[UgaBYTES] Telecentre Magazine - The Fourth edition is here!

[Sheenu]

Dear Readers, 
The fourth issue of telecentre magazine is out. This edition is focusing on the capacity building needs of the telecentre managers and operators. The detailed contents are listed below. You can also download the complete pdf version of the magazine here for free: www.telecentremagazine.net 

Editorial

With Telecentres making their mark in bridging the digital divide, capacity building has come to be of prime importance in making the vision of telecentres a ground reality. Ravi Gupta talks about the role of telecentre operators and the direction of the telecentre movement itself, in attaining the same. 

Read the full article here - http://telecentremagazine.net/articles/article-details.asp?Title=Capacity-building:-The-need-of-the-hour-for-telecentres&articleid=158&typ=Editorial

Face2Face

" Only limits of our own imagination can prevent us from capitalising on the potential of telecenters in poverty reduction and local socio economic development" Venâncio Massingue , The Visionary Behind ICT led Development in Mozambique , in a face to face talk with Vignesh Sornmohan. 

Get the detailed version here - http://telecentremagazine.net/interview/interview-details.asp?interviewid=71

Capital, Capacity and Channels: The Need for Local Innovation

Jayalakshmi Chittoor and Vignesh Sornamohan interview Karishma Kiri, Director with Microsoft Corporation , who believes that the governments, NGOs and corporate should encourage and guide local innovation and concentrate on sustainable content creation and more importantly create a sustainable model of ICT uses in development. 

Read more at - http://telecentremagazine.net/interview/interview-details.asp?interviewid=72

Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua, Chairman, Commission on Information and Communication Technology (CICT), Philippines, shares his experience and vision for the telecentre.org PhilCeC Academy with the telecentre magazine.The CICT, under him, was instrumental in strengthening the Community eCentre (CeC) programme of the Philippines and also the iSchool project, accelerating the ICT initiatives of the Philippines government. 

Read the full Interview at - http://telecentremagazine.net/interview/interview-details.asp?interviewid=73

Articles

Telecentres Stakeholders Forum 2008 - Vignesh Sornamohan and Juanita Kakoty

The fifth in the series of telecentre forums organised by CSDMS, TSF 2008 saw the participation of representatives of the governments; funding agencies; experts from the academia and different organisations. 

The forum brought forth intense debates and deliberations on issues of telecentre innovations, sustainability, content and services; inclusion of the disadvantaged; the status of the Government of India's CSC programme; the trajectory of the Indian telecentre movement as well as the telecentre movements in Asia and parts of Africa.  

To read more - http://telecentremagazine.net/articles/article-details.asp?Title=Telecentre-Stakeholders-Forum-2008-Contributions-to-the-Telecentre-Movement&articleid=159&typ=Event




Telecentre Help Desks: A Cross-Continental Experience - Ahmed Ndaula, Polly Gaster, Leonel Macuacua, Ananya Raihan, Eiko Kawamura 

The telecentre help-desk experience has been quite enriching to the ones associated with it. A small initiative started by UgaBYTES, Uganda is being replicated in other parts of the globe. Though at a nascent stage, its potential in strengthening telecentres to contribute to the agenda of socio-economic development through ICT is enormous since its clear that telecentre help desks are playing a key role in building the capacities of telecentre managers/operators. 

Get the detailed version here - http://telecentremagazine.net/articles/article-details.asp?Title=Telecentre-Help-Desks:-A-Cross-Continental-Experience&articleid=160&typ=Telecentre%20Research




ITU Unveils Global Telecentres Portal at eIndia 2008 - Sandra Pandi 

Although ITU (International Telecommunication Union) has been involved in a number of collaborative telecentre projects over the years, it has now assumed the role of an enabler in the telecentre domain by developing a telecentre portal which aims to capture information on telecentres worldwide and visually display search information on an interactive map, available to all interested stakeholders. 

Read more at - http://telecentremagazine.net/articles/article-details.asp?Title=ITU-Unveils-Global-Telecentres-Portal-at-eIndia-2008&articleid=161&typ=Event




Connecting Telecentres: An Ethiopian Perspective - Al Shiferaw 

The Ethiopian government officially launched a Wide Area Network (WAN) three years ago, connecting nearly 600 woreda (district) administrative offices to their respective regional governments and to a national hub in Addis Ababa. The project, WoredaNet, created a telecentre at each of the Woreda Capacity Building office sites and the story of WoredaNet telecentres reaching even the most remote areas of the country is an incredible one. 

Find out more at - http://telecentremagazine.net/articles/article-details.asp?Title=Connecting-Telecentres:-An-Ethiopian-Perspective&articleid=163&typ=Features




Global telecentre.org Academy: Capacitating the Telecentre Managers - Vignesh Sornamohan and  Reema Singh Gideon 

With the objective to meet the growing capacity needs of grassroot telecentre managers around the world, telecentre.org initiated the telecentre.org academy, part of which is the global telecentre.org academy. Vignesh and Reema talk about the grand launch of the 'Curriculum Commons Grant' and the subsequent awards given away at the event. 

