Re: [DDN] Digitizing Indian language books
Bibliotheca Alexandria is already doing something about digitization. I heard a talk at Tunis as well as I spoke someone at their stall. Arun - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 8:34 PM Subject: Re: [DDN] Digitizing Indian language books Dear Arun As you speak about African languages: Adama Samassékou is surely a good source, but he is difficult to reach (I don't have his e-mail, but maybe someone in UNECA has). There was also an IFLA-UNECA post-WSIS Workshop on Building of African Capacity to implement the Outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society in the sphere of Libraries and Access to Information and Knowledge. This took place in Addis end of March 2006. More info is at http://www.uneca.org/disd/events/2006/wsis-library/main.html and a short report at http://www.ifla.org/VII/s17/pubs/s17-WISIS-Report2006.pdf . But we should not forget the Library of Alexandria, which could become a repository for Arabic books. I don't know if anyone has information on possible plans of the Bibilotheca Alexandrina regarding digitizing Arabic books? Best Charles Geiger Executive Director WSIS -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Subbiah Arunachalam Sent: samedi, 12. août 2006 06:58 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; The Digital Divide Network discussion group; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Jayaweera, Wijayananda; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; M.Anandakrishnan; Anand Parthasarathy; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; sundar sarukkai; pramod mangla; Alexander Macgillivray; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Vijay Baskar; Heather Ford; 'Puvan J Selvanathan'; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; J Shankar; Dr. Arun K. Chakraborty; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Helen King; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Shaddy; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; T.V.Gopal; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Prof N. Balakrishnan; Rufina Fernandes (NASSCOM Foundation); [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Kalpana Dasgupta; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Heather Morrison; subir sen; Eskedar Nega Subject: [DDN] Digitizing Indian language books Dear Paola and friends: Thanks very much for your whole-hearted support to the idea of digitising books in different languages. I wrote about it to both Microsoft and Google. Ms Ankhi Das of Microsoft, New Delhi, replied stating that she had forwarded my suggestion to the right person (a Tamil speaker) in their Redmont office. I am yet to hear from Google. I have written to them more than once and I spoke to a senior Google official at the Second iCommons meet at Rio de Janeiro a few weeks ago. You say, It would be good to have a parallel developments in character recognition technology, as I am not sure all languages have the equivalent browser compatibe format. The right persons to address these issues are two Indian friends of mine - both amazingly energetic and extraordinarily competent - S Ramani of HP labs in B'lore and Ramki (Ramakrishnan) of CDAC. I am sure they are members of one of these lists and will respond as soon as they see this message. I am also copying this to a professor at IIT Bombay and a professor at IIT Kanpur and officebearers of the Computer Society of India. Surely, corporations such as Google and Microsoft will also have people who can take care of these technical aspects. This morning I met a book publisher (Satya of New Horizon Media Pvrivate limited) over breakfast and he told me that among all Indian languages, Tamil is ahead in blogging and in digitizing books. Many Tamil classics (he cited
[DDN] Digitizing Indian language books
Dear Paola and friends: Thanks very much for your whole-hearted support to the idea of digitising books in different languages. I wrote about it to both Microsoft and Google. Ms Ankhi Das of Microsoft, New Delhi, replied stating that she had forwarded my suggestion to the right person (a Tamil speaker) in their Redmont office. I am yet to hear from Google. I have written to them more than once and I spoke to a senior Google official at the Second iCommons meet at Rio de Janeiro a few weeks ago. You say, It would be good to have a parallel developments in character recognition technology, as I am not sure all languages have the equivalent browser compatibe format. The right persons to address these issues are two Indian friends of mine - both amazingly energetic and extraordinarily competent - S Ramani of HP labs in B'lore and Ramki (Ramakrishnan) of CDAC. I am sure they are members of one of these lists and will respond as soon as they see this message. I am also copying this to a professor at IIT Bombay and a professor at IIT Kanpur and officebearers of the Computer Society of India. Surely, corporations such as Google and Microsoft will also have people who can take care of these technical aspects. This morning I met a book publisher (Satya of New Horizon Media Pvrivate limited) over breakfast and he told me that among all Indian languages, Tamil is ahead in blogging and in digitizing books. Many Tamil classics (he cited the example of Silappathikaram) are already available in digital form. They may be in individual websites, and we may have to make them interoperable for universal open access. I read a few weeks ago about a Microsoft plan to digitize Hindi books. We may also persuade people like Mr Brewster Kahle of Internet Archive and Open Content Alliance to take interest in digitizing Indian language books. There are a number of individuals and institutions in Africa who might be keen on placing all books in African languages on open access repositories. I can name Prof. Adama Samosekou as a great champion of language computing. Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, August 11, 2006 6:37 PM Subject: Re: [participants] [Fwd: [c3net] Digitizing Indian language books] okay Fred good idea - let's start to put the idea onto the wiki and make a list of resources/possibilities and maybe someone (Arun?) would want to develop the idea (I'd love to - but I am also swamped for the mo) as soon as i have a spare yuga pdm On 8/11/06, Frederick FN Noronha [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Project Gutenberg could be a good place to pool initiatives. I understand they were interested in working on ancient Indian texts too... given the interest among Indologists worldwide. FN On 11/08/06, Jac SM Kee [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i wish i could paola! but at the moment, i'm afraid i dont have the resources to initiate this. what i could do is connect you with arun, and maybe some synchronicity might catalyse something :) jac [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What a great idea I actually have some Tamil classics (with translations) on my coffe table, and of course Sanskrit, Pali, have some important original documents that need to be made accessible and studied online Why don't you start a programme, and get in touch with relevant institutions in the respective countries to join in and get the ball rolling? It would be good to have a parallel developments isn charachter recognition technology, as I am not sure all languages have the equivalent browser compatibe format I am sure you can get lots of people interested, hopefully also UNESCO as a world heritage programme I am in cheers ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] Wikipedia on low-costs PCs must be live!
Friends: Wikipedia in its present form also signals 'liveness' of content. On a lap-top it is a version of an e-content dated XX.YY.ZZ. We may have to capture the liveness property of Wikipedia on all low-cost computers meant for individuals. Otherwise, there is a good chance that this e-content is something like the books kept in the shelf. Some bibliophiles dust them occassionally. In other words, IMHO, we need some methods to induce the study of the content on Wikipedia. For school children, one may give a short exercise every week. Whether the teacher evaluates it or not, the children do the exercise. The teacher can take a look at them randomly to keep up the tempo. I need your kind advice [at your kind convenience] in the case of individuals who tend to look at a book in the shop and set a syllabus and question paper based on a given pattern. More importantly, those who carry the lap-top that has Wikipedia on it and deliver key-note addresses in conference [particularly National ones]. Thanks and Regards Gopal T V Anna University ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Jimmy Wales announces Wikipedia/$100 laptop alliance, Wikiversity, Wikiwyg
I would like to see Wikipedia partner with the rural knowledge centres of India's Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre and provide an updated version of Wikipedia every two or three months to be loaded the PCs in these centres. Arun - Original Message - From: Andy Carvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Subbiah Arunachalam [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Senthil Kumaran [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Shaddy [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 4:44 PM Subject: Re: [DDN] Jimmy Wales announces Wikipedia/$100 laptop alliance, Wikiversity, Wikiwyg Well, that's the long-term plan of Wikipedia ac Subbiah Arunachalam wrote: Why should we not have a free copy of Wikipedia in all low-cost computers meant for individuals, schools and other public access centres in the rural areas of developing countries? Arun - Original Message - From: Andy Carvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, August 04, 2006 7:31 PM Subject: [DDN] Jimmy Wales announces Wikipedia/$100 laptop alliance, Wikiversity, Wikiwyg Today at the second annual Wikimania conference, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announced that MIT's $100 laptops will all include a copy of Wikipedia. He also announced the launch of Wikiversity, an online community for generating learning materials, and Wikiwyg, a easy-to-use interface for editing Wikipedia, developed in conjunction with SocialText. More here: http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2006/08/jimmy_wales_announce.html -- -- Andy Carvin acarvin (at) edc . org andycarvin (at) yahoo . com http://www.andycarvin.com http://www.digitaldivide.net http://www.pbs.org/learningnow -- ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. -- -- Andy Carvin acarvin (at) edc . org andycarvin (at) yahoo . com http://www.andycarvin.com http://www.digitaldivide.net http://www.pbs.org/learningnow -- ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] Need to build intellectual commons
Here is an interesting argument in favour of making knowledge flow freely without barriers. From Peter Suber's blog. Subbiah Arunachalam Building a positive intellectual commons Peter Drahos, A Defence of the Intellectual Commons, Consumer Policy Review, May/June 2006. Excerpt: For present purposes, the 'intellectual commons' refers to information, where information is used as a generic term to mean things like verified knowledge (for example, the structure of the DNA molecule), data, interpretations of that data, techniques, information embodied in technology, the products of technology (for example, music) and many other discrete classes of information. I will argue that monopoly rights in the form of intellectual property rights are an especially bad idea for the intellectual commons. Amongst other things, information cannot be depleted through use Pharmaceutical, software and media companies argue for and obtain, usually by means of trade agreements, stronger and stronger forms of intellectual property that are backed by the coercive power of civil and criminal lawIn essence, private monopolists are using intellectual property law to command our obedience over new arrangements for the intellectual commons The intellectual commons can be distinguished from the public domain. The latter draws its meaning from the laws of intellectual property, while the former is a political expression of community when it comes to social arrangements for use rights over information. Hardin's tragedy of the commons does not apply to the intellectual commons. In fact, the intellectual common is subject to the law of repletion. It grows rather than depletes through useA negative common in which monopolists gain the power of restriction over the commoners slows down the operation of the law of repletion and, more importantly, represents a net loss of freedom. Self-organized positive intellectual commons will become more prevalent as citizens conclude that governments, because they have been corrupted by the wealth of big business, will not deliver the institutions of knowledge that citizens want. Citizens will, through social licences, construct variants of the positive intellectual commons that maximize their use rights over the informational assets that matter to their ends in life, commons that will help to disperse the centralizing power of private monopoly over information. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] Fw: Welcome to the Discussion
Friends: In case you have not heard about this new discussion group .. There are a few articles, in the resources section, on OA in different countries and regions. If this discussion group attracts many in Africa to join and if it creates great enthusiasm for OA in Africa, it would be very good. Agencies such as IDRC, IICD, Hivos, CoL, UNECA and SDC may not only kindly follow developments but may proactively promote OA in Africa. Often people tend to see the great value of open access in the context of research. But OA is also important in distance learning and in development. Best wishes. Arun - Original Message - From: Sue Adams To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 1:48 AM Subject: Welcome to the Discussion Greetings from the Coady International Institute, and welcome to our online discussion on Open Access and Information for Development. We have around 95 participants from 19 countries registered so far ~ The discussion messages will come to your e-mail. You can contribute to the discussion by replying to the message (remember that your response will go to everyone on the list!) or by sending a new message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you want to send a message to only one person, please do not use the Reply option. The group also has a web page where we have posted some interesting papers to begin the discussion. One is a general introduction to Open Access, and there are also several short papers giving regional perspectives on Open Access. These papers were written specially for our discussion by participants who work in Nigeria, Tanzania, Nepal, Vietnam and Mongolia. You may want to look at the papers before the discussion officially begins on May 29. You can go to the discussion web page to read the papers at this address: http://www.dgroups.org/groups/openaccess You may be asked to enter your e-mail address and a password. You should have already received a message giving you an initial password (which you can change, if you wish). If you have any trouble accessing the web page, please let me know! Email me directly at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Best wishes, Sue Adams Coady International Institute ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] $100 laptop includes WiFi
Dave Chakrabarti has a point. Local content is vital. The knowledge centres and information villages of MSSRF (supported by IDRC) constantly seek new content and virtually all of their content is in the local language, Tamil. What is more the local people are trained to gather and process information and MSSRF staff and some village volunteers create databases which are shared with a group of villages. Also, MSSRF has built partnerships with a variety of organizations (and individuals) to get authentic information. Among their partners are veterinary colleges, agricultural universities, hospitals, NGOs, government departments, banks and experts in both content and technology. MSSRF is also an important partner in the Open Knowledge Network and it conducts an annual eight-day South-South Exchange Travelling Workshop for ICT4D workers from Africa, Asia and latin America. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Dave A. Chakrabarti [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2006 10:37 PM Subject: Re: [DDN] $100 laptop includes WiFi I think the problem is that the chicken can't come before these eggs. I was at the national wireless summit in St. Charles last weekend, and something I heard over and over is that (in the United States) equipment isn't really the problem...even the last mile solutions that everyone's talking about aren't really the problem. The problem is the backhaul, and the bandwidth costs. If there's no cheap, reliable way to get upstream bandwidth, projects are choked off. In a developing nation, that problem is multiplied because backhaul / upstream bandwidth is much more expensive. Then the problem is compounded by lack of content (especially locally created content in the vernacular) and lack of training. Arun Mehta spoke last weekend to point out the majority of the leaders in the community wireless movement are white North Americans or Europeans, and said we need to think about developing systems to share our knowledge to educate a generation of leaders from the developing world. Some of these issues are actually going to be more expensive to address than the actual hardware...though it's much, much easier to market yourself if you're the guy selling the hardware. One laptop per child is a catchier slogan than one Mb upstream bandwidth per child or one trained instructor for 20 children etc, even though some of those goals might be actually be more challenging (and more worthwhile) to work towards. Dave. --- Dave A. Chakrabarti Projects Coordinator CTCNet Chicago [EMAIL PROTECTED] (708) 919 1026 --- Cindy Lemcke-Hoong wrote: Hello Taran, That is what makes this whole thing so interesting for me. Normally we would talk about the infrastructure first ... I am just being sarcastic of course. As I recalled countries such as Brazil, China and Nigeria (I could be wrong about the name of the countries) already put in order for 100millions laptop. Delivery time as I understand is sometime before the end of this year. Perhaps the chicken would come before the eggs? Taran Rampersad [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's all a very good idea if there is an infrastructure for the wireless to connect to. The money for those laptops could be spent on infrastructure so that there is actually something to connect to, instead of something that will be outdated in one evolution of Moore's Law... 18 months. Cindy Lemcke-Hoong wrote: Here is an followed-up article on the $100 laptop for every child. I found it on the OpenSpectrum.info website. http://www.volweb.cz/horvitz/os-info/news-feb06-017.html The interesting part of the news, for me, is the addition of WiFi, and this sentence below. Some of Negroponte's MIT associates are also following him to his OLPC non-profit to assist, which speaks even more highly of this highly-regarded initiative. Cindy [EMAIL PROTECTED] = [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] $100 laptop includes WiFi
