Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] What Can and Should be Brought to Scale?
I agree strongly with much of what Stella Hughes says, and am especially supportive of the idea that local ownership and capacity-building has to be a cornerstone of any development initiative that does not perpetuate dependency. In response to the question on what specific critical factors lead to successful scalability, Stella suggests there is not much to go on in the world of ICT. This may be the case but I would point out that there are lessons from other sectors (e.g. military, industry, health care) that might be instructive. For instance, the work done by BRAC in Bangladesh to expand their Oral Therapy Extension Programme (OTEP) - oral rehydration therapy for diarrhea - was a great success that was spread nationwide. Likewise, major bottlers and franchises (e.g. Coke, Heineken, McDonald's) probably have something to teach in this respect. Having looked at a variety of industries, several scientists from my organization - the Institute for Healthcare Improvement - have generalized the following principles of scaling up (which may or may not have relevance to ICT): * You must understand full scale before you start the scale-up work (i.e. what is the growth goal); * Successful scale-up comes when a project or program is expanded in phases of roughly 5x-10x per phase; * It is important to list all of the factors involved in the system to be scaled and then design for maximum leanness in every area; * It is important to be aware of constraint changes as you expand (i.e. which factors scale arithmetically, which scale negatively and which scale positively) * It is important to be aware of the oversight requirements and information systems requirements once full scale is attained; * It is important to be aware of which factors have to be scaled up structurally and which can be scaled up though replication. As for creating a context for successful scale-up, Stella is quite right to point out that a supportive policy environment (political will) and cooperation of donors and NGO's are necessary; to this I would add that successful scale-up also requires: 1. A robust delivery system backbone (e.g. a mechanism for delivering supplies, maintenance) 2. A collaborative methodology and communications network to facilitate exchange of data, innovation and best practices between sites. I know this is somewhat abstract but hope it adds value. This thinking is presently informing our work on scaling up HIV-AIDS treatment in collaboration with WHO, a key part of which will be a communications network to support scale-up (what I am studying in the Reuters Digital Vision Program at Stanford this year.) Best, Joe McCannon --- Institute for Healthcare Improvement Reuters Digital Vision Fellow, Stanford University, 2003-4 617-359-6320 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 the GKD database, with past messages: http://www.GKDknowledge.org
Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] What Can and Should be Brought to Scale?
One of our USAID-funded activities that turned out to be an excellent example of scaling up was the US/Brazil Learning Technologies Network (LTNet). Former country project manager Eric Rusten, whose contact information is on the contractor's web site http://learnlink.aed.org/Projects/brazil.htm, provided me with this summary a while back: Signed in October 1999, LTNet was initially designed to be a simple on-line clearinghouse for static information (reports, case studies, web sites, etc.) on the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in education to enhance teaching and learning in primary and secondary schools in Brazil. In addition, LTNet was charged to organize and carryout workshop and seminars on an opportunistic basis. LTNet's primary partner in Brazil was the ProInfo program at Brazil's Ministry of Education. Over the course of three years, LTNet grew and transformed itself in a variety of ways. These transformations enabled LTNet to move from serving a very few information and technology elites in the major cities to meeting the ICT and education needs of thousands of teachers across Brazil from urban to rural communities. Together the processes of scaling-up and transformation created a synergistic mutually reinforcing cycle that continues to push and pull LTNet forward. This complex interactive process of scaling-up and transformation that occurred in the LTNet project can be categorized in the following ways: Static-to-Dynamic / Passive-to-proactive scaling: The LTNet web site changed from only passively providing static information (most of which was in English with Portuguese abstracts) to being a proactive provider of active and interactive content much of which is generated and managed by educators across Brazil. Supply-Driven to Demand-Driven: At the start, LTNet was largely a supply-driven initiative from Washington DC. Although staff made efforts to learn what information was needed and desired by Brazilian educators, most of the project actions were driven by Washington, DC staff. Toward the end of the first year LTNet started becoming a much more demand-driven effort with Brazilians providing significant input into decisions about what useful services LTNet would provide. This change resulted in a scaling up in the degree of local ownership of LTNet. Limited Scope to Broad Scope: LTNet started with a rather narrow scope of activity that proved to have had very little demand among Brazilian educators and rather quickly scaled-up its scope to provide: a broad spectrum of training and professional development activity; virtual environments for collaborative learning among schools within Brazil and between Brazilian schools and those in the US; enabling local experimentation and innovation via user driven pilot activities; and creating opportunities for Brazilian educators to test out their new skills with integrating technologies into teaching and learning. Centralized decision-making to a network of collaborative partners: LTNet started as an initiative under the US/Brazil Partnership for Education with ProInfo as