Poster background photo: the frozen and snowcovered Lake Pyhselka, N. Karelia with crosscountry ski

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INFONIA Alapítvány - BME UNESCO ITTK 5.
Információs Társadalom Szakmai Napok Budapest,
2005. nov. 28-29. FINNISH AND HUNGARIAN
RURAL-LOCAL INITIATIVES AND THEIR JOINT EFFORTS
IN AND FOR AN INFORMATION SOCIETY EMBER ÉS
TECHNOLLÓGIA KÖZÖS HÁLÓZATBAN FINN ÉS MAGYAR
HELYI KEZDEMÉNYEZÉSEK EGYMÁSRA TALÁLÁSA Németh,
Sarolta University of Joensuu Department of
Geography, P.O. Box 111, 80101 Joensuu (Finland),
nemeth_at_cc.joensuu.fi
The Finnish local initiative in rural-peripheral
North Karelia in developing a community intranet
has achieved great publicity in and outside
Finland. Its success story has spread also with
the agency of researchers, by their academic
publications and the lines of their personal /
professional, often international networks of
contacts. The study introduces the initial stages
of communication and co-operation between this
Finnish project and a telecottage (telecentre)
enterprise in a Hungarian village community
(Mártély, Csongrád County). The case in focus is
an evidence for such more informal idea /
innovation-transfer processes across the
enlarged Europe, also enhanced by information
and communication technologies (ICTs). The author
herself a Hungarian researcher working in
Finland -- has been an increasingly involved
participant and observer (mediator and
translator) of the evolving project, much
supported by various kinds of ICTs. Some issues
concerning the relevance and the cross-cultural
applicability of ICT solutions for promoting
rural development are described. Yet, since the
hybrid solution drawn up by the partners has not
been tested, the paper is not an evaluation study
of a working project, but an account of the
initial ideas and plans, the communication
processes, and the possible reasons why this
joint initiative has been (at least, to date)
arrested in a very infant stage. Several years
of research, discussions with involved actors in
both countries have shed light on important
earlier events, too that not only were
significant precedents to the current telecottage
and intranet solutions (with concrete linkages
over time and space), but showed similar general
patterns of networking and ostensible
coincidences in the diffusion of local
socio-technological innovations -- the paper
provides some insight into these, too.
Inclusiveness Access in the Information
Society Physical access Financial access Mental
access Content-related access
Providing free internet access points - over a
100 so-called nettikioskit, or net-kiosks
scattered in the region. Educating locals in ICT
skills. Local unemployed people were trained to
be later engaged by the project itself in network
maintenance and administration, and as trainers
and helpers of other inhabitants (e.g. the
will-be users of the intranet) in the region
(peer-training). An easy-to-use community
intranet for the households, SMEs, schools, local
government, etc. with locally/regionally
relevant information, interactive services and
other useful and interesting substance for the
citizens a logical, multi-layered and flexibly
extendable structure of content, to which all
public, private and civil actors were invited to
contribute and link up to.
Cheap or free use of Internet and PCs Community
space to attract people in - cultural programmes
and activities both supported by and less related
to, ICTs Media-services, local radio studio and
magazine Skilled assistance in ICT-related
issues and local information
Mártélyi Teleház (since 1998 in Csongrád
County) telecottage (teleház) the old Nordic
telecentre re-taylored in Hungarian fashion in
the 1990s. One of the cc. 500 currently
functioning similar establishments in Hungary
(photo Mártély telecottage and its managers,
Jan. 2004, Németh).
North Karelian Community Intranet
(kansalaisverkko) the old telecentre idea reborn
in a more virtual form, spreading gradually
from a few municipalities to cover a whole
region (1998-2004). (Photo a net-kiosk in a
small handicraft shop in Valtimo, Oct. 2003,
Németh.)
The joint solution Intranet for Mártély and its
region Built on the existing resource of the
teleház, and partly on the experience, main
server infrastructure, and network maintenance
staff of the kansalaisverkko and as a learning
by doing exercise, it may help both the
telecottagers and the community prepare for the
times when Internet becomes common in households.
The content must be created locally with wide
public, piate and civil participation.
Poster background photo the frozen and
snow-covered Lake Pyhäselka, N. Karelia with
cross-country ski marks (Apr. 2004, Németh).