A project which has paid much attention to all the other (non-technology) factors is the Village knowledge Centre project of M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, largely supported by IDRC. It is a holistic project aiming to achieve all round rural development in which ICTs do play a part. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Dave A. Chakrabarti [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2006 10:17 AM Subject: Re: [DDN] $100 laptop includes WiFi The ability to mesh network was included in this laptop's specs from the beginning, if I remember correctly. We've discussed this topic to death...I really don't see anything very new in Negropointe's work so far. I'll be more inclined to think well of the project if it's implemented in a suitable fashion...with decent levels of support (hardware, software, and networking), wireless internet infrastructure, internet backhaul equipment and upstream bandwidth procurement at affordable costs (and paid by whom?), initiatives to train and support teachers and content creators in developing nations, etc. Otherwise, I don't really see the point. Haven't generations of experiences proven that throwing technology at a problem accomplishes nothing? This project seems to allocate an undue amount of funding towards technology, with little or no thought for all of the other factors that create a successful community technology movement. Dave. --- Dave A. Chakrabarti Projects Coordinator CTCNet Chicago [EMAIL PROTECTED] (708) 919 1026 --- Cindy Lemcke-Hoong wrote: Here is an followed-up article on the $100 laptop for every child. I found it on the OpenSpectrum.info website. http://www.volweb.cz/horvitz/os-info/news-feb06-017.html The interesting part of the news, for me, is the addition of WiFi, and this sentence below. Some of Negroponte's MIT associates are also following him to his OLPC non-profit to assist, which speaks even more highly of this highly-regarded initiative. Cindy [EMAIL PROTECTED] = [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] The relevance of Open access to development
Friends: UNESCO is championing open access. Organizations such as ICSU, CODATA and IFLA are also supporting the spreading of the culture of open access. The Ukrainian parliament has adopted a resolution to mandate open access (of all publicly funded research). And yet many developing countries, including India, China and Brazil, have not adopted OA in a big way. Open Access is especially important for development. As Professor M S Swaminathan points out, for development to take place knowledge sharing is important at four levels, viz. lab-to-lab, lab-to-land, land-to-lab and land-to-land. Here lab stands for scientists, researchers and experts. And land stands for farmers, fishermen, and the common people in general. There should be knowledge flow among experts, among the common people and two-way flow between the two. Open Access (as promoted by people like Stevan Harnad, Peter Suber, Leslie Chan, Alma Swan, and others and institutions such as the Open Society Institute, CERN, Wellcome Trust, University of Southampton, etc.) facilitates lab-to-lab knowledge flows. And the knowledge centres set up by the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (and to be set up all over rural India by Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre) facilitate the other three kinds of knowledge flows. If all four kinds of knowledge flows take place without a hitch, then it should be easy to achieve most development objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals. It is for this reason, Prof. Bruce Alberts, former President of the US National Academy of Sciences, continues to be a great admirer of both the work of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation in the area of ICT-enabled holistic development and the idea of using science to leverage overall development of the less developed countries, especially those in Africa. Science and laboratory research may appear to be far from poverty reduction and capacity building in rural areas. But visionaries like Swaminathan and Bruce Alberts have shown that they are intimately connected. They are two facets of a continuous spectrum. As Leslie Chan of the University of Toronto has pointed out access to research literature is a key to capacity building in Africa and other developing countries. It is for this reason, I would urge enlightened development organizations such as the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP), International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and OneWorld, science academies of the world, and the many United Nations and other international agencies and governments of both developed and developing countries to pay attention to improving knowledge flows through a better understaning and support of open access, open source and open science. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Here is a news story from Peter Suber's blog Open Access News UNESCO endorses OA On September 22, UNESCO adopted Amendments to the Draft Programme and Budget for 2006-2007 that have the effect of endorsing OA. (Thanks to Heather Morrison.) Excerpt: [UNESCO] Requests the Member States (a) to foster through the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) dissemination of the principles of open access; (b) to foster dissemination of the principles of open access, particularly in universities; (c) to promote developing countries' open access to archives for the sake of spreading scientific know-how; Invites the Director-General (a) to assess the feasibility of creating a database on existing open access initiatives worldwide and to report at the forthcoming sessions of the Executive Board and the General Conference on the progress of open access strategies throughout the world; (b) to promote a network of national working groups with a view to fostering open access in their universities, to cooperate internationally in initiatives and projects on the subject of open access, and to promote the training of experts for cooperation in the publication of and open access to texts free of charge. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] [Fwd: A new OA archive for ICT-enabled development]
Friends: OneWorld South Asia, New Delhi, has set up an Open Access archive for ICT-enabled development: http://open.ekduniya.net We will be grateful if you could visit the site and comment on it. Your suggestions will be of great value. Please send them to Dr B Shadrach, Director, OWSA, at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with cc to [EMAIL PROTECTED]. Thanks and regards. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Computers for education, health, etc
Kris Dev has a point. Simple but often missed. Arun Dear all, I believe if computers have to be really made useful in education, health, etc, there must be a long term plan of investment in creating suitable learning and health tools in an integrated way, rather than a disjointed way. The $100 laptop should go with a $ 100 investment in hardware, software, peripherals like projectors, scanners, printers, etc for education, health, etc.in atransparent way. Unless this is ensured and assured, the investment may go a waste in the long term , just as most deskcomputers given to schools and hositals are grossly under utilized, similar to computers in most government offices, used as elevated typewriters!! We are trying to change all these in a small way. Kris Dev http://ll2b.blogspot.com. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Re: Re: [simputer] Selling the Simputer.
I agree with Errol Hewitt that we need to promote INNOVATION (and research) in developing countries. That is why I and a small (but growing) group of friends around the world are promoting open access to scientific literature. Believe me the ability to innovate is not an exclusive privilege of a few. My friend Anil Gupta of Honeybee Network has been documenting indigenous innovations in India and elsewhere for over a decade. Many small and medium sized companies in India have come up with outstanding (and cost-saving) innovations. Arun Hi Taran, Agreed!! but beyond that must be the understanding of how critical it is for INNOVATION [in every area-- including engineering etc]to become a focus in developing countries. This is critical. We cannot leave innovation in engineering for example to be centred in only the developed world only because they can currently mass produce. We have to develop our own research, scientific and engineering prowess etc. So many other things hang on this reality. Errol Hewitt ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] Royal Society Fellows supporting OA
Friends: Here is a letter sent by many Fellows of the Royal Society who support open access to Lord Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society. More Fellows (FRS) are expected to sign. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] Lord Martin Rees President Royal Society 6-9 Carlton Terrace London SW1Y 5AG 7th December 2005 Dear Lord Rees As Fellows of the Royal Society, we would like to express our disappointment with the Society's recent position statement1 on open access to published research. The society's statement, which takes a largely negative stance on open access, appears to be aimed at delaying implementation of the Research Councils UK's proposed policy2 on access to research outputs. As working scientists who support open access to published research, we believe that the Society should support RCUK's proposal, rather than oppose it. The proposed RCUK policy will ensure that the results of research funded by the Research Councils are made freely and rapidly available, maximizing their utility not only to the scholarly community in the United Kingdom and around the world, but also to practitioners (including doctors and nurses) and to the British public whose taxes largely support the research. The RCUK policy has strong backing from librarians and academics, and has received official support3 from Universities UK, the organization that represents UK university vice-chancellors and principals. In seeking to delay or even to block the proposed RCUK policy, the Royal Society appears to be putting the concerns of existing publishers (including the Society itself) ahead of the needs of science. The position statement ignores considerable evidence demonstrating the viability of open access, instead warning ominously of 'disastrous' consequences for science publishing. We believe that these concerns are mistaken. The move towards open access to research literature builds on the tradition of making research data openly available, a standard that is well established within the scientific community. For example, free availability of genetic data, such as the genome sequences of humans, mice, pathogens and plants, has greatly accelerated the pace of research in both academic and commercial settings In adopting a pro-open access policy, RCUK will be joining an increasing number of funding agencies striving for open access to research results. In the UK, the Wellcome Trust has already taken a lead by requiring that articles be placed in an openly accessible archive. In the US, funders such as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institutes of Health have adopted policies to increase access to research. And across Europe and the rest of the world funding agencies are recognizing that public access to the fruits of the research they fund will ensure that this work is effective in fostering the global sharing of knowledge and the creativity that is essential to scientific endeavour. As Fellows, we urge the Royal Society not to delay the proposed RCUK policy, but to support it so as to foster professional and public access to research information, and to enable British research to achieve its maximum potential. Sincerely, Professor Michael Ashburner FRS, European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, UK Professor Jonathan Ashmore FRS, University College London, UK Professor Allan Bradley FRS, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK Professor Adrian Bird FRS, University of Edinburgh, UK Professor Martin Bobrow FRS, University of Cambridge, UK Professor Mark S Bretcher FRS, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK Professor Jeremy Brockes FRS, University College London, UK Professor Ian Butterworth FRS, Imperial College, London, UK Professor George Cross FRS, Rockefeller University, New York City, NY, USA Professor Kay E Davies FRS, MRC Functional Genetics Unit, Oxford, UK Dr Richard Durbin FRS, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK Professor Douglas T Fearon FRS, University of Cambridge, UK Professor Mike Gale FRS, John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK Dr Michel Goedert FRS, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK Professor Peter Goodfellow FRS, UK Professor Michael B. Green FRS, University of Cambridge, UK *Professor Brian Greenwood FRS, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK Professor Norman N Greenwood, FRS, University of Leeds, UK Professor Frank Grosveld FRS, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands *Professor Paul Harvey FRS, University of Oxford, UK Professor Nick Hastie FRS, MRC Human Genetics Unit, Edinburgh, UK Professor Brigid Hogan FRS, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA Professor Jonathan C Howard FRS, University of Cologne, Germany Professor Thomas Jessell FRS, Columbia University, New York, USA Professor Marc Kirschner ForMemRS, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA, USA Professor Donald Knuth ForMemRS, Stanford University, CA, USA Professor Arthur Kornberg FRS and Nobel
[DDN] Re: [bytesforall_readers] Laptop for $100
great admiration for MIT, for it is the first higher educational institution in the world to make available its courseware for free on the web. Let me once again wish all success to the One Child One laptop project all success. And thank Mr Jha for commenting on my views. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Re: $100 laptop
Yes, Cindy, I agre with you. Horses for courses, as they say. The local context determines what tools will be useful and what kind of solutions are appropriate. As Mahatma Gandhi had said, the cusomer (or client) is supreme. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Cindy Lemcke-Hoong [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 10:19 PM Subject: Re: [DDN] Re: $100 laptop Apology for not able to write perfect and coherentEnglish. Sorry, but here is what I wrote again: NO ... 1st world tools can solve 3rd world problems ... IF and ONLY they apply appropriately. ... Sending a Yale professor to teach first year primary school English would not be the right tool I am sure?? Cindy [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mark Warschauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: NO ... 1st world tools can solve 3rd world problems ... Cindy I guess that rules out your idea of using TVs! :-) mark ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. = [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Laptop for $100
I agree with you Cindy. If you think that the One Laptop for One Child project is ill conceived you are free to say so and do all that is within your powers to stop it. When I said (what you have quoted), I was only upholding my belief in evidence-based decision making. Regards. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Cindy Lemcke-Hoong [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 10:13 PM Subject: Re: [DDN] Laptop for $100 Hello Arun, Much you have written were great and inline with my thoughts. but What I am most fear is these lines: We should wait till mid-2007, when hopefully a large number of children would have actually used the laptop, before we know if it is really as good as it is expected to be BY they 100 millions UDS been spent ... and then we should do an assessment? IF so much money has been spent, even if it is disaster, nobody would dare to say it especially those high officials who signed the order (of 100millions lap-tops) !! The discussions should go on and we should make as much noise as possible before a POSSIBLE great big spending goes down the wrong chute! Cindy [EMAIL PROTECTED] = [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] Laptop for $100
The hundred dollar laptop for schoolchildren has received much - in fact too much - attention in the media and in this discussion list. There is an ancient saying in Tamil, and I give a rough translation: Irrespective of from whom you hear of a thing, you must try to find out the truth behind it. While I wish Prof. Negroponte, the Media Lab and the new laptop all success, we should pay heed to the Tamil saying and look at the facts dispassionately. Here is a product, which is not yet ready and as admitted by the project leader will take many months before it can reach the intended clients. Even so, it is announced at a major world event, attended by 23,000 people from around the world (as one press release noted). Two high profile individuals - Secretary General Kofi Annan and Prof. Negroponte - were there at the ceremony at WSIS, Tunis, and a very large number of people from the media were there to cover the event. Already there are products sold in the market at around the same price, the 99 dollar Dell PC for example. There have been developing country initiatives such as the Simputer. But they have not got so much media play and publicity. Many in this list have commented that the programme looks like a top-down effort. We should wait till mid-2007, when hopefully a large number of children would have actually used the laptop, before we know if it is really as good as it is expected to be. In the meanwhile, some people are wondering if such huge sums of money - the minimum one can order is a million units - could be better invested in creating infrastructure or setting up community telecentres. Good questions to investigate. Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Lisa Thurston To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 5:32 AM Subject: [bytesforall_readers] Re: Laptop for $100: good- should we take it literally?? Fred sent us a link to an article by Lee Felsenstein (http://fonly.typepad.com/fonlyblog/2005/11/problems_with_t.html) which pointed out there has been very little research in the target communities and interviewing of target users, that the approach to distributing (or marketing) these little green machines has been predominantly top-down through the governments of the countries. What did those of you who saw the $100 laptop at WSIS think of this statement by Felsenstein. Is it valid? And if it is, doesn't the OLPC project not very well thought out? Lisa (here is my trackback to Lee's post too: http://digital-inclusion.blogspot.com/2005/11/100-laptop-risks-being-too-cool-for.html) SPONSORED LINKS K byte Communication and networking Giga byte Wireless communication and networking South asia Bit byte -- YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS a.. Visit your group bytesforall_readers on the web. b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. -- ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] Re: [bytesforall_readers] While in Tunis...
