Sustainability of telecentre.org

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Permalink Reply by Jan Herder on November 18, 2009 at 7:58pm

Hello Alain, thank you for this great resource. I took a quick glance at it but need to digest it further. The power of a social network is to be inclusive and engage members in a community of practise. It is inherently emergent and subject to change. This contrasts to supply side goals and creates tension; the difference between 'development' and 'emergence.' After all, we don't really care about the sustainability of a network for its own sake, but to see it evolve, or come to closure. We care about the community, its members and their health and sustainability. So it makes sense that TC.org is evolving into TCF as the community matures and emerges into a more structured organization. There will be many, many networks within it, coming and going. The network structure is not so adept at aggregating and organizing the knowledge and wisdom gathered from the social network. So I see 3 needs, in terms of sustaining the community of practise, that this social network must create: 1) a wiki or knowledge base, that can aggregate the knowledge harvested from the rich interaction and hard work of our community, 2) inclusive networking with on the ground TC Managers, Teachers and Students (users), and 3) a solid financial and organizational structure based on a next generation, innovative and emergent, change management model.

Regards,

Jan

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Permalink Reply by Alain Berranger on November 19, 2009 at 4:14pm

Hell Jan. Thank you for reminding me of a very important point: it is not the network's sustainability that matters, but the sustainability of the work of a community of practice! I find it easy however to equate the sustainability of a good practice (say in this case a telecentre) with the sustainability of the network bringing a community together (in this case tc.org or TCF). Of course, as long as the mission of a network is relevant, then the network' sustainability is critical, right? As Niranjan Meegammana points out in the case of Sri Lanka, the need for telecentres will be with us for a long time.

Jan, I agree with your identification and characterization of issues to be addressed by TCF. I'm glad you mentioned solid finance and org structure, as it is a necessary building block.

Jan, colleagues interested in network issues, IISD, a GKP member, has produced a sister document to the one I have attached to my previous post. It is entitled: "The Governance of Non-Legal Entities: An exploration into the challenges facing collaborative, multistakeholder enterprises that are hosted by
institutions" and can be found at; http://www.iisd.org/publications/pub.aspx?pno=1044

I want to comment on leadership and knowledge - and the role for TCF - next but will do that tomorrow when my mind is fresher!

Cheers to you all, Alain

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Permalink Reply by Alain Berranger on November 21, 2009 at 11:26am

I have a few ideas about leadership and knowledge. Since knowledge is an expanding resource when it is shared (contrary to financial and physical resources which get depleted with use), we need grassroots networks to disseminate knowledge to the have-nots of our world. They will soon turn into the haves of our world - Muhammad Yunus once said: "The fastest way out of poverty for a Bangladeshi woman is for her to own a mobile phone!". One idea is to promote business schools in the developing world as they can produce leaders and managers capable of creating sustainable enterprises respectful of the triple bottom line or to engage in public service to serve the people through public policies and programs that will be respectful of the environment. For instance, I have witnessed first hand the extreme entrepreneurship and dynamism of African business schools. If you need to be convinced, please visit CIDA City Campus, South Africa on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMmKM9wAOcc and let me know what you think. Africans are pinning for education and learning and community low cost colleges and web learning are cost effective. Initiatives like the international computer driving licence and the various software/hardware certification programs need also to be made universally available and should be subsidized by governments and companies. I conclude that tc.org Foundation needs to be in the forefront of leading and advocating for these popular and accessible learning institutions and mechanisms.

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