[UgaBYTES] telecentre.org launches the telecentre.org Academy

[kiringai at willpower.co.ke]

Vignesh,
Wonderful is the only word that describes the strategic benefit of this effort!

Cheers,

Kiringai
Sent from my BlackBerry®

-----Original Message-----
From: "Vignesh" <vignesh at csdms.in>

Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 22:09:45 
To: <PhilCeCNet at yahoogroups.com>; <ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org>; <Bangladesh_Telecentre_Network at yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [UgaBYTES] telecentre.org launches the telecentre.org Academy


telecentre.org, today unveiled its flagship initiative, the telecentre.org 
Academy during the Fifth Convention of Grameen Gyan Abhiyan held at the 
National Agricultural Science Complex, New Delhi in the presence of 
Professor M S Swaminathan, Shri Jairam Ramesh, the Union Minister for Power 
and a number of telecentre stakeholders from the private sector, academia 
and civil society organizations.

The honorable Union Minister for Power, Shri Jairam Ramesh and Professor M S 
Swaminathan welcomed the telecentre.org Academy initiative that shall train 
over 1 million grassroots knowledge professionals around the world by 2015. 
These professionals shall staff telecentres and provide a range of 
affordable services to underserved populace at the base of the pyramid. 
Speaking at the launch, Jairam Ramesh said, the telecentre.org academy will 
play a major role in addressing the question of scale and sustainability of 
the movement.

Dr Basheerhamad Shadrach who heads the telecentre.org Academy initiative at 
the global level mentioned that the launch in India marks the beginning of 
national academies being set up in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, 
Sudan, Mozambique, Egypt, Uganda, Spain, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Brazil and 
Bolivia.

The telecentre.org Academy partners with a host of governments, telecentre 
networks, and a number of institutions such as the Indira Gandhi National 
Open University (IGNOU), India; Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana (UTEM) 
in Chile, University of Brasilia and the University of Philippines' Open 
University.

An initial investment of USD 1.5 million this year shall help to develop 
global standards for curriculum, establishment of localized training 
initiatives and the creation of certification schemes that are linked to 
employability and skills enhancement program for the trainees, Dr Shadrach 
added.

Announcing the launch, Richard Fuchs, the Chairperson of telecentre.org 
spoke about the second generation of telecentres that transform societies 
around the world.  Ever since the first telecentre appeared in Sweden in 
1986, Fuchs mentioned that organizations have learnt various techniques to 
provide ICT-enabled services to underserved and rural communities, 
especially in the developing world. In India, the first telecentre 
established by IDRC and M S Swaminathan Research Foundation has indeed 
resulted in Grameen Gyan Abhiyan, a movement that advocates for the 
establishment of telecentres in each of the 600,000 villages in India, he 
added.

Professor M S Swaminathan mentioned that the telecentre.org - Jamsetji Tata 
Training School shall train personnel to manage each of the 150,000 
telecentres being established in India.  In partnership with a number of 
NGOs, the government agencies and IGNOU, the Academy shall develop a 
continuous learning program for the telecentre operators through distance 
learning techniques. The Indian telecentre.org Academy is managed by the M S 
Swaminathan Research Foundation's Jamsetji Tata Training School, headed by 
Senthilkumaran.

Earlier, Dr Stephen McGurk of IDRC, Dr Francois Binder of SDC and Latif 
Nathani of Microsoft lauded telecentre.org's efforts to address the capacity 
building needs of telecentre operators.

The fifth convention of Grameen Gyan Abhiyan is aimed to align the 
telecentre movement with the various national initiatives of the government 
such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme,
the National Rural Health Mission, Sarva Sikhsa Abhiyan and the Jawaharlal 
Nehru Urban Renewal Mission. A number of Union Ministers including the 
Finance Minister, Shri P Chidhambaram, the Panchayati Raj Minister, Shri 
Mani Shankar Aiyar, the Rural Development Minister, Shri Raghuvansh Prasad 
Singh; and Chief Minister of Delhi Shri Shiela Dixit are participating in 
the convention.  An exhibition of telecentre.org-Microsoft funded Rural 
Innovation Fund Awardees is also organized at the sidelines of the 
convention.

Cheers
Vignesh
Community Facilitator
telecentre.org 
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