Friends: Partha wrote about WSIS, Tunis: I understand integration and partnership are the words that are most talked about while in reality this hardly exists. I wish Partha had visited th GKP pavilion and met the GKP partners. It all looked like a happy family. There were many events calculated to inform the members about the activities of other members. There were policymakers and officials as well as grassroots workers and village knowledge centre managaers among them, all mingling as equals. Different people took turn to make tea and coffee and clean the tables. Almost all of them stayed at the same hotel in the city centre and there was so much goodwill and networking. It is all because of the willingness of the members, no doubt, but we should also recognise the enormous efforts put in by the GKP staff headed by the charming and efficient Rinalia and the vision, manageril acumen and genuine concern of our wonderful cahairman, Ambassador Walter Fust. In late 2007, GKP will be organizing the Global Knowledge conference -III, when all of us will see the power of knowledge sharing and partnership in full play. Incidentally, GKP works closely with IDRC, SDC, APC, UNESCO, and many other organizations, big and small. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: partha [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 4:56 AM Subject: [bytesforall_readers] While in Tunis... 20th November, Charles Du Gaul Airport, Paris While in Tunis... Partha Pratim Sarker/Bytes for All Shahzad did a great job in keeping the readers updated through his blogs. I was planning to do something too but I missed many of the happenings as I arrived late- on the 16th instead of the 13th- the date that I initially planned for. I missed the flight due to Air Canada delay and couldn't take any other flights that were overbooked until the 15th. Anyway, this delay in arrival put me in a hectic schedule of meetings within a short span of time. Sometimes it wasn't even that productive but in an event like WSIS you hardly can avoid meeting people, having formal conversations or even discovering friends, colleagues and networker whom you don't see for a long time. And as said by Shahzad, you can start fixing faces behind the email addresses. But I've many interesting experiences at WSIS. For example, one evening in Tunis I was travelling back to my hotel by bus and the lady who was sitting next to me was talking to me in French. When I've problems explaining things in French, she started speaking to me in English and informed me that she used to work with a writer group in USA. Interestingly when she came to know that I'm originally from Bangladesh and work in ICT4D field, she asked me whether I know anything about bytes for all network? I hid my identity and asked her why? She said, she is subscribed to this list and felt it a very interesting and vibrant group. 'Get yourself subscribed to bytes for all, if you aren't already' that the lady told me before she got off the bus. I think the value of Internet is that the wave of network comes back to the source in a spiral progression. But my greatest regret is that I missed a chance to have an audio interview with Richard Stallman whom I've talked to for a while outside the exit gate of the hotel where we all had been staying. Richard along with Shazad (from b4all Pakistan), Maxigus (from APC) were on their way to visit Cathrage - a very old city destroyed by the Roman Empire. Anyway, I'd a brief conversation with him and Richard told me to pronounce my consonants more clearly. I felt, not only consonants but also many other things need to be pronounced clearly. Richard on the other day was requesting everyone to wrap an aluminium foil on the WSIS ID card that has RFID stick. This RFID stick can help detecting someone's whereabout through a scanner nearby. It was difficult to find any stall or a venue at the conference pavilion. I felt the things were not designed systematically and I have been lost several times to find a venue or a stall. At the conference pavilion our address was APC stall in the BCO pavilion which was packed with bloggers, networkers, activists, partners etc. You hardly could find any space at this pavillion. A lady even told me that she went to APC booth but couldn't dare to go inside as it was full with people in their laptops. Anyway, on the last day of the WSIS event, BCO hosted a lunch which we all joined and tasted some delicious food from Tunis. I was carrying an i-river tool that Mark of telecentre.org lent me to do some podcasting of telecentre.org programs and interviewing telecentre organizers/operators whom they have invited from across the World. Allen Gunner was facilitating the workshop on a bit aspiration-open space model and the workshop was very interesting. I met so many interesting initiatives and ran interviews as well. But I'd some technical
Re: [DDN] Photos of the $100 Laptop, Booth, Meetings etc.
Dear Emanuel: You are not going to get the hundred dollar computer soon. It is NOT YET PRODUCED. They have just used the WSIS event to make a high profile announcement with a prototype. When it is ready you and I cannot buy it. The minimum order they would accept is a million units! One should have one hundred million dollars to buy this gadget. Then the million pieces should be distributed to children, many of them living in remote villages. We would better devote our time and energy on pursuits which will yield some concrete results. As Larry Press said, if a government has so much money they may think of investing part of it in communications infrastructure and the rest in setting up community telecentres. Arun Dear Terry, Where can one find these 100 dollar laptops? Are they real? We really would do with such facilities here in Africa. Or is it one of those offers only applicable to 'US Residents' ? So many 'free' computer offers are not applicable to addressees from the developing (or is underdeveloped) countries. Apologies for being not so diplomatic. These are only voices of the desparate. Warmest regards, Emmanuel I put up a few photos I took the other day at WSIS, of the Laptop physical mockup, a Beta running version which I got to play with for a couple of minutes, and the interested crowds, as seen from inside the booth. There are also a couple of shots from the UNESCO meeting on making the Knowledge Society work, where Nick Negroponte had an interesting exchange with the Communications Minister of (I think) Mali, who was trying to decide how much of his budget to spend on ICT infrastructure. Take a look at: http://www.terryking.us/photos/WSIS2005/$100laptop Other Subject: Negroponte also made a controversial prediction, during a discussion of multilingualism, that at some future time, there would be one world language, and the Local languages would be Second languages. Pressed on what the Universal language would be, he said A mixture of English and Chinese... Regards, Terry King ...On The Mediterranean in Carthage, Tunisia [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Video: the $100 laptop at WSIS
Many peopole taking part in this list may not be aware how difficult it is for a government to procure one million units of anything and distributing it throughout the country. Being able to make a computer is one thing, and working with governments and ensuring proper distribution is another. While I wish all success for the MIT initiative, I wish they also consider the whole project in a holistic perspective. Ask people like Sam Pitroda who many years ago helped India provide low cost access to telephoones in cities, small towns and even villages. That kind of experience may be useful. Arun On Fri, 2005-11-18 at 10:19 +0100, Andy Carvin wrote: Honestly, I think probably not. One thing Negroponte has been emphasizing is that they only want to work with national governments willing to purchase laptops in batches of one million or more. That's one of the ways they intend to keep costs down. I don't know if Italy is one of the initial countries signed up to partner with them. -andy Andy - At least theoretically, is there anything preventing a national government from ordering a batch of one million that primarily would be distributed to schools but partially re-sold to NGOs, individuals, etc. at the bulk rate? In essence, a government would be bundling the orders from all sources in their country in order to obtain the economies to scale and to keep the price low. KJM -- Kelly J. Morris [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
RE: [DDN] A Littl' More On Bridging the Digital Divide in the US
Friends: Community ownership and public good approach are being practised in the information village research project of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation in India for the past nearly ten years. Technology costs money and most people in rural India cannot afford to buy computers and get connected. But if all of them can share a common facility - a knowledge centre - the problem can be overcome. The MSSRF project has led to many benefits for the local people. Including women empowerment, improved livelihood opportunities, greater awareness and self confidence. The people are bringing out their own community newspaper (twice a month). They produce their own radio programmes under the guidance of a retired veterinary doctor. They share indigenous and traditional knowledge and culinary notes with people in six African countries through the Open Knowledge Network, thought of by Peter Armstrong of OneWorld. This is nothing new. My own education was largely supported by state fundsnvested on my education was a small part of the total costs. That goes for most Indians even today, including the many thousands living and working in the USA, Canada and other advanced countries. That is what Gandhi (Anthyodaya and trusteeship) and Ruskin (unto the last) stood for. What we cannot achieve individually, we can achieve collectively. It is indeed obscene to expect EVERYONE to pay for services in a country where 26% of people live below poverty line and a good proportion of people are illiterate and one sixth of the population is outside the 'caste system' (despite all well-meaning laws in favour of treating everyone equal). Prof. Negroponte thinks it will be good if every school child has a computer at home. Nothing wrong. It is good to test his ideas on the ground. Most Indians who have made a big difference to the IT industry in Silicon Valley and elsewhere never had a computer at home. They all went to average computer training schools where they had a few hours at the terminal every week against payment. In the villages of Pondicherry, a few thousand villagers have acquired some proficiency in using computers through training programmes provided by the knowledge centres set up with MSSRF's help. Hardly anyone has a computer at home. And the Pondicherry model can be much more cost effective. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] Imagine a village, in Africa perhaps, where 200 literates are ready to use computers. Their average yearly income is $300 US. Forcing the personal computer solution--even when the $100 computer becomes a reality-- requires that each family pay one-third of its annual income for the device. Service and maintenance and the other costs associated with perosnal computer eats further into tthe meager family budget. $20,000 US for computer plus related expenses: an invitation unlikely to happen quickly, a slow and painful way to cross the digital divide. The social computer alternative: The village association or cooperative purchases 20 computers at $100, for $2000 US. Each villager who wants to use the computers pays an annual fee: say $25. Such a fee pays for the cost of the computers plus a sum for maintenance and service and other related expenses. Even $25 is difficult for a family living on $300. In the light of the history of squandered donor aid in the Third World, Negroponte's notion of having governments buy and distribute the computers to families seems like an invitation to more of the same. The analogy to the public library (or the public school, or the public road, or the public water supply) is this: if 200 people who cannot afford to buy the book have access to 10or 20 copies of the book, all can read it, even though they may have to wait a bit. This is not a socialist fantasy, but a proven social response to human needs. Perhaps the best metaphor for the social approach to the digital divide is the bridge, the public bridge across any divide. The bridge allows many to cross the divide, although they may have to wait a bit for their turn. The social computer allows many to enjoy the benefits of the new communication technologies, to cross the digital divide before they can afford to cross it on their own. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Taran Rampersad Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2005 8:58 AM To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group Subject: Re: [DDN] A Littl' More On Bridging the Digital Divide in the US Dr. Steve Eskow wrote: My own hunch is that leaping the stage of the social computer and moving immediately to the personal computer is an invitation to failure. Well, if you think in terms of computers, I can understand that hunch. But a network of computers is a separate thing; a 'social computer' is also a computer that allows social networking by allowing access to others across a network. So if people have
[DDN] Fw: [GKP] GKP/MSSRF South-South Exchange Traveling Workshop 2005 - Call for participation!
Friends: Here is an announcement on the Fourth South-South Exchange Travelling Workshop. It is open to development workers using ICTs in their programmes and restricted to participants from developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The working language is English. Please spread the word! Applications may be sent to GKP, Kuala Lumpur, and not to MSSRF, Chennai. Thanks. Arun -- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: GKP/MSSRF South-South Exchange Traveling Workshop 2005 - Call for participation! -- GKP/MSSRF South-South Exchange Traveling Workshop 2005 - Call for participation! The South-South Exchange Traveling Workshop 2005 will be hosted by GKP member, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), from 28 November to 5 December 2005. The workshop, supported by the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), provides an opportunity for the exchange of knowledge and perspectives between village communities in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry in southern India and civil societies from developing countries with a specific focus on ICT-enabled development. This action-learning workshop will: 1.. help participants learn about how to integrate modern ICT effectively in their development projects, 2.. provide perspectives regarding various technologies and innovations involved in rural ICT, and 3.. help participants to blend ICT in the local knowledge management process The workshop is one of GKP's efforts in facilitating learning from concrete, on the ground, practical knowledge in the use of ICT for development. Participation is open to programme officers and implementers of ICT-enabled development projects (NGOs, Consultants, private sector as well as governments) from developing countries, who should be in a position to make immediate use of what they have learnt in the workshop in their projects/ programmes. The deadline for applications is 23 September 2005. For more information and to submit an application online, please visit: www.globalknowledge.org/southsouth2005 For more information, contact us at: Global Knowledge Partnership Secretariat Lot L2-I-4, Enterprise 4, Technology Park Malaysia, Bukit Jalil, 57000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Tel: 603-8996 2379 Fax: 603-8996 2382 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website: www.globalknowledge.org Mozilla Firefox.lnk Description: Binary data ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] GKP/MSSRF South-South Exchange Traveling Workshop2005 - Call for participation!