the principal institutional partner. During the first year of the project the partnership relationships started to scale-up and evolve to include actors from other parts of the Ministry of Education, for example the TVEscola project, State and Municipal Secretaries of education across the country, NGOs, corporations, and the US Embassy. This scaled-up complex of partnership relationships enables LTNet to achieve results and impacts far beyond the limited financial and staff resources of the LTNet project. Serving a few ICT elites to meeting the needs of thousands of public school teachers across Brazil. As a passive web based clearinghouse full of static documents, LTNet would have never reached many educators or had any significant impact on the use of technology in teaching and learning. The processes of transformation and the resulting scaling-up in scope, outreach and responsiveness is enabling LTNet to directly and indirectly impact education in Brazil in a variety of significant ways. The continued growth of LTNet is being driven by an ever-expanding network of teachers who are making LTNet into their own on-line learning environments. LTNet later became a registered NGO when the project ended! Stephen Tournas CTO, LearnLink and dot-EDU USAID Washington, DC 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 the GKD database, with past messages: http://www.GKDknowledge.org
Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Bringing Connectivity to Under-Served Communities
Sudhakar Chandra wrote: This brings to mind something that the satellite radio outfit WorldSpace is doing. The idea is brilliant, in my opinion. You basically buy this satellite radio (approx. $70-100 depending on model). You also buy a computer card to interface with the radio. For a fee (that includes the card free) of approx. $40, you get unmetered limited internet access. The access is limited in the sense that you are restricted to a few WorldSpace approved websites. This would work great if WorldSpace expanded the list of approved sites to include those like Yahoo mail and Hotmail. Unfortunately, they don't. For most people, getting cheap access to a web-based email system like Yahoo mail is a good start. I have greatly appreciated this thread of the conversation and the insight that so many of you have given me. I would like to respond to the mention of WorldSpace technology and to the benefits of being able to provide some level of information to those who are not soon to receive the benefits of WiFi, VSAT or new emerging technologies because of either high cost or government regulation. I work at an organization called First Voice International www.firstvoiceint.org, a small NGO based in Washington, DC, which was given 5% of the WorldSpace satellite network that covers the entire continent of Africa and much of Asia and the Pacific. This satellite network is able to broadcast digital radio and data to small hand held receivers that cost between $70-$150. At First Voice International, we have used this 5% capacity to develop a 24-hour audio service called the Africa Learning Channel, which deals with pan-African issues such as HIV/AIDS, poverty alleviation, youth leadership, gender issues, food security and others. First Voice also has a data service that allows one to connect their digital radio to a PC or laptop using a $90 adapter anywhere under the footprint to download content at 64kbps. First Voice then partners with NGOs, CBOs, government agencies and community radio stations who can use this equipment and content to impact the maximum number of people through organized listening groups, informing intermediary service providers or through rebroadcast on one of the 194 partner community radio stations in Africa. This is not a two-way system and one cannot send emails, but what First Voice has done is to partner with organizations that have relevant web-based content that they currently cannot get to remote users because of lack of or the high cost of connectivity. One example of how this system has had actual impact on the ground throughout Africa is the RANET Project. This project, honored at the WSSD last year, is an international collaboration funded by USAID-OFDA and is partnering with US NOAA and African Meteorological Agencies continent wide and is now expanding into Asia and the Pacific. The RANET Project was designed to make weather, climate, and related environmental information more accessible to remote and resource poor populations. Initially, this was attempted through the Internet, but it soon became clear that sending digital images, animation and other memory intensive files simply was not possible even to capital city offices, not to mention more remote extension workers. Now through a partnership with First Voice International the RANET Project is now sending all of its content on a reliable, low-cost dedicated line to partners in 35 African countries in the capital cities, secondary towns and rural areas. Additionally, every site that has the equipment also receives the content from all of First Voice's other projects including medical journals articles, agricultural best practice information, news, community radio support materials and much more. I completely agree that there always needs to be a feedback loop built into any project. What we are currently doing is using a hub and spokes model where one site has a connection to the Internet (usually dial-up) and can email feedback, but this has generally been very expensive and unreliable. Where this is not available, First Voice is also using telephone, snail mail or face-to-face communications as appropriate. However, we are always looking for a low-cost low-bandwidth connection primarily for email use that can be used in remote areas throughout Africa and Asia and will not require excessive government licensing. If anyone has any suggestions of these technologies I would greatly appreciate it. Aaron Sundsmo -- Aaron Sundsmo Director International Programs First Voice International (formerly WorldSpace Foundation) Tel: 202-861-2261 Fax: 202-861-6407 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:
