Re: [GKD] RFI: Community Wireless in Developing Markets

[Vickram Crishna]

On 4/28/06, Graham Knight wrote:

> I am saddened to discover that with all the information published, there
> seems to be nothing about radio for the poor in developing countries.
>
> Am I wrong?

I submit that there is plenty...wrong with the promotion of radio in
majority world countries. Curiously enough, many decades after most of
these countries (and I am from India, one of the worst offenders)
shrugged off the colonial yoke, their governments still use radio in
command and control mode.

Since I mentioned India, just look at one simple statistic : 600
licensed radio stations in sixty years - and the number was less than
half that a month back, they just auctioned off public spectrum into the
hands of a few greedy marketers. Expect more rubbishy pop programming to
assault the ears of the 'developing' middle class in smaller towns now,
as we already have the misfortune of listening to over the past three
years (that's when the government finally got out from doing and being
everything in audio broadcasting).

Anyway, to get a quick round up of the Indian scene (not totally up to
date, but a fair grasp of the ground reality) do look at our web site
.

In Zimbabwe, six persons have just been arrested for recording audio
content and sending it to foreign shortwave stations to broadcast. Maybe
radio for the masses has a bit further to go yet.


-- 
Vickram





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Re: [GKD] RFI: Community Wireless in Developing Markets

[Ginger McCarthy]

On 4/28/06, Graham Knight wrote:

> I am saddened to discover that with all the information published, there
> seems to be nothing about radio for the poor in developing countries.
> 
> Am I wrong?


There hasn't been much written about this on the List lately; but there
is a good deal of information in the GKD Archives:


There is an initiative sponsored by the BBC that might be of interest to
you, as a model of collaborative effort:

During 2005, the BBC World Service Trust coordinated input from the
African  and international media development community to the Commission
for Africa.

The Commission report "Our Common Interest" highlighted the critical
role of  the media in creating government transparency, internal
accountability and  greater responsiveness, as well as recommending that
this be addressed through  the establishment of an "African media
development facility" to boost support  for the sector.


Capacity through collaboration

The key consensus reached was that work to strengthen the capacity of
the media in Africa needs to be more long term and strategic, and better
tailored to local needs.

There is also a clear appetite for a collaborative approach between
African practitioners and some of the world's leading media
organisations to achieve these objectives.

The African Media Development Initiative (AMDI) has been set up to
establish how best to achieve these goals.

AMDI was launched by the BBC World Service Trust in January 2006 as an
inclusive and open process which aims, by the second half of 2006, to
mobilise a  range of African and international stakeholders to
significantly boost support  for the development of the state, public
and private sector media.

There is a link to their Report "Our Common Interest" at: 


Last October, Meddie Mayanja contributed the following:

> Dear Colleagues:
> 
> It is nice to see how much information sharing and support is being
> undertaken on the List. Please keep it up!
> 
> I was in Mozambique recently and visited 2 Community Multi-media Centres
> (CMCs) at Xinavane and Chokwe - these are telecentres with a community
> radio component. They are supported by UNESCO and have equipment very
> similar to those of CMCs elsewhere in Africa. I should share with you
> some of the pictures from there.
> 
> The CMCs in Mozambique face real challenges of program/content
> development, management skills, connectivity to the Internet and how to
> retain volunteers that form over 98% of the staff team that is
> responsible for programing. I know that you all have had similar issues
> before or are facing them now. it would be nice to share how you have
> managed them or any thoughts for possible management.
> 
> The community radio doesn't only have challenges anyway. It was
> interesting to learn how they have been creatively generating funds and
> managing to operate with limited revenue to pay staff and supplies. For
> instance, one CMC prints out greeting cards (simple word paper) that are
> given to shops in the community to sell out at a specific small fee.
> Customers would write their greetings and messages to loved ones and
> they would get read on the community radio station. The shop gets free
> advertisements on radio when they return a specific number of coupons,
> and the cash collected from sales. In another case, the community radio
> station made an arrangement with a salon shop for a free haircut for
> radio volunteers (presentors/content people) in return for free radio
> advertisements for the salon. This was very creative in motivating
> volunteers.

It would be good to learn how this effort has been progressing.


Ginger McCarthy 

Resources for Community-building, Civil Dialogue and Conflict Resolution
Community Radio Resources: 





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Re: [GKD] RFI: Community Wireless in Developing Markets

[Charles Riley]

On 4/28/06, Graham Knight <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> I am saddened to discover that with all the information published, there
> seems to be nothing about radio for the poor in developing countries.
>
> Am I wrong?


