Dear GKD List Members, On Friday, November 26, 2004, Shahid Uddin Akbar wrote:
> Still we didn't find any single project which can claim itself as > Sustainable in terms of being financially viable and serving the local > rural communities anywhere in the world. ..snip... > Why are the organizations rushing for financial sustainability in the > case of rural ICT projects? It also must have some donor driven ideology > to make the development initiatives Commercially viable, which is not > possible in a realistic approach. ..snip... > So, can we put the idea aside to make all rural ICT for Development > projects commercially viable? I would say yes and no. We have developed a viable model for financing the initial investment to set up rural TeleCenters/kiosks, with Donor money, on a wide scale. But thereafter, Telecenters HAVE to be able to pay for maintenance, amortization of equipment and operating costs, by themselves! In fact, a lot of Donor money DEPENDS on providing credible forecasts about this. One year's costs can be as much as the whole initial investment and the Donors we work with don't want to have to come in year after year, or see the projects fail. Therefore, we have developed (and are close to marketing even in Bangladesh) a system called "VillagE-volution", a Knowledge, Information, Commercial and Consultancy system, aimed at rural communities wordwide, that should greatly help villagers in their development process and therefore even in paying for the Telecenters. We are even putting together a good, sustainable, Telecenter business model, based on VillagE-volution and the best services that can be provided with today's most up-to-date technology (VSAT, wireless and all), to be presented very soon to the Donors and then implemented locally, through NGOs and other entities with which we are connected. Therefore, we are analyzing all the information that we can find on rural Telecenter profitability (the main sources of revenue in the more successful examples until today and the reasons for failure of the ones that did not succeed). >From your first sentence, it looks like you have some knowledge on the matter, or you may know someone that does. Or other List Members may. If so, could you kindly provide us with such information? Thanks for your support and the enlightening contributions that List Members and the Organizers have provided us. Arrigo della Gherardesca Managing Director ItAfrica - Italian African Alliance srl Milano, Italy ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by USAID's dot-ORG Cooperative Agreement with AED, in partnership with World Resources Institute's Digital Dividend Project, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org and http://www.digitaldividend.org provide more information. To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.dot-com-alliance.org/archive.html>