To read the full report - http://telecentremagazine.net/articles/article-details.asp?Title=Global-telecentre.org-Academy:-Capacitating-the-Telecentre-Managers&articleid=164&typ=Features




Celebrating Excellence - Sanjana Sharma

The eINDIA 2008 Conference, India's premier Information and Communication Technologies(ICT) event, was a platform where exemplary works in the field of ICTs were awarded. 

Sanjana presents us with the main highlights of the event at - http://telecentremagazine.net/articles/article-details.asp?Title=Celebrating-Excellence&articleid=165&typ=Features


Telecentre Debates

Dwight Wilson and Subbiah Arunachalam present the alternate sides in the telecentre debate 'Social Development Vs Franchisee Model', the debate facilitated by Kenneth Keniston and Kentaro Toyama. 

To read more at - http://telecentremagazine.net/articles/article-details.asp?Title=Social-Development-Vs-Franchisee-Model&articleid=169&typ=Telecentre%20Debates





CSC Scan

ZOOM Developers: Reaching the Last Mile - Nagendra Singhal

Under the CSC programme, ZOOM Developers (P) Ltd, has been awarded to setup more than 9000 centres in partnership with seven state governments.

Get the full article at - http://telecentremagazine.net/articles/article-details.asp?Title=ZOOM-Developers:-Reaching-the-Last-Mile&articleid=167&typ=CSC%20Scan




Comat Technologies: Touching Rural Lives - Sriram Raghavan 

As a rural economy focused retailing outfit, Comat provides local access to government, education, training, insurance, banking and convenience services, through a network of ICT enabled customer interface channels called Rural Business Centres (RBC). 

Get the complete update at - http://telecentremagazine.net/articles/article-details.asp?Title=Comat-Technologies:-Touching-Rural-Lives&articleid=168&typ=CSC%20Scan


1000 Ideas to make telecentres work




Telecentres for rural banking: Banking the unbanked - Aruna Sundararajan

Telecentres for disaster mitigation - Senthil Kumaran

The authors contribute their ideas on rural banking and disaster mitigation through the telecenters at - http://telecentremagazine.net/articles/article-details.asp?Title=1000-Ideas-To-Make-Telecentres-Work&articleid=166&typ=1000%20Ideas


Country Focus: Egypt

Sustainability Revisited: Egypt IT Clubs

Karim Kasim & Purvi Shah study that in Egypt the infrastructure is in place for ICT based socio-economic development in the form of IT Clubs. However, there have not been enough achievements to complement the infrastructure in place. The need of the hour to turn these IT Clubs into sustainable agents of socio-economic development is to combine the ICT and non ICT based services and diversify their services so that they start earning enough for their own sustainability. Read more at -

http://telecentremagazine.net/articles/article-details.asp?Title=Sustainability-Revisited-:-Egypt-IT-Clubs&articleid=170&typ=Country%20Focus


Grassrots Story

They too can! - Aseem Asha Usman, the coordinator of the media resource center in North West Delhi trains women from predominantly poor, migrant and conservative Muslim families on how to make digital stories, advertisements, graphic designing, animation and game designing. 

Sonia: The other face of Entrepreneurship features Sonia Maria de Silva who runs an NGO that discovers potential skills among men and women who work as scavengers and rag pickers. 

View the pictures and read up the narrative at - 

http://telecentremagazine.net/articles/article-details.asp?Title=They-too-can!-Aseem-Asha-Usman&articleid=171&typ=Grassroots%20Story




Knowledge Resources

Asia-Pacific Telecommunication/ICT Indicators 2008 Broadband in Asia Pacific: too much, too little?

Prepared by: International Telecommunication Union

Sharing the best in development policies, practices and research

The website has several sections on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and telecentre related development issues. Here, we carry some knowledge resources related to ICT and telecentre from Eldis.

Wikis, Webs, and Networks: Creating connections for conflict-prone settings

Author: Rebecca Linder

Publisher: The Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), 2006

Keeping Up With Technology: The use of mobile telephony in delivering community-based decentralised animal health services in Mwingi and Kitui Districts, Kenya

Authors: James Kithuka, Jacob Mutemi, and Ali Hassan Mohamed

Publisher: Farm-Africa, 2007

Pages: 34 

You can find the detailed resources here: http://www.telecentremagazine.net/articles/article-details.asp?Title=Telecentre-Knowledge-Resources&articleid=172&typ=Knoweledge%20Resources



Best Regards,

Sheenu Rajan
Research Assistant - Telecentre Magazine
Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies
G-4, Sector-39, Noida, UP-201301, India
Phones: +91-120-2502180 to 85
Fax: +91-120-2500060
Mobile:9899761451
Email:Sheenu at telecentremagazine.net
Web: www.telecentremagazine.net



The telecentre magazine is produced by the Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies in collaboration with telecentre.org. Published quarterly, it provides an in-depth review and analysis of the role of public access to technology, focusing on research findings, innovations and current thinking and debates.