Hi Graham:

There's a source for community radio here that you can check out:






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Re: [GKD] RFI: Community Wireless in Developing Markets

[Jim Forster]

On 4/11/2006, Gary A. Bolles asked:

> 1) Which sites folks on the list would recommend as good existing
> resources that already have stories about community wireless
> initiatives?

"Wireless Networks in the Developing World" has several case studies in
Chapter 9, page 209. The book is available for free download or non-free
hard copy at . There's also a wiki which has several more
case studies, at .
Folks, please add any case studies you're aware of. I need to add a
couple more myself.

On 4/28/06, Charles Riley added:

> Don't forget Onno!
> http://sandbox.bellanet.org/~onno/

Right -- that's a great resource. I'll add that, although probably to
the resources page of the wndw.net wiki. Maybe there's some good case
studies in there that can go to the Case Studies page.

Also, while I'm plugging this book: look for an announcement in the next
couple months of the Spanish and French translations of the book. The
Spanish translation is done and in review and then needs the figures and
illustrations to be added. The French translation should be done in
the next several weeks. We will need reviewers for this, and someone
to coordinate between the reviewers and the translator. If you're
interested in helping, please sign up in the Translations section of the
Wiki.

-- Jim


PS: Wiki will be re-organized shortly due to Spam problems.   You'll
always find it and the latest version of the book under .






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Re: [GKD] RFI: Community Wireless in Developing Markets

[Vickram Crishna]

On 4/11/06, Gary A. Bolles wrote:

> 1) Which sites folks on the list would recommend as good existing
> resources that already have stories about community wireless
> initiatives? Even individual stories are useful. (I've started tagging
> ones I find as "3dworldwireless" on del.icio.us).

Please check out , describing the activity leading
up to (and will later document action following from) the World Summits
on Free Information Infrastructures hosted by the Tibetan Technology
Center at Dharamsala India, in October this year. The site is nascent
today, but there is a lot of activity ongoing which will be posted in
the next couple of weeks.

The site is intended to address many of your queries.

> 2) Are there a few folks who might want to get involved in a
> conversation about what a good resource for developing-market community
> wireless might look like? It would be helpful to have the brief
> involvement of a small group of people with a variety of perspectives.

Please attend the summit yourself. It will be a marvellous opportunity
to interface with some of the most interesting, active and far-thinking
people in this field of human development.

If there is something you would like to present at the workshop
sessions, please do register and participate in the online discussions.

-- 
Vickram





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Re: [GKD] RFI: Community Wireless in Developing Markets

[Charles Riley]

On 4/11/2006, Gary A. Bolles asked:

> 1) Which sites folks on the list would recommend as good existing
> resources that already have stories about community wireless
> initiatives?


Don't forget Onno!
http://sandbox.bellanet.org/~onno/





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Re: [GKD] RFI: Community Wireless in Developing Markets

[Graham Knight]

I am saddened to discover that with all the information published, there
seems to be nothing about radio for the poor in developing countries.

Am I wrong?

Graham Knight


On 4/21/06, Patrick O'Beirne wrote:

> On 11/04/2006, Gary A. Bolles asked:
>
>> 1) Which sites folks on the list would recommend as good existing
>> resources that already have stories about community wireless
>> initiatives?
>
> Here are some I came across recently when researching wireless
> networking. 4 & 5 may be your closest match.
>
> 1) "VSAT Buyer's Guide" available at 
>
> 2) The 2006 IFIP WG 6.9 Workshop on Wireless Communications and
> Information Technology in Developing Countries (WCIT'2006) held in
> conjunction with The 8th IFIP/IEEE International Conference on Mobile
> and Wireless Communications Networks, MWCN'2006
> http://www.wcc-2006.org/)
>
> 3) "Wireless Networking in the Developing World" can be downloaded from
> 
>
> 4) Information Technology and Infrastructure for Telecentres:
> Combining Best Practice with New Developments
> 
>
> 5) The wireless toolbox
> 





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Re: [GKD] RFI: Community Wireless in Developing Markets

[Adriana Labardini]

On 4/11/06, Gary A. Bolles asked:

> Which sites folks on the list would recommend as good existing
> resources that already have stories about community wireless
> initiatives?