GKP/MSSRF South-South Exchange Traveling Workshop 2005 - Call for participation! The South-South Exchange Traveling Workshop 2005 will be hosted by GKP member, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), from 28 November to 5 December 2005. The workshop, supported by the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), provides an opportunity for the exchange of knowledge and perspectives between village communities in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry in southern India and civil societies from developing countries with a specific focus on ICT-enabled development. This action-learning workshop will: * help participants learn about how to integrate modern ICT effectively in their development projects, * provide perspectives regarding various technologies and innovations involved in rural ICT, and * help participants to blend ICT in the local knowledge management process The workshop is one of GKP's efforts in facilitating learning from concrete, on the ground, practical knowledge in the use of ICT for development. Participation is open to programme officers and implementers of ICT-enabled development projects (NGOs, Consultants, private sector as well as governments) from developing countries, who should be in a position to make immediate use of what they have learnt in the workshop in their projects/ programmes. The deadline for applications is 23 September 2005. For more information and to submit an application online, please visit: http://www.globalknowledge.org/southsouth2005www.globalknowledge.org/south south2005 ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] Kerala e-literacy project wins Prix Ars Electronica award
Subject: Kerala e-literacy project wins Prix Ars Electronica award There were few mentions of this in the media, one exception was in the Sakal group, which publishes Maharashtra Herald (Pune) and Gomantak Times (Goa) too. It said: The Akshaya e-literacy project aimed at bridging the digital divide was selected in the digital community category honour. Akshaya is among the six winners of the award by the Austria-based Ars Electronica, a platform for digital arts and media, a release from Ars Electronica said. Presented at Linz, Austria, the award was picked from 2975 entries from 71 countries Akshaya had committed to use the Rs 500,000 prize to expand its Internet platform in the areas of agricultural consulting, health and education. Akshaya, in north Kerala, is claiming to have established -- in three years -- some 6000 Internet centres, to set up infrastructure for the local population and create 50,000 new jobs while bringing in investments of Rs 5000 crore.Last year, Malappuram -- the home of the Akshaya project in the southern Indian state of Kerala -- was declared the country's first e-literate district. It also claims to have one of the largest known Internet Protocol (IP)-based wireless networks. Kerala is talking of rolling out this project to seven more of its districts -- Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Kozhikode, Kannur and Kasargod. Any feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of this project? Probably the distance means we hear little from distant regions like Kerala. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] Village knowledge centres and Mission 2007 in India
Government of India Comes Forward to Support Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre Subbiah Arunachalam Distinguished Fellow M S Swaminathan Research Foundation Chennai 600 113, India New Delhi, 12 July 2005 India's Finance Minister, Mr Palaniappan Chidambaram, announced today that the Government of India would support the Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre, to the tune of Rs 65,000 million [roughly US $1,500 million). He was speaking at the Second Convention of the National Alliance for Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre, held at New Delhi. Conceived by Prof. M S Swaminathan, the man who brought in the Green Revolution to India, the Mission aims to usher in a knowledge revolution in India by connecting all the more than 600,000 villages of a India in a knowledge network by 15 August 2007, the 60th anniversary of India's Independence. After a series of meetings with a wide cross section of people from government, academia, civil society organizations and corporations, Prof. Swaminathan announced the Mission 2007 in mid 2004. As such a huge programme cannot be undertaken by any single organization, Swaminathan went on to build a National Alliance, perhaps the largest multi-stakeholder partnership in the field of ICT-enabled development in the world. There are more than 150 members in the Alliance including the University of California, Berkeley; MIT, Cambridge; IDRC, Ottawa; the Nasscom Foundation, New Delhi, and OneWorld. The first convention of the National Alliance was held in New Delhi in October 2004. The second convention took place in New Delhi on 11 and 12 July 2005. Among the people who spoke at the convention are His Excellency the President of India Dr A P J Abdul Kalam; Mr P Chidambaram, the Finanace Minister of India; Mr Mani Shankar Iyer, Minister for Panchayati Raj; Mr M V Rajasekaran, Minister of State for Planning, and a number of senior government officials. The President Of India, Dr Abdul Kalam was very happy to see more than 135 elected Fellows of the National Virtual Academy for Rural Prosperity - all of them grassroots workers from rural India. Mr Mani Shankar Iyer suggested that the Village Knowledge Centres should preferably be established in collaboration with the Panchayati Raj (village level government) institutions and thus empower the village level leaders and the communities. -- ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN]The Personal vs the Social Computer Was: Updateonthe Simputer
Thanks Larry! CODATA and ICSU are keen to promote open access to scientific data and grid computing (for virtual collboration) - all of which will help developing country scientists in ways we cannot foresee now! Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] The idea of public commons is now picking up among scientists (and scholars) Thanks to Arun for an excellent survey of open scientific publishing. I would only add that open access to scientific data sets and on-line instruments can require significantly higher bandwidth than access to journal articles, and we should keep both goals in mind. Larry Press ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
RE: [DDN]The Personal vs the Social Computer Was: Updateonthe Simputer
Thanks very much Dr Eskow. Honestly, I did not follow what Mr Errol Hewit wrote in reply to my comments. I will read it again when I have more time at hand. Best wishes. Arun Arun's case for the public computer thesis, below, is powerful and compelling. That we can do much to bridge the digital divide without public computing is a fiction that needs to be exposed and contested. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Subbiah Arunachalam Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2005 3:27 AM To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [DDN]The Personal vs the Social Computer Was: Updateonthe Simputer Errol Hewitt wrote: As soon as the individual or family in the community sees the benefit of the technology to his/her own circumstance, is when the real economic decision will be taken to learn the skill and own it -- then is when the sacrifice will be made to 'own' it. Sorry, that is not what I see in reality. Most people learn the skills long before they can own a gadget. How many autorickshaw and taxi drivers in the city of Madras own the vehicle? A very small proportion. But they all know how to drive and they all have valid driving licenses. How many people working in BPO offices in Madras own computers at home? Hardly anyone. But all of them use computers with great felicity. Hundreds of villagers - men, women, adults, children - in Pondicherry have learnt to use computers through the 'public commons' facility made available through the MSSRF Knowledge Centres, but hardly anyone owns a computer. Look at the New York Public Library or the Library of Congress. If I am a member I can use all of their collections. Can I ever magine to own even a minute part of those magnificent collections? That is the power of the 'public commons' approach; that is the value of sharing. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: ehewitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 9:07 PM Subject: Re: [DDN]The Personal vs the Social Computer Was: Updateonthe Simputer Hi Arun, I think you have placed your 'finger' on the essential in this discussion when in the context of your entire note you said, Eventually, when an individual (or a family) earns enough to be able to afford something he/she may decide to 'own' it As soon as the individual or family in the community see's the benefit of the technology to his/her own circumstance, is when the real economic decision will be taken to learn the skill and own it -- then is when the sacrifice will be made to 'own' it. The more heavily discounted the price-- the better [but this is in the context where sacrifices are made even for non economic reasons e.g 'fashion' shoes etc] The truly important core factor is maximizing the use of the limited number of computers by meaningfully applying them to the individual in the community where he/she is... what they are doing and as they are... Taran's point is I think very valid in that the more the computer is configured around the needs of the individuals, the quicker and more applicable it is seen to be etc.-- the more applicable [beneficial] it is seen to be the greater the passion and the sacrifice for the community and the individuals to want to acquire. To be noted as well is the fact, alluded to earlier by Taran, that while purchase is essentially a one off matter, maintaining it in use is a bigger problem as in most developing countries annual Internet use is much higher in cost than per capital GDP. Errol [Errol Hewitt [EMAIL PROTECTED]] At 19:24 30/05/2005 +0530, you wrote: I agree with you Steve. At each one of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation Knowledge Centres in Pondicherry in southern India we have a few computers - not more than five in any centre, and one of them is out of bounds for all but the centre volunteers. But these are common assets for the entire village. What is at work is the idea of public commons. We cannot afford to provide computers and telephones and Internet accounts to everyone in the village. That is the reality. How can we overcome the problem? What we lack is the financial resources to buy gadgets. What we have is a large heart, a willingness to share what little we have, a commitment to care for others. After all development is about sharing and caring. The computers and every other service provided at the centre (such as information on a whole range of local needs) is open to all. It works well. Eventually, when an individual (or a family) earns enough to be able to afford something he/she may decide to 'own' it. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Dr. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, May 29, 2005 6:46 AM
Re: [DDN] Update on the Simputer
Steve Eskow suggests that governments buy very large numbers of computers (simputers, Mobilis or the Negroponte equivalent) and give them away to telecentres nation wide. But a telecentre is not just the computing equipment. It is much more, very much more. It involves a great deal of content development, skill building, and becoming the cetre of all activities of the village/locality/ region. And a lot of partnership building and networking. The governments will soon find that paying the dollars for buying these gadgets is the easiest part, and running a suuccessful telecentre is a far more difficult job. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Dr. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2005 12:08 AM Subject: RE: [DDN] Update on the Simputer Mr. John Hibbs writes: At 10:02 AM -0700 5/29/05, Dr. Steve Eskow wrote: If the Simputer is a superior product, and mass producing it will dramatically lower its price, the Simputer firm might emulate Negroponte and insist on mass orders. Insist? How? As I understand the Negroponte idea, by taking no orders for less than a million of the $100 computer. A government, then, might spend $100,000,000 to purchase a million computers, and then establish a nation-wide system of community telecenters, furnishing each telecenter with one or more computers at its cost, or subsidized in whole or in part. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN]The Personal vs the Social Computer Was:Update onthe Simputer
Dear Paula: I am a great admirer of the creative genius of the Western society which from the Industrial Revolution onwards has invented newer and newer technologies to make our lives more comfortable and enjoyable. At the same time I am also greatly concerned about the wasteful ways of that society. Look at the statistics on the consumption of resources, be it water, gasoline (and other fuels), wood and timber, and you will find the average westerner consumes many times more than the average Asian or African. If only they are prepared to adopt the 'public commons' approach and come forward to share resources as a community (instead of individuals owning resources), the world will be a much better place. While we enjoy the physical comforts provided by Lexus technologies we can also enjoy the peace and harmony of the 'olive tree' societies. That is what Mahatma Gandhi had taught us. And before him John Ruskin. Unfortunately, most of us trying to bridge the digital divide seem to be too focused on technology, connectivity, computers, telecom, etc. and are not addressing more fundamental issues which are outside the domain of technology, such as how do we make people realise (and accept) that when the resources are scarce the only way out is for all of us to share them equitably, and how do we create all the content (for the dissemination of which we need all those technologies in the first place). From the limited experience we have at MSSRF, it is clear that sharing resources and caring for others can go a long way in building a better future for mankind. The sharing and caring I talk aout is not limited to bridging the digital divide in the telecentre context. Take the case of science and research. It is now clearly understood, more than ever before, that it is important for even the poorest country to have some capacity to carry out scientific research. The US National Academy of Sciences, with a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is helping science academies of three African countries develop adequate capacity to be able to provide policy advice to their governments. Scientists worldwide are trying to build interoperable institutional open access archives which will enable every scientist (irrespective where one lives and works) access full texts of the latest and relevant research papers. The common thread between these various programmes is the public commons approach. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Paula Graham [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 8:06 PM Subject: Re: [DDN]The Personal vs the Social Computer Was:Update onthe Simputer I wholeheartedly agree with you Steve and Arun -- I'm in London UK with a laptop all to myself and it's hugely convenient, but (1) that's all very well if you can afford it and (2) actually we could learn a lot from the way that countries like Ghana and India are solving problems of hardware access -- because, let's face it, I've been working with NGOs in London for years trying to make technology available to disadvantaged communities and haven't made half the headway that Subbiah seems to have made. Hypercapitalism might give *some of us* in the West our very own computers but too often at the expense of any sense of community, ability to share scarce resources effectively, solve problems communally and build creatively on what we *can* have. And this crazy idea that if it isn't the same as the adverts it isn't worth having. For example, we got some PCs for recycling and started sorting them out for neighbourhood distribution to people who said they were desperate for PCs. These were older but could run a graphical Linux distro such as Ubuntu (which does everything you need and is very simple to operate), but XP/MS Office was pushing the spec. Also couldn't get freebie MS because end users were individuals not charities. Lots of complaining and some people rejected the PCs because XP not available. Meanwhile, we've donated hours upon hours renovating and installing these machines which are being offered free of charge. Go figure! In the West, we need to be aware of the extent to which the effects of the hypercapitalist mode on our sense of identity, community -- and our ability to think and act for ourselves. Paula Subbiah Arunachalam wrote: I agree with you Steve. At each one of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation Knowledge Centres in Pondicherry in southern India we have a few computers - not more than five in any centre, and one of them is out of bounds for all but the centre volunteers. But these are common assets for the entire village. What is at work is the idea of public commons. We cannot afford to provide computers and telephones and Internet accounts to everyone in the village. That is the reality. How can we overcome the problem? What we lack is the financial resources
Re: [DDN] Update on the Simputer
Yes, Steve has explained well the need for 'public commons' in access to and use of technology. This is precisely what experts like Stevan Harnad, Peter Suber and Leslie Chan are advocating in the case of scientific journal literature. Till the early part of the last centrury there were only a few journals and virtually every institution carrying out research was able to subscribe to most of them. While subscribers in Europe might have received copies of these journals within days of their publication, subscribers in Asia would have received them a few months later - the time taken by the boat to bring them. But almost all of them had access to the material. The situation changed dramatically especiaally in the past two decades. The subscription prices of journals increased rapidly, often at rates far higher than the general inflation. This led to the serials crisis which made even libraries in the West to shed many journals, what to talk of the already information-starved libraries and scientists of the developing world. It is in these circumstances, the open access movement acquires great significance. A number of journals became open access journals. The journals are free for anyone to access through the Net. The production costs are met from other sources (such as authors' institutions or funding agencies in the West and from government grants in countries like India). The open archives provide another viable model. Those who can afford will subscribe to the journals where the articles appear and those who cannot can access them electronically at no cost to themselves. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Dr. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 9:24 PM Subject: RE: [DDN] Update on the Simputer Taran Rampersad, presently in Panama City, writes: I'm not convinced on the 'Public Computing Concept', so maybe that should be the focus of discussion now that it seems that the merit of the Simputer is understood, Steve. There is no necessary conflict between the public and the private. Those who can afford private automobiles should be allowed to have them, until the world's pollution problem becomes so great that we have to consider limiting that right. Those who can afford to buy the book should be allowed to do so: those who can not should have access to the book via the public library. Those who can afford their own cell phones and computers and ISP's should of course be allowed to purchase them for their exclusive use. Those who cannot should not be denied the use of these technologies, and that means some form of sharing, some form of communal support: the public computer. One writer here used the term public commons, the notion that democracies are characterized not by an Ayn Randian glorification of selfishness but by the communal support of basic institutions. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN]The Personal vs the Social Computer Was: Updateonthe Simputer
