then its also important to build capacity for members to be able to operate telecentres and local based activities for sharing worlwide - these will certainly develop grassroot areas as knowledge from one area will easily be shared by others.

Shall i hope to see this dream come true!

Evans MACHERA.

Permalink Reply by Sulah Ndaula on November 16, 2009 at 7:43am

tc.org's global leadership is currently seen and practiced. But more than never, it is going to be tested as it moves to become independent. This means it must show and exert INFLUENCE globally for it to remain to be seen as a global influence. However, for this to happen tc.org some of these things might be useful:

#Trust and respect - tc.org needs to build itself to be trusted and respected as the solution to telecentre challenges and connection to the telecentre community-its true power base. One of the useful thing will be to maintain knowledge sharing and above all know statistics of telecentres and grassroots networks globally well.

#Connectivity - telecentre.org should link up with governments and or government agencies, international NGOs, and regional NGOs... either in partnerships or by merely keeping them in their database of key stakeholders that recieve regular updates on the progress of tc.org and with whom to celebrate success with. In this a multilayer communications system may need to be developed to avoid miss communication.

#Inner circle - tc.org will need regional partners that are reputable and can flag up tc.org's existence. It should also aim to EMPOWER these institutions where they are weak and ensure formal relations. These partners together with telecentre.org must influence telecentre movement policies and processes at regional and national level either directly or indirectly.

#Openess - tc.org will need to develop regional representation on its governance and operational committees in order to consolidate trust and respect, connectivity and inner circle contributions into a globally balanced influential telecentre network.


But above all tc.org must INFLUENCE local, national, regional and global telecentre issues either directly or indirectly in order to emerge and maintain its global leadership in the telecentre movement.

Permalink Reply by Niranjan Meegammana on November 16, 2009 at 10:14am

I Agree with Sulah,

Leadership is not taken, it's given by people

Niranjan Meegammana
Shilpa Sayura Foundation
http://www.shilpasayura.org

Permalink Reply by Alain Berranger on November 16, 2009 at 1:01pm

Hi! I'm a new member since yesterday. However, I go back to the very creation of this initiative when I was employed at IDRC as Director of Partnerships and Business Development (I'm since retired and, among other pro bono activities, am currently an elected member of the Executive Committee of GKP) . With a number of colleagues, I have contributed to shape the early development of the telecentre.org network. With the same funding donors (IDRC, SDC, MIcrosoft) I have also participated in the early development of the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP). With the end of the WSIS decade, donors have shifted their funding priorities away from ICT4D (development flavor of the decade!) arguing that ICTs were now mostly mainstreamed in various development themes (like gender before that, right?). As telecentre.org becomes TCF, as GKP attempts to move to GKP 3.0, as donors move funding to other priorities, I find there is a need to consolidate and rationalize the ICT4D movement to create economies of scale, decrease overlaps and increase efficiency/efficacy. Problem: assuming ICT4D sector consolidation is needed, I do not know how we should go about doing this? Wondering if there is an appetite for this in TCF in its current configuration?

Permalink Reply by OWINO Fredrick on November 17, 2009 at 5:46am

I think TCF should focus mainly on the private sector and NGOs who are involved in the practice of community focal points for information dissemination. Government engagement should be minimal because I think governments performance in analogy to private sector in telecentre set up and management, is lagging behind.This is so because a lot of telecentre I know of (and we have some) are either run by individual people or non governmental organizations. In this regard, they should identify various strong people and organizations and build a formidable network of cooperation(volunteers,ambassadors, outreach people, etc) throughout the globe, and in particular in the continents where this whole phenomenon of telecentre is still an emerging idea.

Permalink Reply by Sulah Ndaula on November 17, 2009 at 5:59am

Just been thinking lightly about the issue... If leadership comes from influence, where does influence come from? It could be this that TCF needs to work on; Off the head, I thought to influence world ways TCF needs:

#Expertise especially in the area of Public Access ICT venue. It is from this that I see and support Alain's veiwpoint and more views in this direction. For example who will widen up the focus of telecentres from a narrow viewpoint to a broader one; everyone can tell that cybercafes emerged out of telecentre concept and yet we are shy to include them as telecentres simply because they serve the urban underserved using a profitable model. But this is not the only diverging PA centre or issue - Thus the expertise shld be about widening understanding and mainstreaming the field.

#Nurturing the powerbase and managing relations - where does telecentre.org get its strength - is it at grassroots telecentres, national networks or regional network e.t.c. I would think though that the power base is at tc level but the operational relations at network level. This means that what will continue to create the influence of telecentre.org is to pay EXTRA attention on the telecentre appropriation by community and impact created at household level rather than looking at networks. It is understandably fine to maintain the operation target and use the trickle tactics to reach end users. Surprisingly key stakeholders to tc.org may for now be asking about the success of network support services and impact on telecentre operators but in the long run they will be judging the performance of the initiative on the impact it created to the grassroots whether directly or otherwise - So why not focus on it. But this is just one element of powerbase.

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