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

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Permalink Reply by Jan Herder on November 27, 2009 at 6:23pm

SO I am agreeing with Polly, that the structure of the 5 questions is awkward in a ning to find coherence. Which is why I suggest the wiki, the preeminent web 2.0 mechanism, and one that is is democratic, based on a virtual community of collaborators, but organized by topic and category and moderated by community facilitators who have been vetted by the community. As for funding, I am not an economist, but the age of entrepreneurship is here. Which is why each telecenter must look to its own sustainability and build a permaculture of sustainability. Shared among each other, ideas and initiatives which work can be adapted for specific locales. I am continued to be surprised by the disconnect between telecenters and cyber cafe's. It reveals a lack of inclusiveness in the model. The telecenter could absorb all financial models which contribute to its health. Furthermore, the reliance on supply side external organizations and their ideas of what the telecenter should be, ignore the demand side. Honor the demand side and you have a web 2.0 model. This is the same conflict emerging with web 2.0 and educational systems, which attempt to retain a monopoly of knowledge. Hidden beneath this struggle is the democratization of knowledge that web 2.0 can bring. This is fundamentally subversive because knowledge is power.
To return to Jimmy's idea of the Telecenter Bank, this is an idea of financial permaculture, and the currency is the knowledge and content creation born of each community and their telecenter. A knowledge base (wiki) and a virtual organization can be created basically for free, again, the web 2.0 model.
Jan

Permalink Reply by Niranjan Meegammana on November 27, 2009 at 7:26pm

Dear Jan
I agree with you on web 2.0 importance in democracy, but a wiki alone can't be the solution for telecenter 2.0 needs, as the new wants are just not knowledge but business, advocacy, entertainment all that matters. we will need a new applications for Telecenters and Networks. I can remember we discussed this as a Telecente O/S.

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

Permalink Reply by Jan Herder on November 28, 2009 at 12:10am

Hello Niranjan, thank you. Yes, agreed. But a wiki can give us the tool to move forward and bring along newcomers and grass roots champions who are looking for structure. This structure is to nurture innovation in all of the categories. Looking forward,
Jan

Permalink Reply by Jimmy L. Calata on November 28, 2009 at 5:42am

Yes Jan, wiki can be that spark or highway that can lead to faster grass roots-based development. And looking into the connectivity issue among developing communities, for us to generate a much broader base, wiki could be part of the solution.

Permalink Reply by Sulah Ndaula on November 29, 2009 at 12:10pm

If I were to share how much I agree with Herder I would repeat word for word what he said about financial sustainability.

But the wiki may not find its way in the eyes of grassroots community. But if it is in the structure bureaucrats than it may work better than the ning platform...

Permalink Reply by Jimmy L. Calata on November 28, 2009 at 4:39am

Many of us here Alain I'm sure are not aware of the reasons why those World Bank development projects failed despite the presence of funding support, which we all know is an important element of success. That is a big question to me too. And for our TC.org to succeed despite our meager financial and other resources, that would be a great challenge to all of us. I believe many of us here won't be turning back or shifting elsewhere till we substantially accomplish our shared cause.

Permalink Reply by Niranjan Meegammana on November 28, 2009 at 8:09am

Jimmy,
Shilpa Sayura is a World bank funded project, just the funding wouldn't make a project a success, commitment of individuals, open participatory platforms, M & E and many other factors influence success in ICT4D. This mainly happen due to gaps in design and reality, which require dynamic project re-designing and change of many parameters. Many pilots do not allow this or they are not able to change contractual guide lines, however the issue is we are not much applying from what we learn.

Permalink Reply by Jimmy L. Calata on November 28, 2009 at 9:38am

The success of Shilpa Sayura in up-scaling and replicating its 20 pilot Telecenters into 150 Telecenters in less than 3 years is indeed very remarkable. With that, I could say that the people behind Shilpa Sayura really did some honest-to-goodness project planning and implementation, and must have indeed applied much of what they've learned along the way. You are correct Niranjan; the success of a project is not so much in the funding but on the class of people who plan and implement the project. I also know of some projects here in the Philippines that took off and succeeded even with a very tight budget.

