On Tuesday, 17 May 2005, Barbara Fillip wrote: > Earlier this year, USAID organized a workshop on Decentralization and > Local Governance in the Asia and Near East Region. > > The workshop took place in Cairo, Egypt. You can find out more on the > workshop's web site <http://www.localgovernance.org>. I was lucky enough > to be attending the workshop and to present in a panel on "IT and the > Media". One of my co-panelists made a presentation on a very interesting > project in Lebanon where ICT is being used to support local > administration at the level of municipalities. > > Link to the Presentation: > http://www.localgovernance.org/binderdocs/pres_freij.pdf > > One element of this project in Lebanon, which is also present in one of > our dot-ORG projects in Central America is the use of GIS (Geographic > Information System) to assist local planning and track all cadastral, > financial and administrative data related to the community.
Would any of these people be interested in a handheld computer with built-in GPS and local language support in Free Software? The product has been announced, but without full details. Simputers with external GPS have been used in a rural land survey in Karnataka State, India, using software in English and in the local language Kannada. I'll let you know more ASAP. You can find out about the Simputer in general at: http://www.encoresimputer.com/ http://www.simputerland.com/ http://www.ncoretech.com/ The base unit cost is Rs1,0000 (a little more than US$200). These devices could be used for planning roads, laying out wireless networks, planning health and education systems, organizing co-ops, and for many other purposes. With proper management, the ROI on such projects can pay for the equipment in short order. The systems can also be used for teaching and enabling proper management, since they are complete computers with a wide range of Free Software. -- Edward Cherlin Generalist & activist--Linux, languages, literacy and more "A knot! Oh, do let me help to undo it!" --Alice in Wonderland http://cherlin.blogspot.com ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by the dot-ORG USAID Cooperative Agreement, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org provides 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 For past messages, see: http://www.dot-com-alliance.org/archive.html