Gary,

You may know of this but Digital Communities e-zine is a very useful
source of stories around the world. It is a division of Government
Technologies. You may find it at


Best regards,

Adriana Labardini
Attorney & ICT Consutant
Mexico City
[EMAIL PROTECTED]





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Re: [GKD] RFI: Community Wireless in Developing Markets

[Ian Howard]

On 4/11/06, Gary A. Bolles wrote:

> I've been gathering information about community wireless initiatives in
> developing markets, and though I've found a number of truly inspiring
> stories, have yet to find any central repository of such learnings. If
> anyone has a suggestion for an existing resource, I'd be pleased to hear
> about it. Assuming, however, that there isn't such a thing yet, I'd like
> to see how it might get created.

Gary,

Central repository, well there are many, many such lists. I have found
however that there are two sets of initiatives that fall under
"community" wireless. The first are the developed context community
based "freenet" type of initiatives. The second, projects in the
developing context that are development based, the type that I believe
interest you. For the former, FreeNetworks.org, PersonalTelco.org and
many, many others. For the later, there are a few repositories, such as
 and the growing communities around
 and . Though there really isn't
anything centralized, that I know of. WSFII has this prerogative to
coalesce these efforts, however. There are also geospatial off-shoots
from that initiative that sound similar to some of your work. We are
starting to document case studies here:


And there are a few covered in the WNDW book.

Naturally those business models that work in the developed context
differ greatly to those in the developing world context.

We have been channelling our efforts (my associates from WSFII,
Djursland, ICTP et al.) into our work on the "Wireless Networks for the
Developing World" book + wiki, which is loosely related, or subordinate
to WSFII. I encourage you to join our email list that is focused on this
very topic:  and we'd be
glad to integrate your work.

Ian


-- 
Ian Howard
Director/Technical Lead
Adaptic - http://adaptic.ca
Adapted Information and Communications
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Re: [GKD] RFI: Community Wireless in Developing Markets

[Patrick O'Beirne]

On 11/04/2006, Gary A. Bolles asked:

> 1) Which sites folks on the list would recommend as good existing
> resources that already have stories about community wireless
> initiatives?

Here are some I came across recently when researching wireless
networking. 4 & 5 may be your closest match.

1) "VSAT Buyer's Guide" available at 

2) The 2006 IFIP WG 6.9 Workshop on Wireless Communications and
Information Technology in Developing Countries (WCIT'2006) held in
conjunction with The 8th IFIP/IEEE International Conference on Mobile
and Wireless Communications Networks, MWCN'2006
http://www.wcc-2006.org/)

3) "Wireless Networking in the Developing World" can be downloaded from


4) Information Technology and Infrastructure for Telecentres: 
Combining Best Practice with New Developments


5) The wireless toolbox



   Patrick O'Beirne,  software consultant   Tel: +353 5394 22294
   'Spreadsheet Check and Control', ISBN 190540400X
   47 key techniques to detect and prevent errors, 200 pages
  
  



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[GKD] RFI: Community Wireless in Developing Markets

[Gary A. Bolles]

Dear Colleagues,

I've been gathering information about community wireless initiatives in
developing markets, and though I've found a number of truly inspiring
stories, have yet to find any central repository of such learnings. If
anyone has a suggestion for an existing resource, I'd be pleased to hear
about it. Assuming, however, that there isn't such a thing yet, I'd like
to see how it might get created.

I wear two hats for this project. As a partner in
CollectiveIntelligence.net, we use mapping and data visualization to
help communicate varying perspectives in developing markets and in
global community initiatives. I'm also a partner in MuniWireless LLC,
which has a Web site, muniwireless.com, that is known as the central
repository for U.S.-based community wireless (WiFi/WiMax/mesh etc.)
initiatives, both in metropolitan and rural areas. So we have some
visibility (and a Web site) that would make a good place to start
gathering such stories.

The goal would be to help define some useful practices that can help
people build sustainable community wireless projects in developing
markets. (I'll admit a strong bias toward networks that have a viable
business model, and which provide a platform for others to start
developing sustainable businesses.) It would be a place where people can
contribute stories, and offer recommendations for overcoming the typical
financial, technical, social, and political challenges of planning,
designing, piloting, rolling out, and enhancing such networks.

I'd like to ask...

1) Which sites folks on the list would recommend as good existing
resources that already have stories about community wireless
initiatives? Even individual stories are useful. (I've started tagging
ones I find as "3dworldwireless" on del.icio.us).

2) Are there a few folks who might want to get involved in a
conversation about what a good resource for developing-market community
wireless might look like? It would be helpful to have the brief
involvement of a small group of people with a variety of perspectives.

In either case, please feel free to communicate on or off list. Thanks.

gB

Gary A. Bolles
Partner, Collective Intelligence 
Partner, MuniWireless LLC 





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