Errol Hewitt wrote: As soon as the individual or family in the community sees the benefit of the technology to his/her own circumstance, is when the real economic decision will be taken to learn the skill and own it -- then is when the sacrifice will be made to 'own' it. Sorry, that is not what I see in reality. Most people learn the skills long before they can own a gadget. How many autorickshaw and taxi drivers in the city of Madras own the vehicle? A very small proportion. But they all know how to drive and they all have valid driving licenses. How many people working in BPO offices in Madras own computers at home? Hardly anyone. But all of them use computers with great felicity. Hundreds of villagers - men, women, adults, children - in Pondicherry have learnt to use computers through the 'public commons' facility made available through the MSSRF Knowledge Centres, but hardly anyone owns a computer. Look at the New York Public Library or the Library of Congress. If I am a member I can use all of their collections. Can I ever magine to own even a minute part of those magnificent collections? That is the power of the 'public commons' approach; that is the value of sharing. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: ehewitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 9:07 PM Subject: Re: [DDN]The Personal vs the Social Computer Was: Updateonthe Simputer Hi Arun, I think you have placed your 'finger' on the essential in this discussion when in the context of your entire note you said, Eventually, when an individual (or a family) earns enough to be able to afford something he/she may decide to 'own' it As soon as the individual or family in the community see's the benefit of the technology to his/her own circumstance, is when the real economic decision will be taken to learn the skill and own it -- then is when the sacrifice will be made to 'own' it. The more heavily discounted the price-- the better [but this is in the context where sacrifices are made even for non economic reasons e.g 'fashion' shoes etc] The truly important core factor is maximizing the use of the limited number of computers by meaningfully applying them to the individual in the community where he/she is... what they are doing and as they are... Taran's point is I think very valid in that the more the computer is configured around the needs of the individuals, the quicker and more applicable it is seen to be etc.-- the more applicable [beneficial] it is seen to be the greater the passion and the sacrifice for the community and the individuals to want to acquire. To be noted as well is the fact, alluded to earlier by Taran, that while purchase is essentially a one off matter, maintaining it in use is a bigger problem as in most developing countries annual Internet use is much higher in cost than per capital GDP. Errol [Errol Hewitt [EMAIL PROTECTED]] At 19:24 30/05/2005 +0530, you wrote: I agree with you Steve. At each one of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation Knowledge Centres in Pondicherry in southern India we have a few computers - not more than five in any centre, and one of them is out of bounds for all but the centre volunteers. But these are common assets for the entire village. What is at work is the idea of public commons. We cannot afford to provide computers and telephones and Internet accounts to everyone in the village. That is the reality. How can we overcome the problem? What we lack is the financial resources to buy gadgets. What we have is a large heart, a willingness to share what little we have, a commitment to care for others. After all development is about sharing and caring. The computers and every other service provided at the centre (such as information on a whole range of local needs) is open to all. It works well. Eventually, when an individual (or a family) earns enough to be able to afford something he/she may decide to 'own' it. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Dr. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, May 29, 2005 6:46 AM Subject: RE: [DDN]The Personal vs the Social Computer Was: Update onthe Simputer Taran, I wish you'd reconsider your basic economics: for example, your belief that $480 that stays in India to buy a computer is better than buying one elsewhere for $300. That may not sit well with those in India or Africa who have to buy a computer. Ghana, where I work, is richer than some of its sub-Saharan neighbors: $400 US is what the average Ghanaian earns a year, a year's earning not quite enough to buy your Simputer. And I wish you'd reconsider conclusions like this one: If you've ever had to share one computer with 20 people, and it was your only access point, I doubt you would be able to email as often. You wouldn't have
Re: [DDN]The Personal vs the Social Computer Was: Updateonthe Simputer
Friends: The idea of public commons is now picking up among scientists (and scholars) around the world. It was about 15 years ago that Paul Ginsparg, then at Los Alomas National Laboratory, thought of a central archive for physics research papers - both preprints and post prints. Now 'arXiv' is flourishing with its headquarters at Cornell and has more than 15 mirror sites (one of them in Chennai where I live). For some reason, such archives did not come up in other fields for a very long time. Steve Lawrence, then at NEC Research, Princeton, started CiteSeer which does not wait for authors to submit/deposit their papers but crawls the Net and collects all papers in computer science and allied fields. Stevan Harnad at Southampton created an archive for cognitive sciences. He also wrote a few provocative papers on topics like scholarly skywriting. In the past few years scientists have started depositing their research papers - besides publishing them in refereed journals of their choice - in interoperable institutional open access archives. The software for setting up these full text archives are absolutely free and there are a few. The most widly used ones are EPrints developed and perfected at Southampton and DSpace developed at MIT. The interoperability software - which enables a user to trace all papers on a given subject or by a given author from anyone of the archives (located anywhere in the world) as if they are all in one single (universal) archive - is also absolutely free. Today there are more than 400 such interoperable institutional archives providing access to the full texts of many thousands of research papers. To read any of these papers one does not have to pay a subscription to a journal. This is especially helpful to scientists in the developing countries. Of course one need to have access to the Internet. Fortunately, internet access is improving fast in many developing countries and connectivity charges are coming down. Peter Suber maintains a blog [Open Access News] and reports comprehensively on developments around the world. I see a parallel between the MSSRF Knowledge Centres and the Open Access Archives (institutional or centralised). I thank Prof. Ton van Raan of the University of Leiden who gave me an opportunity to talk about the connection between what we are doing in the villages of Pondicherry and the wider world of knowledge generation in the sciences in an international conference on science indicators he organised a few years ago. Both of them are using advances in technology to include the excluded and making available much needed information at a low cost through the 'public commons' approach. Both of them are overcoming a serious problem by intelligently marrying technology and the public commons approach. Both of them are about sharing and caring. Both of them are eminently suited to increase the overall productivity of the world as a whole and lead to greater collective happiness. Sounds almost utopian. I welcome all of you friends to contribute to the develoment of both open access to scientific and scholarly literature through the open access archives movement and the intelligent and innovative use of ICTs in rural development and poverty reduction. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Dr. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 9:29 PM Subject: RE: [DDN]The Personal vs the Social Computer Was: Updateonthe Simputer -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Subbiah Arunachalam Sent: Monday, May 30, 2005 6:54 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; The Digital Divide Network discussion group Subject: Re: [DDN]The Personal vs the Social Computer Was: Updateonthe Simputer What Subbiah Arunachalam and his colleagues are doing in southern India is a model that can be adapted to many other countries and cultures: the model travels. Perhaps the Digital Divide Network needs to promote the idea of a public commons to accelerate the availability of the new technologies to those around the world who need them. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] I agree with you Steve. At each one of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation Knowledge Centres in Pondicherry in southern India we have a few computers - not more than five in any centre, and one of them is out of bounds for all but the centre volunteers. But these are common assets for the entire village. What is at work is the idea of public commons. We cannot afford to provide computers and telephones and Internet accounts to everyone in the village. That is the reality. How can we overcome the problem? What we lack is the financial resources to buy gadgets. What we have is a large heart, a willingness to share what little we have, a commitment to care for others. After all development is about sharing and caring
Re: [DDN]The Personal vs the Social Computer Was: Update onthe Simputer
I agree with you Steve. At each one of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation Knowledge Centres in Pondicherry in southern India we have a few computers - not more than five in any centre, and one of them is out of bounds for all but the centre volunteers. But these are common assets for the entire village. What is at work is the idea of public commons. We cannot afford to provide computers and telephones and Internet accounts to everyone in the village. That is the reality. How can we overcome the problem? What we lack is the financial resources to buy gadgets. What we have is a large heart, a willingness to share what little we have, a commitment to care for others. After all development is about sharing and caring. The computers and every other service provided at the centre (such as information on a whole range of local needs) is open to all. It works well. Eventually, when an individual (or a family) earns enough to be able to afford something he/she may decide to 'own' it. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Dr. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, May 29, 2005 6:46 AM Subject: RE: [DDN]The Personal vs the Social Computer Was: Update onthe Simputer Taran, I wish you'd reconsider your basic economics: for example, your belief that $480 that stays in India to buy a computer is better than buying one elsewhere for $300. That may not sit well with those in India or Africa who have to buy a computer. Ghana, where I work, is richer than some of its sub-Saharan neighbors: $400 US is what the average Ghanaian earns a year, a year's earning not quite enough to buy your Simputer. And I wish you'd reconsider conclusions like this one: If you've ever had to share one computer with 20 people, and it was your only access point, I doubt you would be able to email as often. You wouldn't have leisure time to read articles that *you* might find interesting. I've had to share buses and trains with many people, and you're right: it's not nearly as convenient as owning my own automobile. And I've had to get my learning at public schools, not nearly as convenient as private tutoring. And I've had to borrow books from a public library, not nearly convenient as buying my own and owning them. And I've used computers at libraries and internet cafes, and you're right: sharing a computer is not nearly as convenient as owning one. And I ask you to consider that your convenience argument is misleading, and downright harmful. If we insist on private automobiles, millions will be continue to be without rapid transport, and we will continue to foul the environment. And if we insist on personal ownership of books, millions will not read, even if we cut down enough trees for all those books. And if we insist on the personal computer, billions will not cross the digital divide. If the advantages of the Simputer at $480 are so much greater than that of the desktop at less, let's urge small churches or cafes or schools in the poorer nations to buy one or two or three and share them, until such time as the folks in the community can afford to buy their own. In the focus on the reduction of cost, I sincerely believe by these communications that the increase in quality of life as the *value* has been lost. You may have it backwards, Taran. Those who insist on personal automobiles and personal libraries and personal computers may be the ones who are slowing down the erasure of the many divides between the haves and the have-nots. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Digital Divide, Telecentres and Iraq
Dear Andy and Steve and others on the list: Telecentres are what we make of them and the activities we build around them. The women in the villages around Pondicherry in southern India, like most other women in rural southern India, would rarely come in front of men from outside their own families. That was ten years ago, before the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation set up the now famous knowledge centres with some help from IDRC, Canada. Today, they operate computers and communication devices, answer queries from men, women and anyone who comes into these centres, teach computing skills to others, form self-help groups, take loans from banks, run their own enterprises, and even contest elections. There is a sense of self esteem among them. Will send you, off the list, some reports and pictures. Regards. Arun - Original Message - From: Andy Carvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 9:45 PM Subject: [DDN] Digital Divide, Telecentres and Iraq Dr. Steve Eskow wrote: And it is not clear--to me, at least--that if we had a thousand telecenters in Iraq that the other divides would shrink. Hi Steve, If there were 1,000 telecentres in Iraq that did nothing but provide people email access and an outlet for online gaming, I'd have to agree with you. But when done well, telecenters are epicenters of hope and human potential -- places within the community where people can rally together for educational, economic, cultural and civic development. And when all members of a nation are given equal opportunity to improve the quality of life of their families, some of these other divides, I hope, would lessen over time. Much of the work of NY Times columnist Thomas L Friedman has dealt with this issue; for example, he's written about Lebanese telecentres serving as ICT job training centres, and how these institutions are helping improve the country's overall socio-economic prospects and strengthen local democratic institutions. So let's say we could snap our fingers and have 1,000 telecentres across Iraq. Imagine if each one of them addressed their community's most pressing needs. Some of these telecentres would large the local unemployed with the tools they need to gain new skills or start small businesses. Others would focus developing e-mechanisms for the public to interact with civil servants and government officials, making sure that the new government addressed their needs effectively, no matter if they spoke Arabic, Kurdi or Turkmen as their native language. Yet others would assist local mosques in providing health care and human services to people whose lives and livelihoods were destroyed during the war. If telecentres are merely nonprofit cybercafes lacking any development context, then I'd agree with you. But if we put that aside and see telecentres as serving specific development goals based on each community's particular needs and opportunities, I would have to be more optimistic about the role they could play in helping Iraq get back on its feet and prosper in the coming years. I know there are at least one or two Iraqis on the list. I hope they're reading this thread; perhaps they would want to comment. -- --- Andy Carvin Program Director EDC Center for Media Community acarvin @ edc . org http://www.digitaldivide.net http://www.tsunami-info.org Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com --- ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Software Freedom Day - Sept 10, 2005
Dear Phil and friends: We may also consider a similar freedom day for freeing the scientific and scholarly research literature from the clutches of toll-access journals so anyone with access to Internet can access the full text of research papers online. Already many individuals (such as Peter Suber, Stevan Harnad, Barbara Kirsop, Leslie Chan, Jean-Claude Guedon, Francis Muguet) and groups (Open Society Institute, Budapest Open Access Initiative, the Wellcome Trust, the Berlin Declaration group, the Electronic Publishing Trust, Bioline International) are active in this area, but they are not as numerous as the groups working in the FOSS movement. I believe that setting up interoperable open access institutional archives is the best hope for making universal access to relevant research information a level playing field. It is very important for scientists in the developing world. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Phil Shapiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, April 30, 2005 11:35 AM Subject: [DDN] Software Freedom Day - Sept 10, 2005 hi DDN communty - this upcoming global event looks like it will move things forward. do please spread the word about the event and consider ways that you and organizations (or businesses or government entities) you're connected with can participate. http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/ Software Freedom Day is a global grassroots effort to promote the use of Free and Open Source Software. Over 70 teams joined the celebration last year, organising a range of events at schools, universities and public places. This year, we have every opportunity to grow and make a serious impact on public opinion. blog on, - phil if you're looking for ideas of what to do on that day, consider showcasing Moodle. (Moodle.org)the smartest people i know are big fans of Moodle. they include people right here in the DDN community. http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/grstevens http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/sgatling http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/FrancesL http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/murdock see also http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/pshapiro/view?PostID=3137 -- Phil Shapiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.his.com/pshapiro/ (personal) http://teachme.blogspot.com (weblog) http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/pshapiro (technology access work) http://mytvstation.blogspot.com/ (video and rich media) ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Re: Fwd: About Unesco seminar in Bamako
I think Prof. Adama Samasekou of Mali will be playing a key role in this conference on multilinguism at Bamaco. One of the things the conference should promote is setting up open access interoperable institutional archives in all higher education and research institutions all over Africa. That is the only way to make access to research information affordable and on a level playing field. Africa now has the technology (and it is improving all the time). All it needs is the political will. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] Thanks for bringing this up. This event addresses a vital topic that deserves more attention (which it is gradually getting, as attested to by UNESCO and ACALAN's initiative in setting this up). Will others on these groups be attending - and out of those any blogging? If so, it would be great to have an aggregation (multilingual, of course). I could offer a page on the Bisharat site if someone could help set it up - though perhaps this could also be put on the DDN site or an aggregation site (??). A few of the members of Unicode-Afrique (http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/Unicode-Afrique/ ) will also be in Bamako and a couple of them have promised summaries of the 2-day conference for that list (but not blogs). These could also be incorporated somehow. All the best and k'an b'u fo! Don Don Osborn, Ph.D. [EMAIL PROTECTED] *Bisharat! A language, technology development initiative *Bisharat! Initiative langues - technologie - développement http://www.bisharat.net Quoting Marouen MRAIHI [EMAIL PROTECTED]: BTW the agenda is here (it seems really interesting) http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=18391URL_DO=DO_TOPICURL_SECTION=201.html Marouen MRAIHI WSIS Youth Caucus http://www.wsisyouth.org http://www.mraihi.com -- Forwarded message -- From: Marouen MRAIHI [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 29 avr. 2005 15:09 Subject: About Unesco seminar in Bamako Concerning Unesco seminar of Bamako Multilingualism for Cultural Diversity and Participation of All in Cyberspace http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=17688URL_DO=DO_TOPICURL_SECTION=201.html , since I am already in Bamako, if anyone needs a help for hosting (hotel booking or free hosting :) let me know. I'll be blogging what will be happening there Marouen MRAIHI WSIS Youth Caucus http://www.wsisyouth.org http://www.mraihi.com ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] FW When iPod goes collegiate
