[UgaBYTES] Are n't Internet cafes becoming a threat to telecentres?

[Dean Mulozi]

Hi Sandra, Sara and Felician, 
Fisrt of all, I stongly believe that Cyber Cafes will never take over the services of the telecenters. Telecenters provide services well beyond that of the Cyber Cafes. There are distincitve characterics of the telecenters that you cannot find in a regular cyber Cafes. 
I will group these in the following: 

1. Community Participation or local inclusiveness 
Telecenters embrace the local community and enable local needs of the population to be included in the telecenter services while Cyber Cafes do not
 
2. Telecenters go beyond commercial objetives, they provide an enabling environment for meeting economic and social objectives of the local communitities 
 
3. The issues of service franchising and partnerships are also distinctitive advantages over Cyber Cafes.    
 
4. Networking and knowledge sharing among telecenters give an edge over Cyber Cafes, 
 
So the services of telecenters are cross cutting and unless telecenter managers are able to know the status of the telecenters and identify add- value sevices, yes telecenters will be comparable to Cyber Cafes. 
 
Again I repeat that telecenters shall remain very important community institutional structures that will stand to drive local development through their inique services. 
 
Telecenter Managers and supervisors should be able to know the status and potential of telecenters to development.  
 
I hope this will provide some input to the discussion


Dean Mulozi, 

Mobile:                  260 978 034196



Dean Mulozi, 
ZAA-ICT/SATNET Regional Facilitator, 
Private Bag 195x Ridgeway, 
Lusaka, 
Zambia.

Contact Phone:   260 211 234 627 
Mobile:                  260 978 034196