Permalink Reply by Jimmy L. Calata on November 30, 2009 at 8:51pm

The Bank (or a similar facility like for example, TFC Finance Centre) that I am referring to is a facility that will take care of the Financial Management System of the Global Telecentre.org. Such a big network would require judicious management of its financial resource be it coming from grants, endowments, donations, membership fees, financial permaculture, you name it. The idea here is to have a centre for all the global network's financial resources (from all sources) which may undertake such functions as: resource generation and investment, planning and budgeting, funding of programs, projects and activities, among others.

Permalink Reply by Miguel Raimilla on November 28, 2009 at 11:52am

The Foundation should be able to increase its influence, as long as it can demonstrate that it is leading a global diverse network of telecentres and that it is capable of well-coordinated collaborations. Acting often as one unique body, the telecentre network, despite differences of culture, language, and local interests, is capable to deliver valuable services to those who need them most.

The Foundation should be an active promoter of the adoption of new approaches to better server communities through ICT. As a global umbrella organization, the Foundation should lead Telecentre networks into much higher levels of organization, improving how Telecentres respond to the needs of local communities, generating more opportunities for development at the grassroots levels.

One particular approach is how to developed Telecentre networks to become an effective channel of distributions for products, services and new opportunities for communities around the globe. A “distribution channel” concept will bring opportunities for interactions with new partners from different sectors of civil society, government, international agencies and private sector. Telecentre networks will be seen as a valuable source of information, a place where researches can be done effectible and a channel for multiples development projects.

Permalink Reply by AHMED SUDAN on November 29, 2009 at 1:54pm

The on-line consultations are very important to plan for the future of Telecentre.org….we first thanks and appreciate for IDRC, ,,, Telecentre.org and its partners their great support for this community movement. … we should think on the sustainability of our Telecentre and how we move them from community Telecentre to knowledge (development) Telecentre and what is the possibility of investing in these Telecentres to make them self dependent and sustainable..
I think we learn a lot from this great network we share experience and best practices with many Telecentres which help us to construct more than ten community development projects and they are really amazing specially if we consider the fact that we start from zero when we attended the first tc-mena forum in Cairo on December 2006 keeping in mind ICT is not part of our culture and not a priority in Sudan but the great support of digital city of Eindhoven and telecentre.org , ugabytes.org and Drishtee and other partners make the dream become true. ... Really sharing is something different…
In the next decade we should concentrate on e-education with a multilingual curriculum and knowledge … we should use the e-education to fight against poverty in our Telecentre and we have to eliminate it in our countries. … we have to establish many national Telecentre academy … we should utilize the partnerships between members in saving time and money to construct telemedicine units,, e-agriculture projects, ,,, tackle the problem of climate change … keeping in minds the 8th millennium development goals of the united nation to facilitate the life of our community and make it more comfortable..
If we look at Telecentre.org portal the idea is excellent but it has been distorted by too many groups than we need this make many of members to reply… thanks… it is a good idea… forward emails but I admit there are many brilliant members and they have a great contribution… these things guided me to an idea we should have maximum 10 to 12 groups which should include the e-services (e-education.. e-health ….etc.).. Telecentre.org should have a focal person in each country and there should be a regional group and they meet monthly online with a facilitator to report and there should annual meeting and small meeting in the big conferences like WSIS, e-India, e-Asia …
We should work very hard on partnership (PPP) and get the government and private sector involved in this movement because they will help a lot…. Keep in mind the disadvantage community specially the disabled (people with special needs),, prisoners ,, poor orphans and students,, women because working with is very essential and it is a humanitarian issue…Training.. Capacity building..Technical support is important issues.
Finally we hope that Telecentre.org will be the network that connect the whole world

Thank you
Ahmed eisa
GDCO Sudan

Permalink Reply by Jimmy L. Calata on November 30, 2009 at 11:29pm

Global expansion of the telecentre movement that extends down the grassroots level might be one good strategy.

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