In academia, much of what they write is meant for free and open distribution. The system works like this: Whenever you want what you write to be freely accessible to others, you send it to a journal (preferably an open access journal) and also deposit it in an interoperable open access archive. Whenever you want your finding to win you some money, you patent it (or include it in a textbook that is usually sold at a price). There is no reason for confusion. The author decides what he/she wants. Arun - Original Message - From: Steven Wagenseil [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2005 12:44 PM Subject: Re: [DDN] FW When iPod goes collegiate Claude: Re the comment about intellectual property theft (which is what is meant when talking about a professor's lectures being available on the Internet: I am no expert (my teenage son might be, but not moi...) but I don't think it's possible to record speech directly onto an iPod, is it? I thought files had to be handled by a laptop or desktop first, before they could be played on an iPod (which doesn't even have an input jack for a microphone... So where's the worry? If a professor puts his lectures online for students, he must realize they could easily go to a wider audience. And just as with written notes or a research paper or a textbook, there are rules in academia about plagarism, etc. Also, any student trying to record a lecture surreptitiously would have a hard time hiding that laptop and mike, I would think. Plus I do recall having trouble hearing some professors clearly in person; how much harder would it be through a little mike or something... Just a few thoughts... SW OSCE/ODIHR Warsaw, Poland --- Claude Almansi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi All One odd thing about this article: podcasting gets mentioned only once, between bracket. Interesting queries about copyright issues raised by students' ability to record a course and put it on the Net. cheers Claude Claude Almansi www.adisi.ch ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] Bruce Alberts on science and development
Friends: Here is an excerpt from the 141st Presidential address given by Prof. Bruce Alberts to the Fellows of the US National Academy of Sciences (19 April 2004). I hold Prof. Alberts in high regard. Not only is he an outstanding life scientist, but he has an insightful understanding of the science-development interface and he is genuinely concerned about the problems faced by developing countries. The full text is available on the NAS website. I wish the editors of The Economist read it. Happy reading. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] The challenge of bottom-up development In the United States, we often talk about economic development as a top-down phenomenon. In this model, a person or a corporation with resources will establish a business enterprise and hire employees. Later, some of these employees will accumulate enough resources themselves to start their own businesses; these in turn will create more employment and greater wealth in the community, and so on. This model may apply to nations like ours. But it is totally inadequate to meet the current needs of a nation like India, where 70 percent of the population live in rural villages, with limited opportunities for education and non-agricultural employment. For other jobs, they are forced to move to cities and often must live in expanding urban slums. Most of the world resembles India, but India has the advantage of having a strong scientific and technical capacity despite its extensive poverty. It is also a very large and diverse nation that provides a fertile test bed for new ideas. If our Academy wants to make a strong contribution to sustainable development through science and technology, it is in nations like India that we should search for models, not in nations like ours. Many interesting experiments are in progress around the world, and I have been attempting to follow some of them to see what can be learned about effective strategies for attaining the vision elaborated in Our Common Journey. This past January, my wife Betty and I made our third visit to the villages of Pondicherry, India, where a non-governmental organization (NGO) founded by our foreign associate M.S. Swaminathan has been deeply engaged in a variety of science-based experiments in rural development (see www.mssrf.org). On previous trips, we had visited the information kiosks in these villages, which connect the otherwise isolated villagers to a wireless Internet service in their local language that provides them with daily market prices, and weather, health, and agriculture information. We had also followed the development of several science-based enterprises-in which, for example, a small group of landless villagers produces mushrooms or milk for sale. At the end of each of our earlier visits, Betty and I were left with the feeling that the problem of both long-term sustainability and scale were overwhelming. Perhaps this highly dedicated and uniquely skilled NGO could, with the support of various donors, ultimately affect 20 or 40 villages, with a total population of 100,000 people. But what would happen when its leadership changed, or when the current donors decided to move on to other projects? And, most important, what about the remaining 700 million Indians who live in similar situations elsewhere? The challenge seemed overwhelming and the whole enterprise fragile. Bring in the bankers I was surprised to encounter a completely new element in our last visit. The State Bank of India is now intimately involved as a partner with the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in each of the village projects that we helped to inaugurate. Some of the projects were dairies, as before, but other groups of villagers had set up small production plants for biocontrol agents. In this example, a group of villagers had established a factory to produce the small parasitic wasp, Trichogramma, which deposits its eggs on those of larger insects and destroys them. Some of their product is being used in their own village to replace pesticides and increase plant yields - thus bringing both health and economic benefits. The remaining product is being sold in the market to generate income. And the women involved had begun to train new groups in neighboring villages. Here was a perfect example of the type of science-based franchise for sustainable development that I had been seeking. The State Bank funded the equipment and supplies needed by each of the groups through loans, and it was our privilege to hand out the checks, some for more than $5,000. The interest rates charged are generally about 20 percent per year, which is much less than the rates of the traditional moneylenders, who may demand 10 percent per month or more. Is this a public service activity, subsidized by the government? To my surprise I learned that the answer is no. These cooperatively held loans are being made to so-called Self-Help Groups - each
Re: [DDN] ANN: Empowering Local Communities Through ICT
I agree with this statement. In Pondicherry in southern India, we did not aim at e-goverance at all when we started the Information Village Research Project with financial support from IDRC. But as we started providing information on government entitlements, among other things, more and more people became aware of their entitlements and started asking for them. And this collective demand brought about greater transparency in governance. Arun [MSSRF, Chennai, India] - Original Message - From: Barbara Fillip [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2005 4:44 PM Subject: [DDN] ANN: Empowering Local Communities Through ICT Empowering Local Communities and Improving Local Government through ICT JOIN THE ONLINE DISCUSSION May 2 - May 27, 2005 ICT can contribute to fostering empowerment and participation and making government processes more efficient and transparent by encouraging communication and information-sharing among people and organizations, and within government. (Creating a Development Dynamic). ICTs can empower people and significantly improve local government - statements like this are often treated cynically. Yet some communities have managed to use ICT to make their local governments more responsive, transparent, and efficient. Widespread trends toward decentralization make it crucial to learn from these communities. This discussion focuses on the question: How can ICT empower local communities and improve local governments, especially during a process of decentralization? Decentralization - the transfer of power from central to local government - has a highly questionable record. Decentralization reforms are often poorly designed and executed. As a result, local governments fail to fulfill their new responsibilities - fiscal management, strategic planning, and very basic public services degenerate. Yet many donors and citizens continue to believe that decentralization provides new opportunities for active participation of an informed citizenry that will create more responsive, transparent and effective local government. Can ICT help improve the poor record of decentralization and make the goals of decentralization a reality? Can ICT empower citizens with the information and means they need to make their governments work effectively for them? What is needed to make ICT an effective tool for good local governance? These questions are crucial to the well-being of people throughout the developing world. This discussion will seek to answer these questions with concrete examples, specific cases, experience and recommendations that can guide local communities, local governments, ICT practitioners and decentralization experts. Join the discussion and share what you know regarding: * Cases of successful decentralization efforts that have utilized ICT effectively * Challenges to introducing ICT successfully into decentralization efforts * Technology options that work - and those that don't * Cases of local governments using ICT to improve transparency, responsiveness and efficiency * Cases of citizens/civil society groups using ICT to participate more fully in local government decision-making * Technologies that have proven particularly effective in improving local government Agenda Week 1: Can ICTs support successful decentralization and improve local governance? Week 2: How can local communities (e.g., businesses, NGOs, media, schools, etc.) use ICT to participate more effectively in local decision-making? Week 3: How can local governments use ICT to improve the efficiency of service delivery to local citizens and businesses? Week 4: Where do we want local governments to be in three years, and what should we be doing now, using ICT, to help realize that goal? This discussion is sponsored by the USAID-funded DOT-COM Alliance and hosted by GKD. It will focus on Using ICT to Empower Local Communities and Improve Local Government for four weeks (May 2 to May 27, 2005). However, GKD is a major forum for exchange of experience and knowledge on all aspects of ICT for development, with thousands of members from over 100 countries. The ongoing GKD forum will continue after this discussion topic. ***HOW TO JOIN*** Anyone who has electronic mail with Internet access can subscribe to the discussion. To join, please send an e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Do *not* enter a subject. In the body of the message, type the text: SUBSCRIBE GKD Do *not* put anything after GKD. You will receive a Welcome Letter to the discussion. ***THE DOT-COM ALLIANCE*** This discussion is sponsored by the DOT-COM Alliance. The DOT-COM Alliance is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID): (GDG-A-00-01-9-00, dot-GOV; GDG-A-00-01-00014-00, dot-ORG; GDG-A-00-01-00011-00, dot-EDU). ***WORLD WIDE WEB SITES FOR THE DISCUSSION*** For those who would prefer to follow the discussion on the Web, the DOT-COM Archive (as of May 2) is available at:
Re: [DDN] UK government tackles digital divide (fwd)
But the UK Government, and especially the DTI, is not willing (or reluctant) to support the open access movement and not yet willing to implement the recommendations of Mr Ian Gibson and the members of his committee! Arun - Original Message - From: Andy Carvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, April 02, 2005 11:53 PM Subject: [DDN] UK government tackles digital divide (fwd) UK government tackles digital divide The UK government yesterday launched a seven-point plan aimed at making the UK one of the most digitally connected nations on the planet. Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Patricia Hewitt announced the initiative at Downing Street with Prime Minister Tony Blair and John Higgins, director general of UK IT industry trade group Intellect. This government has invested in a range of groundbreaking programmes to transform the UK from a poor relation to a digitally rich nation in just a few years, said Hewitt. We aim to make the UK a world leader with public services that are even more responsive, personalised and efficient than the leading companies that have successfully deployed the internet to serve their customers. The prime minister's strategy unit and the DTI, in partnership with industry, aim to make the UK a world leader in digital excellence and the first nation to close the digital divide. Among the plans are an award for the local council that provides universal online access to local public services, the launch of a low cost national laptop and home PC leasing scheme for students, and the establishment of a multi-agency national internet safety centre to deter criminals targeting children online. In addition the DTI has asked Ofcom to look at the prospects for increased home broadband take up, with a particular focus on the more disadvantaged. snip http://www.vnunet.com/news/1162286 -- --- Andy Carvin Program Director EDC Center for Media Community acarvin @ edc . org http://www.digitaldivide.net http://www.tsunami-info.org Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com --- ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Fw: [DDN] Simputer
Friends: Here is a message (on simputers) I received from Ms Laina Raveendran Greene, an ICT4D consultant working out of California and Singapore. In fact Laina must have met Dr Swami Manohar, one of the founders of the simputer project, as both of them were there at the PANASIA review meeting of IDRC held a few years ago at Vientiane. Can Swami Manohar please get in touch with laina? Thanks and best wishes. Arun Thanks for copying me on this note Prof Arun. I am so happy to see that the Simputer is finally making the light of day. I was truly hoping for its success when it was first announced many years back. By the way, I am told that the content development side that they support is IML. Is there any chance we can talk to them and make connection with say, Macromedia? If they want to grow into mainstream market they will need to adopt a mainstream technology like Flash or Java SDK or Both. This will allow for development of new and exciting visual content e.g for elearning. Do you have connections to talk to them about this? Just a thought shared from the GetIT team in Singapore. Best Regards, Laina ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] Re: [SI] Ann Okerson on institutional archives
Friends: This message on the cost of setting up and running institutional open access archives from Franck Laloe should reach Ms Ann Okerson (who thinks that the costs of OA archives or institutional repositories are hughe) and readers of her Serials article. Les Carr's idea of having authentic data on costing of such repositories is excellent. Arun -- On 26 Mar 2005, at 15:14, Franck Laloe wrote: We now have a goood experience of this question at CCSD, since we have run an archive for the CNRS (a French research institution) for a few years. Actually, the cost of running an archive is not much; one salary is needed to pay someone to check that the documents which are uploaded are OK for the archive; the price of the buyiung and manitaining the hardware is comparable or less. What costs more money, on the other hand, is to write new software. We constantly improve ours (it is now significantly different from ArXiv, although it remains compatible with it), and we pay three engineers for this. I would say that for a whole (medium size) country like France, a centralized system for all disciplins would cost about 10 salaries; this is of course an extremely small fraction of the research budget of the country. This is very interesting and important information. Would you be able to give an indication of the kinds of changes that you have had to build on the base software (I assume from your message that you began with arxiv)? With all of these systems, the devil (and the expense) is in the details, but the precise details differ from one situation to another. It would be a terrific insight to have an Institutional Repository costing data-point at the National end of the spectrum! Les Carr ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] On the need to adopt open access
Dear Dr Rampersad: In your mail you say, The idea of Open Access doesn't belong to Peter Suber. Or I would hope not. I am extremely sorry if I had given you the impression that the idea of open access belonged to Prof. Peter Suber. I just wanted to alert you to his blog, because in my opinion that is an excellent source of information on the open access movement and its coverage is comprehensive. And he is far more knowledgeable than I am and he writes much beter than I do. Please rest assured that Prof. Suber will never claim that the idea of open access belongs to him. He is a professor of philosophy and from all the correspondence I have had with him, the image I have of him is that of a respectable man and a learned scholar who is ready to devote much time and energy to public good causes. In fact I am looking forward to the day when I can meet him. Also, I did not miss the point you made about the Royal Society. All I said was the Society (today) is not a great supporter of open access. Best wishes. Arun - Original Message - From: Taran Rampersad [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2005 8:36 AM Subject: Re: [DDN] On the need to adopt open access Subbiah Arunachalam wrote: In most cases the sponsors are the taxpayers. Much of the world'research is funded by governments. It is only legitimate to expect that publicly funded research should be availble to the public for free. And sponsors such as the Wellcome Trust are great champions of open access, particularly open access archiving. Actually, that's arguable. Consider biogenetically engineered food - that research is done by corporations in the West - and is copyrighted, patented and even trademarked so that it can't get to the people who need it the most. China, on the other hand, does the same research in it's Universities. I'm pretty sure a lot of research that we're talking about is funded by corporations. Unfortunately the Royal Society (today) is not a great supporter of open access as determined by the Berlin Declaration. You missed the point. The Sprat quote was to point you to the fact that upon inception, that was the idea. Why that changed is worth exploration - I'm sure when you research it, you'll see it was about funding. For more about OA, please look up Peter Suber's blog. The idea of Open Access doesn't belong to Peter Suber. Or I would hope not. Unless there's some formalization which incorporates a lot of pre-existing works. :-) But since I am hanging out of a window for bandwidth, perhaps you will answer something for me: What do you see as the difference between Open Access and Public Domain? I could read what Peter Suber says, but you and I are having the discussion. He can hop in any time. :-) As it is, I'm writing something similar for next weeks entry on the Morph blog, where I am guest blogging. It should be up on Tuesday: http://mediacenter.blogs.com/morph/ I'm actually working on the funding issues should be interesting. I'm not done thinking it through yet, but if there are specific things that you think are interesting, please send me the links offlist (for private) or onlist to share. The latter is more in the spirit of Open Access. :-) -- Taran Rampersad [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxgazette.com http://www.a42.com http://www.knowprose.com http://www.easylum.net Criticize by creating. Michelangelo ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] On the need to adopt open access
