Surfing the Rolling Cloud of Connectivity: ICT and the Developing World

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Surfing the Rolling Cloud of Connectivity ICT
and the Developing World

• Partha Pratim Sarker
• Co-founder, Bytes for All / Researcher,
  telecentre.org
• partha_at_bytesforall.org

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A picture of ICT penetration in South Asian
countries
Source International Telecommunication Union
(ITU) Report, 2006
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Does that mean web 2.0 is completely irrelevant
to the majority of the world ?

• Id say NO
• WHY?

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Both have common underlying principles- sharing,
collaboration, harnessing collective
intelligence, peer to peer communication etc.
Look at the example of cooperatives movement in
different South Asian countries for the last few
hundred years. In rural perspective, where
communities are strong, technology is not owned
but shared (for example, your bi-cycle, my
refrigerator)
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Another possibility is to look at two tiers of
development initiatives

• NGOs, Intermediaries or network of NGOs
• Grassroots organizations/individuals or
  communities

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Two tiers of development activities

• NGOs, Intermediaries or network of NGOs
• They need to build up local and international
  network and they have certain level of
  connectivity, capacity, skill and can be enhanced
  further to enable them
• to write blogs/do podcasts in sharing their
  experiences knowledge or building up network
  (example, Voices in Bangalore is podcasting Namma
  Dhwani radio programs)
• to develop online help or reference desks where
  they can receive enquires and can send feedback
  as blogs, WiKis (Example, UgaBytes in Uganda is
  creating an online reference desk
  http//www.ugabytes.org/telecentre_faq/index.php?)
  
• to engage in peer to peer content production that
  is open and collaborative (Such as, training
  commons curriculum being developed by Mission
  2007 for telecentre operators and managers
  http//www.telecentre.org/en-tc/projects/trainingc
  ommons
• to be networked and updated about news and
  information via RSS subscription and work to
  disseminate that content either as bridge blogger
  or as social networker.

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Grassroots organizations/individuals or
communities

• Real challenge would be to work with this group
  cause they have content, queries but dont have
  that much
• Connectivity
• Capacity
• So what could be the possible solutions?

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• Possible way forward could be
• Connecting cell phones with the website where
  people can send or receive blogs, WiKi inputs via
  SMS, can record audio and podcast it directly
  from the cell phone to a website etc. Probably
  there is tool to download RSS updates via cell
  phone too.
• Connecting email with the website where people
  can write blogs or upload documents including
  images and can assign tags via email (example we
  can email pictures to photoflickr account, which
  then can appear to another website via RSS).
• Working with RSS readers where users can download
  content whenever theyre online and can read
  those at their convenience (example Attensa
  plugin for Outlook allows people to download
  content with headline and abstract).
• Integrating other media such as, radio,
  television that can work as a outlet to expand
  the reach of blogs, podcasts or videocasts etc in
  a distributed environment. For example, community
  telecentres are using cable network to relay
  latest podcasts, videocasts or blogs etc. to the
  community.
• Developing solutions for telecentres as for many
  parts of the World, telecentres are the only
  access points for many people. Therefore
  telecentres provide an environment that web 2.0
  need to tested with. Developing capacities and
  building solutions around their needs would be an
  important breakthrough in making web 2.0 relevant
  to the majority of the World.