[UgaBYTES] Ugabytes Technical Support Center: Telecenters stand to benefit

[Dean Mulozi]

Dear all, 
  Having interacted with the Ugabytes technical staff on the status of Ugabytes Online support center and indeed its features, one notes that the online resource support center is very critical to management and development of telecenter and resource ICT centers in the region and beyond. It is also interesting to hear that telecenters have not responded effectively to benefit from the services of the support center. Of course, many challenges can be alluded to that. 

Telecenters and related organizations need regular capacity building and technical support services in order to respond to the challenges of service delivery. Managers and practitioners are confronted with various problems in their day-to-day running of telecenters. For example, issues of connectivity, technical PC maintenance and software packages, power outages etc are some of the constraints affecting telecenters. Thus, telecenter managers, practitioners as well as network leaders should take advantage of the telecenter online resource center. 

The Ugabytes Online Resource Center or Help Desk is a web-based helpline for telecenters and community/ICT resource centers used by both English and French speaking countries. The Help desk exists at Ugabytes in conjunction with telecenter.org. The help desk has a wealth of resource support services from which the telecenter community can benefit i.e. eight (8) resource themes or categories and these are:

•	Management of telecenters, 
•	Training activities 
•	Technical support services and trouble shooting 
•	Social enterprise tools 
•	Content development and services 
•	Marketing and fundraising information 
•	Evaluation of Telecenters
•	And knowledge sharing management    
     
The help desk is a technical platform for telecenters and has three features: The web-based process, live chart and field telecenter extension support. In both features, Ugabytes resource experts and its partners respond to instant questions from the field.   

The support centre is currently under evaluation, whose results will help the people running the help desk make it better to the beneficiaries. The service will definitely make the help desk more responsive to the needs of telecenter communities and related organizations. Whatever the results shall be, the bottom-line is that the telecenter community needs management and technical support services that respond to their own challenges. Telecenters require services driven by their quest to meet social and economic outputs. The need to review the telecenter help desk has cone at a time when telecenters are evolving to enable the local community meet their own needs.              

I strongly believe that the help desk will stand to benefit Telecenters around African region and beyond; and telecenters communities need to take advantage of the support center.  


Dean Mulozi,   


--- On Wed, 10/22/08, Meddie Mayanja <mmayanja at idrc.ca> wrote:

> From: Meddie Mayanja <mmayanja at idrc.ca>
> Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] Telecenter staff exchange programme: SATNET visit to Uganda
> To: "ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org" <ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org>
> Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 7:27 AM
> Thanks Dean,
> 
> Keep these reflections coming....
> 
> Meddie
> 
> ________________________________________
> From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org
> [ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of Dean
> Mulozi [deanmulozi at yahoo.com]
> Sent: October 21, 2008 10:10 AM
> To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
> Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] Telecenter staff exchange
> programme: SATNET visit to    Uganda
> 
> Dear all,
> Telecenters all over developing countries include Africa
> share similar challenges. There a number of challenges
> within the telecenter community in Africa based on
> country-to-country situations or regional environments such
> as capacity development, sustainability, telecenter
> management, connectivity and energy. Emergence of regional
> telecenter networks provides an impetus to knowledge sharing
> and telecenter network experiences in Africa. Such networks
> are the East Africa Telecenter Forum and the emerging
> Southern Africa Telecenter Network (SATNET).
> 
> SATNET is a new regional telecenter network for southern
> African countries. Its key objective is to promote knowledge
> sharing and networking opportunities aiming at telecenters
> to facilitate social and economic development in southern
> Africa.
> Regional knowledge exchanges and interactions are
> increasingly becoming an important instruments to promote
> regional development in Africa.
> 
> Through a staff exchange support initiative under
> IDRC/Telecenter.org, I am visiting Ugabytes Initiative in
> Kampala, Uganda to learn and interact on the key areas on
> the Telecenter development in the region. Among the learning
> areas on the visit agenda are:
>        How Ugabytes have grown to support telecenters in
> East Africa
>        Institutional development of a regional
> telecenter network
>        How East Africa Telecenter Forum is coping with
> networking challenges in the region
>        Services of a national telecenter network
>        Sustainability of a regional and telecenter
> network
>        Resource mobilization
>        Knowledge sharing strategies
>        And other areas of mutual collaboration
> 
> What is currently coming out and experiences at Ugabytes
> Initiative is the refocusing the Ugabytes Initiative
> approach to service delivery versus sustainability.  Earlier
> Ugabytes was offering free services to Telecenters as a way
> of promoting telecenters in the region. The approach was
> realized that sustenance of the organization was hard to
> come by unless other measures are to be taken.
> 
> The needs of the community based telecenters, national
> telecenters and civil society communities embracing ICTs for
> development are being taken into account through the
> strengthening of Ugabytes Initiative capacity. The
> refocusing of the services includes scaling up of technical
> support services, knowledge sharing management and research
> and development units.
> 
> It is envisaged that Ugabytes shall, through social
> enterprising models, poised to sustain its support to
> programme activities even after the resource providers have
> ceased their support.  The organization is coping up with
> the emergence of national telecenters in 5 east African
> countries. During the course of the study visit, SATNET is
> to learn and collaborate as much as possible with Ugabytes
> so as to ensure that the staff exchange and knowledge
> sharing experiences make a meaningful impact to the
> development of telecenters in Southern Africa.
> 
> It is rightly to say that Ugabytes is becoming a strong
> institutional platform for telecenter development in East
> Africa and believe that SATNET is to acquire some of the
> methodologies used by Ugabytes Initiative to support its
> development.  The visit is still ongoing!
> 
> 
> Dean Mulozi,
> ZAA-ICT/SATNET Regional Facilitator,
> Private Bag 195x Ridgeway,
> Lusaka,
> Zambia.
> 
> Mobile:    260 978 034196
> 
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