In most cases the sponsors are the taxpayers. Much of the world'research is funded by governments. It is only legitimate to expect that publicly funded research should be availble to the public for free. And sponsors such as the Wellcome Trust are great champions of open access, particularly open access archiving. Unfortunately the Royal Society (today) is not a great supporter of open access as determined by the Berlin Declaration. For more about OA, please look up Peter Suber's blog. Arun Subbiah Arunachalam wrote: Physicists were among the first to adopt the culture of archiving. their central archive, arXiv, first set up at Los Alamos National Laboratory is now run from Cornell University. It is serving physicists around the world for the past 15 years. In our field, we do have an open access journal. But we need and deserve much more. Well, the first with modern technology. The spirit has been around since the Royal Society started, but sadly the spirit was suppressed by the need to make money to continue research. Funding, funding, funding. ...ought to have their eyes in all parts, and to receive information from every quarter of the earth, they ought to have a constant universal intelligence: all discoveries should be brought to them: the Treasuries of all former times should be laid open before them. --Sprat, History of Royal Society, p.20 I think that this helps you with what you are saying, and is also worth flashing around a bit after all, it was the Royal Society which brought the West from alchemy to Science. It's strange how Western Science and Western religion always seem to be at odds I digress. The real problem - the root problem here - appears to be who funds what, and at what 'cost'. If the sponsors do not want Open Archives, and the scientists and scholars aren't independantly wealthy, then we have a problem. Perhaps the case we should be making is how sponsors can get a return on investment for allowing Open Access. -- Taran Rampersad [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxgazette.com http://www.a42.com http://www.knowprose.com http://www.easylum.net Criticize by creating. Michelangelo ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Ourmedia and bridging the content digital divide
Dear Andy: From what I have heard so far, Ourmedia seems to be a very good thing to have happened. I will check it when I get some time. In the meanwhile, I would like you and other member of the DDN network to consider an equivalent site (or system) for all of the world's research output, in particular refereed journal articles in the sciences (including medicine, agriculture and engineerng) social sciences (including economics) and other areas of scholarly inqiry. There is so much new knowledge generated from different parts of the world, but locked away from those who need it and who can use it to advance knowledge. I am sure most of our members are aware of the open access movement and the tremendous benefits open access brings to knowledge creation. I would like to see the tremendous energy and enthusiasm that our members have are in some way channelised to proactively promote the culture of open access worldwide. I have spoken to both Fred Naronha and Partha Sarkar (of bytesforall) about the need to promote OA. I am also in touch with the leading academics promoting OA, such as Peter Suber, Stevan Harnad, Leslie Chan, Barbara Kirsop, Jean Claude Guedon, John Willinsky, Hans Falk Hoffman, and Bernad Schutz. I also realise that we have long way to go before we can achieve the ideal of a level playing field for information access, and we need focused advocacy and public education to achieve universal open access to scientific and scholarly literature. One thing I am sure about is that groups like ours with so many energetic and enthusiastic people with a zeal for public good causes can and must play a role. Especially those who are active in the open source movement and Ourmedia. Regards. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Andy Carvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 1:02 AM Subject: [DDN] Ourmedia and bridging the content digital divide Like Phil noted earlier today, the launch of Ourmedia.org has generated a lot of traffic, but I strongly recommend that list members take a few minutes to visit the site; I think it's one of the most important new websites to come along in a while. Ourmedia is trying to build an online commons where anyone who wants to produce Internet content - particularly podcasts, video blogs and other large media files - will have a free place where they can host this content. Ourmedia is partnering with The Internet Archive to host content, and Creative Commons for Internet-friendly licenses. Just for kicks, I uploaded one of my podcasts yesterday (Anatomy of a CNN Interview), and it's currently the most downloaded media file on the Ourmedia site. I'm sure that won't last for very long, because there are so many people out there with content much better than mine who will soon be using the site to host their content. Anyway, please check out www.ourmedia.org when you get a chance; if it doesn't work the first time, try and try again, because it's worth it. This site, I'm sure, will do a lot of great work when it comes to bridging the content side of the digital divide -ac Andy Carvin ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Ourmedia and bridging the content digital divide
Dear Andy: For every open access journakl there are hundreds of toll-access journals! That is why authors, even when they submit their papers to toll access journals, retain the right to distribute the final refereed and accepted version of their papers through open access archives. Arun - Original Message - From: Andy Carvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 8:05 PM Subject: Re: [DDN] Ourmedia and bridging the content digital divide Hi Arun, Are you familiar with Public Library of Science (www.plos.org)? They're creating a collection of peer-reviewed, open access journals on a variety of scientific topics. So far they have journals on biology, computational biology, pathogens, genetics and a general science journal. PLoS is putting the financial burden on the scientists who submit papers for consideration; that way, the cost comes out of the scientists' research budgets and it allows PLoS to publish the journals for free. Over time I hope they'll have a wide range of disciplines covered, since many of the major commercial journals simply won't allow their work to be published under an open-access model because they don't think it's financially viable. Only time will tell whether the PLoS financial model will be sustainable, but so far the results seem positive ac Subbiah Arunachalam wrote: Dear Andy: From what I have heard so far, Ourmedia seems to be a very good thing to have happened. I will check it when I get some time. In the meanwhile, I would like you and other member of the DDN network to consider an equivalent site (or system) for all of the world's research output, in particular refereed journal articles in the sciences (including medicine, agriculture and engineerng) social sciences (including economics) and other areas of scholarly inqiry. There is so much new knowledge generated from different parts of the world, but locked away from those who need it and who can use it to advance knowledge. I am sure most of our members are aware of the open access movement and the tremendous benefits open access brings to knowledge creation. I would like to see the tremendous energy and enthusiasm that our members have are in some way channelised to proactively promote the culture of open access worldwide. I have spoken to both Fred Naronha and Partha Sarkar (of bytesforall) about the need to promote OA. I am also in touch with the leading academics promoting OA, such as Peter Suber, Stevan Harnad, Leslie Chan, Barbara Kirsop, Jean Claude Guedon, John Willinsky, Hans Falk Hoffman, and Bernad Schutz. I also realise that we have long way to go before we can achieve the ideal of a level playing field for information access, and we need focused advocacy and public education to achieve universal open access to scientific and scholarly literature. One thing I am sure about is that groups like ours with so many energetic and enthusiastic people with a zeal for public good causes can and must play a role. Especially those who are active in the open source movement and Ourmedia. Regards. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Andy Carvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 1:02 AM Subject: [DDN] Ourmedia and bridging the content digital divide Like Phil noted earlier today, the launch of Ourmedia.org has generated a lot of traffic, but I strongly recommend that list members take a few minutes to visit the site; I think it's one of the most important new websites to come along in a while. Ourmedia is trying to build an online commons where anyone who wants to produce Internet content - particularly podcasts, video blogs and other large media files - will have a free place where they can host this content. Ourmedia is partnering with The Internet Archive to host content, and Creative Commons for Internet-friendly licenses. Just for kicks, I uploaded one of my podcasts yesterday (Anatomy of a CNN Interview), and it's currently the most downloaded media file on the Ourmedia site. I'm sure that won't last for very long, because there are so many people out there with content much better than mine who will soon be using the site to host their content. Anyway, please check out www.ourmedia.org when you get a chance; if it doesn't work the first time, try and try again, because it's worth it. This site, I'm sure, will do a lot of great work when it comes to bridging the content side of the digital divide -ac Andy Carvin ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. -- --- Andy Carvin Program Director EDC Center
Re: [DDN] blogging about free vs. fee public library services
Dear Phil: Will you als be interested in open access archiving of refereed scientific and scholarly journal articles? Please advise. If so, you have some very good material available with Peter Suber, Stevan harnad, Leslie Chan, Barbara Kirsop, Richard Poynder and several others. Regards. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Phil Shapiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2005 6:45 PM Subject: [DDN] blogging about free vs. fee public library services hi DDN community - for those who might be interested, i'm blogging about the perennial debate on free vs. fee public library services. do chime in with your ideas on this if you feel so inclined. http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/pshapiro/view?PostID=2711 or http://www.digitaldivide.net/blogs - phil -- Phil Shapiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.his.com/pshapiro/ (personal) http://teachme.blogspot.com (weblog) http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/pshapiro (technology access work) http://mytvstation.blogspot.com/ (video and rich media) There's just so much more creativity and genius out there than our media currently reflect. FCC Commissioner Michael Copps ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Podcast and Photos from M. S. Swaminathan's Speech attheBaramati Conference
If you want more information on the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation's work or about Mission 2007, please contact us. Subbiah Arunachalam [EMAIL PROTECTED] S Senthilkumaran [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: Wanda Jean Lord [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'The Digital Divide Network discussion group' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 8:57 PM Subject: RE: [DDN] Podcast and Photos from M. S. Swaminathan's Speech attheBaramati Conference Hi All, I am new to this list and wanted to introduce myself. My name is Wanda and I found the article at the Frontline site very interesting. Do any of you all have knowledge of similar models being incorporated here in the US to address the Digital Divide that now exists for Native American people? I know of some existing work being done both nationally and by individual Tribal Nations - and am trying to gather as much relevant info as possible. Thanks for any insights you can give! Wanda Jean Lord, ThreeHoops.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 3:48 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [DDN] Podcast and Photos from M. S. Swaminathan's Speech at theBaramati Conference Andy and all For those interested in ICT4Poverty Reduction and Empowerment, there is more from Prof. Swaminathan at http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2119/fl211900.htm , see the articles under Mission 2007, including an interesting interview with Prof. Swaminathan. These articles appeared in Frontline, the Indian bi-weekly magazine. Best Charles Geiger Executive Director WSIS -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Andy Carvin Sent: mercredi, 9. mars 2005 21:10 To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [DDN] Podcast and Photos from M. S. Swaminathan's Speech at the Baramati Conference Hi everyone, I've just posted a podcast of Professor M. S. Swaminathan's speech this past weekend at the Baramati conference in India: http://www.andycarvin.com/podcasts/swaminathan.wav Prof. Swaminathan is one of the world's leading thinkers on the role of ICTs in global development, particularly in terms of poverty alleviation in rural, agricultural communities. The speech he gave this weekend is one of the best arguments I've heard to date on the importance of bridging the digital divide in the developing world. The file is rather large, just over 60 megs in size. I still hope to transcribe the speech, but I am not sure when I will have an opportunity to do this, so if anyone would like to volunteer, please email me. I would then post the transcript on the Digital Divide Network website. Meanwhile, I've also posted some pictures from the presentation on my blog. http://www.andycarvin.com permalink: http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2005/03/podcast_m_s_swa.html thanks, andy -- --- Andy Carvin Program Director EDC Center for Media Community acarvin @ edc . org http://www.digitaldivide.net http://www.tsunami-info.org Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com --- ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Podcast and Photos from M. S. Swaminathan's SpeechattheBaramati Conference
Friends: If you folks think what we have done in southern India is useful, and if you think w can be of some help, we are ready to share what little we know. Indeed, every year, I organise a eight-day South-South Exchange Travelling Workshop to which we invite about 20-25 development workers from Africa, Asia and Latin America. The entire group travels from village to village (where we have our knowledge centres and other development programmes) and the visitors exchange notes withthe local people and our volunteers. The visitors see for themselves how the knowledge centres function, how the people benefit, how the whole thing is participatory, and so on. The sharing of knowledge and experience at places where real action happens leads to tremenodous amount of experiential learning, far superior to what we learn from classrooms and regular conferences. For more information on our South-South Exchange Traveling Workshops, please visit the IICD webpage and look up Julie Ferguson's report From Beedies to Ceedies and also visit the GKP website. Either a team from the Amrican Indian groups could visit us or a few of us could come there and help with the process. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Chris Houska [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'The Digital Divide Network discussion group' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 11:55 PM Subject: RE: [DDN] Podcast and Photos from M. S. Swaminathan's SpeechattheBaramati Conference Wanda, You may want to speak with Karen Buller with the National Indian Telecommunications Institute www.niti.org I just spoke with Karen yesterday about our efforts to bridge the divide on Native American Indian Reservations. I'm in discussions with a few Tribes at the moment regarding our Learning Center model on the reservations. I hope this helps. Chris R. Houska Instructional Systems Inc. Director, Business Partnerships Office: (614) 873-8571 Cell: (614) 218-5377 Fax: (866) 243-5743 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website: http://www.isinj.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Wanda Jean Lord Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 10:27 AM To: 'The Digital Divide Network discussion group' Subject: RE: [DDN] Podcast and Photos from M. S. Swaminathan's Speech attheBaramati Conference Hi All, I am new to this list and wanted to introduce myself. My name is Wanda and I found the article at the Frontline site very interesting. Do any of you all have knowledge of similar models being incorporated here in the US to address the Digital Divide that now exists for Native American people? I know of some existing work being done both nationally and by individual Tribal Nations - and am trying to gather as much relevant info as possible. Thanks for any insights you can give! Wanda Jean Lord, ThreeHoops.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 3:48 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [DDN] Podcast and Photos from M. S. Swaminathan's Speech at theBaramati Conference Andy and all For those interested in ICT4Poverty Reduction and Empowerment, there is more from Prof. Swaminathan at http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2119/fl211900.htm , see the articles under Mission 2007, including an interesting interview with Prof. Swaminathan. These articles appeared in Frontline, the Indian bi-weekly magazine. Best Charles Geiger Executive Director WSIS -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Andy Carvin Sent: mercredi, 9. mars 2005 21:10 To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [DDN] Podcast and Photos from M. S. Swaminathan's Speech at the Baramati Conference Hi everyone, I've just posted a podcast of Professor M. S. Swaminathan's speech this past weekend at the Baramati conference in India: http://www.andycarvin.com/podcasts/swaminathan.wav Prof. Swaminathan is one of the world's leading thinkers on the role of ICTs in global development, particularly in terms of poverty alleviation in rural, agricultural communities. The speech he gave this weekend is one of the best arguments I've heard to date on the importance of bridging the digital divide in the developing world. The file is rather large, just over 60 megs in size. I still hope to transcribe the speech, but I am not sure when I will have an opportunity to do this, so if anyone would like to volunteer, please email me. I would then post the transcript on the Digital Divide Network website. Meanwhile, I've also posted some pictures from the presentation on my blog. http://www.andycarvin.com permalink: http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2005/03/podcast_m_s_swa.html thanks, andy -- --- Andy Carvin Program Director EDC Center for Media Community acarvin @ edc . org http://www.digitaldivide.net http://www.tsunami-info.org Blog: http
[DDN] Opn Access Archiving
and open source software could in addition promote OAA as well. A recent study has shown that we need to create an awareness among scientists and policymakers of the tremendous advantages of such archives. We need to mount many advocacy programmes. The recent meeting (Berlin-3) held at the Southampton University came up with the following recommendation: In order to implement the Berlin Declaration institutions should 1) Implement a policy to require their researchers to deposit a copy of all their published articles in an open access repository. and 2) Encourage their researchers to publish their research articles in open access journals where a suitable journal exists and provide the support to enable that to happen. I would urge all of you friends to persuade institutions (your own and others) to adopt and implement these recommendations. Thanks and best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] almost time to go home...
Dear Andy: I am glad to hear you liked the talk by Prof. Swaminathan. It is not for nothing I decided nine years ago to leave a senior position in the Indian science establishment to join him as a full-time volunteer. He has the vision. If only we had enough people to translate his vision into reality, the world will be a different place! Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Andy Carvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 7:27 PM Subject: [DDN] almost time to go home... It's 7pm in Mumbai and I'm chilling for a few hours at the Kohinoor Hotel prior to going to the airport. We had a crazy day today, leaving Baramati for breakfast at a milk factory, then touring an emu farm with a wireless kiosk for local farmers. We then made our way to Mumbai for the next six hours, stopping at an enormous rest stop for lunch and snacks. One of our Indian colleagues had us over for tea, where we got to me her family and two dogs. Eventually, we reached the Kohinoor, where some people quickly left for the airport, others left for the bar, still others left for the city -- and I spent about 30 minutes cleaning up melted duty-free French chocolate that I'd forgotten about in my computer bag. Meanwhile, last night, M S Swaminathan gave one of the best speeches on why we need to bridge the digital divide that I've heard in a long time. I recorded it and plan to post it online once I get home, since bandwidth limitations prevent me from doing it here. I may also take a crack at transcribing it if the Baramati organizers don't. Since the hotel has Internet access, I'm catching up on email one last time before having a quick drink downstairs, perhaps a shower, then off to the airport. So the next time I'm online will either be during my six-hour layover in Paris or in Boston... -andy andy carvin acarvin at edc d0t org ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] Open Source Software Resource Centre (OSSRC) in Mumbai
Friends: Here is some good news for Open source enthusiasts. IBM India, C-DAC and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, have signed a co-operation agreement to set up an 'Open Source Software Resource Centre' (OSSRC) in Mumbai with an investment of $1.2 million over the next three years. Under this co-operation agreement, C-DAC, IIT Bombay and IBM would undertake activities to foster OSS development, enhance the understanding of the OSS model by imparting training and promote the development of content in areas of education and general awareness of OSS across the country. An advisory board consisting of representatives from DIT, IBM, C-DAC and IIT as well as few other eminent academic and industry representatives will be constituted to review the project activities and progress. According to the agreement, IBM will provide the hardware and software resources, management support and the overall support as well as participation in the implementation of OSSRC. C-DAC will focus on setting up the necessary laboratory and development of skill sets, which includes physical infrastructure, Indian language technologies, and frameworks for OSS development, while IIT Bombay will direct the efforts in channelising the education sector including teacher training and content development on Open Source platforms. The objective of OSSRC is to foster significant OSS development in India by establishing a development portal and initiating and spearheading significant proof of concept projects. The centre would undertake activities to increase understanding of OSS model as well as to foster development of good quality public domain content and courseware in various areas of education and general awareness by offering OSS-based authoring tools and mark languages, teacher training and setting up a content repository in order to develop workforce of relevance in the national context with OSS skills, and a faculty to impart them. Secretary, department of information technology (IT), ministry of communications and IT, KK Jaswal said on the occasion, Open source software has altered the computing landscape. Now that it is blossoming in India as it is around the world, the nation needs to develop significant OSS capabilities and institute the resources that support and enhance its growth. This centre will help in expanding the open source segment of Indian software industry and create a skill set. IBM India managing director, Shanker Annaswamy said, IBM India has been undertaking a number of activities to bring the benefits of IT to different sections of the community. This investment results in the growth of open source software, which will help in expanding the open source segment in Indian software industry. Once the present framework with C-DAC and IIT Bombay gets established, other academic and research institutes in the country will partake in this endeavour. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] Impact of ICTs on agriculture
Friends: A friend of ours is trying to compile a list of projects in the area of using ICTs to benefit agriculture and farming (in India). I will be grateful if those of you who are working with such projects could kindly give me the title of the project, the key people, and a few lines describing the organization and the programme. You may also provide email addresses, contact numbers and the url of your website. I will be grateful for your help. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] Re: [wsisaccra] India and ICANN...
Dear Johnson and friends: Unless all of us stake our claims the Internet will continue to be goverrned and dominated by a few in the advanced countries, especially the United States. Our governments, civil societies, intellectuals and professionals should take some interest in Internet governance and similar other public good issues and work in unison to win what is rightfully due to us. I am working hard, with a group of similarly motivated friends around the world, to make the entire world's scientific and scholarly journal literature freely available on the Internet to anyone who wants to access it. We call it the Open Access movement. In simple terms, there are two parts to Open Access. One is to make all the journals freely accessible on the Internet as soon as they are published. More than 1,200 journals are already available under this model and the University of Lund in Sweden maintains an electronic Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). This method may take many many years before even 50% of the journals become open access. Publishers - both commercial and some society - will resist. The second and easily achievable option is for institutions to set up their own interoperable archives in which all researchers of the institutute can deposit their research papers (the final version that would appear in a professional journal). The technology and software for such software are all in place and training can be organised. The Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, has such an archive. A few other Indian institutions will soon have their own interoperable archives. Most African higher educational institutions and research labs should follow the IISc model. Institutions such as the Kofi Annan Centre can host a common archive for all of Africa or Western Africa. What is the benefit of such open archives, one may ask. There are many. For one, the research that we do in the developing world can be read by a very large number of people. Right now, most of the journals we publish have very poor circulation - often only a few hundred copies. Archiving our papers will bring us a larger audience and greater visibility. Our researchers can access a much larger volume of current literature than our impoverished libraries provide now. Let us all work together in ushering in an era of open access to scientific and scholarly literature. Those interested in bringing in this revolution may please read the voluminous and lucid writings of Stevan Harnad, Peter Suber, and Leslie Chan. A simple search on these names will lead you to a vast amount of literature on open access. Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] --- Subject: FW: [wsisaccra] India and ICANN... Hello Colleagues, This is from India about ICANN, one of Internet governing bdies. We got it from Prof Arunachalam, and we are greatful to him. For your information. Johnson -Original Message- From: Subbiah Arunachalam [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 23 February 2005 10:07 To: Accra2005 Mailing List Cc: telecentres@wsis-cs.org; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [wsisaccra] India and ICANN... Here is a statement by the Indian Government on ICANN. I received it through a mailing list. Arun http://at-large.blogspot.com/2005/02/india-our-thoughts-on-icann.html Still At Large-the last outpost for ICANN's unrepresented masses Thursday, February 10, 2005 India: Our Thoughts on ICANN . The government of India is the first government thus far to submit formal comments to the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) which is preparing a report for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). India had this to say about ICANN: Presently ICANN is a private organization, working under MoU with US government. We understand that the MoU is to expire in September 2006. ICANN's incorporation in the USA implicitly means it will always be subject to USA law. It is believed that this shall introduce an asymmetric role of the USA Government vis a vis other governments. Today ICANN is the only visible body which exercises any kind of oversight in relation to the internet with a few supporting organisation being responsible for some of its critical components - such as voluntary root servers, regional Internet Address Registries , the Domain Name registries. Most of them have contractual relations with ICANN. At the international level, there is no single international( Inter-government or private ) organisation that coordinates all the issues related to the Internet and IP based Services. In essence Internet Governance includes collective rules, policies, standards, procedures that are consistent with the sovereign rights of the states . At present there is little or no role of governments in these multifarious decision processes and Governments of developing countries are effectively marginalised. India among the Developing countries
Re: [DDN] thoughts and prayers for our South Asian/ SE Asian colleagues
Dear Andy and friends: The first tsunami wave attacked Veerampattinam, one of our fishing villages near Pondicherry, at about 9.15 am yesterday and two people lost their lives. Immediately, within minutes, the volunteer at the Veerampattinam knowledge centre started appealing to the people to withdraw to safer places through the public address system and further loss of life was averted. There were two more waves at about 1040 and 1200 hours. At Nallavadu, another fishing village, also no loss of life is reported, although huts close the shore were washed away and a few boats were lost. The worst affected was Moorthikuppam, the whole village inundated with sea water. Every day our knowledge centres provide weather information - from CNN, Accuweather, the local Met office and US Navy satellite (wave height information). We are not, unfortunately, equipped to predict earthquakes and tsunamis. Many friends around the world have sent messages expressing concern and anxiety. We are unable to answer all of them individually. Through this message, we assure all of you that we are doing all that we can. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: Andy Carvin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2004 9:45 PM Subject: [DDN] thoughts and prayers for our South Asian/ SE Asian colleagues Hi everyone, I was horrified to wake up this morning and learn about the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck south asia and south east asia earlier today. I see that Tamil Nadu in India was particularly hard-hit, home to our colleagues at the Swaminathan Foundation and the Open Knowledge Network's Pondicherry telecentre project, among others. The Pondicherry project focuses on providing weather data to local fisherman, and it appears that hundreds, if not thousands of them have been killed today. I know we have list members in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Maldives, Malaysia and Indonesia as well; I hope all of you and your families are safe. If anyone has word on the sitution of fellow DDN members, please let us know. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of you who are being affected by this tragedy. -- --- Andy Carvin Program Director EDC Center for Media Community acarvin @ edc . org http://www.digitaldivide.net Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com --- ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
[DDN] Fw: [oa-india] Tsunami
Dear Friends: Christmas and the New Year are occasions for joy and happiness. But unfortunately the earthquake (which did not cause much damage in my city) and the tsunami that followed it, which had devastated the lives of tens of thousands of people in my home state and neighbouring states in India as well as millions in South and South East Asia have rudely interrupted the season of joy and merriment. 14,000 people have lost their lives according to BBC. The figure may go up. Millions have lost their homes and possessions. Chennai is coming back to normal. The government has started to deal with the situation with some seriousness. But the Met office has issued a warning that there may be another tsunami attack any time. What have we done to deserve Nature's fury of such intensity, I wonder. Arun Dear David and friends at First Voice International: We appreciate your concern. The earthquake at 0640 yesterday and the tsunami that followed after a couple of hours have devastaed the state of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. There has been heavy loss of property and possessions in many coastal villages (including Veerampattinam and Nallavadu). One of our villages, Moorthikuppam, is completly inundated and there could be a few deaths. Many fishermen who went into the sea at Rameswaram, Mandapam, Thankatchimadam, etc. are yet to return. We are constantly monitoring the situation through all communication channels. Fortunately, all our knowledge centres are safe although some of them are surrounded by water. Our staff and volunteers in the field stations are also safe. Arun ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
Re: [DDN] Funding for Rural-based ICT project
Friends: A number of Ugandan development activists have taken part in the South-South Exchange Travelling Workshop we at MSSRF, Chennai, organise every year since 2002. One of them should be able to help the new project. Or, if financial resources permit, someone from the new project could visit MSSRF's rural knowledge centres for a week and see how things are done in southern India. Also of interest should be the Open Knowledge Network [OKN piloted by OneWorld, MSSRF and other partners]. Among international agencies, both IDRC and IICD are active in Uganda. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 8:19 AM Subject: Re: [DDN] Funding for Rural-based ICT project Kibaya, Jambo I would suggest Dr. Mark Bura at ECSAHC in Arusha http://www.who.int/nha/docs/en/Institutionalization_NHA_ECSA_progress_rep ort.pdf. Ask him about their IT resources and have him put you in touch with Adam M? I have forgotten his last name. Also, you could contact Dr. Joel Okullo at Mulago in the Regional Centre for Quality Health Care [located in the Institute for Public Health]. They are building an IT capability and have been doing a lot of IT. http://www.fantaproject.org/downloads/preservice/training_intro.pdf. Bill Ward On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 19:24:26 -0800 (PST) Kibaya E. [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Greetings all, Iam in touch with a rural-based community organisation in the western region of Uganda, Africa offering basic community services. They are planning to set up an ICT centre to offer IT-related services to the rural folks. They already have an established centre of operation and are in great need of partners to help out on issues of funding and or expertise. Anybody with an idea on where they can forward their documentation for consideration? Current problems facing some rural based organisations is finding relevant information that can help them solve some of the problems they facecognisant of the fact that even basic email services may be non-existent! The gap between Information holders and Information seekers is somehow narrowed 'unconsciously' by listservs like this which by the way most of them are not subscribed! A list of possible partners will help these colleagues out. They can be directly contacted at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks Kibaya [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Phil Shapiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: hi everyone - i was very happy to see that the email address of the nun in san francisco was included at the end of the article. a few years ago newspapers were very reluctant to do that. back in 1998, a reporter at the washington post was writing a feature article about a colleague here in washington dc. the reporter contacted me for background information about this person, as i had volunteer at this organization for about 8 years. when i suggested to the reporter that she find a way to include this person's email address in the article, the reporter snapped back rudely, we don't do that. i paused a moment, and asked in a polite, friendly way, don't you think this is a good time to start? this same reporter asked me what my profession was. when i told her, i'm a technology access activist -- it's a branch of civil rights activism, she told me, i'm sorry i can't write that in the article. my editor won't let me. my response: you let your editor tell you what's true and not true in this world? i've seen very little progress at the washington post since 1998. other newspapers appear to be doing better. phil shapiro arlington, virginia i'm posting this email to my blog and alerting dan gillor, who runs the we the media web site about it. http://wethemedia.oreilly.com/ dan gillmor takes an interest in how mainstream media engages (or not) with the community it serves. -- Phil Shapiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.his.com/pshapiro/ (personal) http://teachme.blogspot.com (weblog) http://guitarlessons.blogspot.com/ (guitar lessons) http://mytvstation.blogspot.com/ (video and rich media) We canand weve got todo better than this. - Dr. Seuss ___ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. = KIBAYA ERISANIA Msc. Computer Science Hunan University, Yuelushan, Changsha, Hunan 410082 P.R China Tel:0086 731 8649349 Mob: 0086 13975103460 E-Mial: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ekibs.psend.com Sites of interest http
