Re: [Ilugc] AEC IT and Rural India Conference

2008-07-28 Thread senthilraja P
/**
1.Village GIS system: This will use the openstreetmap to provide
all information like vao office, schools etc.

2.Agri/botanical information. The details about the crop, soil
 and other such information to be aggregated using some tool.

.
.

**/

This is an excellent suggestion and a nice idea..

However, to avoid the risk of being theoritical, can we evolve a set of use
cases, on how the people at rural villages would be using these
informations..

Instead of taking up bulk of suggestions at one time, can we take few
important suggestions, and then work in details, right from conceptual to
implementation, and sustainability.

Analysis of the predicted outcome in that area because of this project,
would help us improve the clarity of our goals..

Some of my suggestions:


1. Establish Connectivity at rural areas, through Fibre Optics.  And then
persuading IT related companies to setup office there.  Initially, BPO's can
start with this.  Once we could make a pilot project successful, i feel,
more will follow up.

Some of my predicted Usage Scenarios:
--
   - People working in BPOs tend to settle in villages (due to reduced
living cost  work availability) .  This will bring in economy there, which
provide more opportunities.  As a result, shops with urban items would be
setup, clinics would be opened, good theatres will come, and these people
would be a good market for the surrounding farmers, to sell their produces.
Over the period of time, good schools would be setup, and thus, a complete
cycle of basic requirements will be available.
- The rural people have immediate accessibilitie to the educated ITES for
any help or guidance. and the local people by implicit start learning IT
business.

2. I think, now internet connection is available in all Panchayat Offices.
We can approach the government, and use that connectivity to setup small
browsing centres and computer centre.  But, that should not teach them c or
c++.. rather, that should teach only the tools and softwares necessary and
beneficial to those rural people..

They should not be trained to merely consume the information..  Rather, they
should be able to contribute their knowledge back, even though its not that
much technical or sophisticated..  Training the people to express themselves
will bring drastic change in their thought process.

Some examples are:
1. Creating a issue resolution system there.  So that any knowledge person
can go to browsing center, and log in their complaints for view by their
panchayat leader.  This would enable them to maintain issue history, which
they can review and analyse in the long run.

2. To create a local forum to discuss about their issues. (the forums
accessible in the browsing centre..)

And for using all these, they need to know typing.  We can setup a small
typing training centre..

And all these in our Mother Tongue..  and they should be trained to type in
Mother Tongue first.




I dont know if its practical or not..  But, my approach to problem is
Enhancing our life with IT tools, rather than enhancing the tools with our
life..

ie, first we need to understand our requirement..  then when we get a new
knowledge/tools/technology, how can we use it for improving our current
situation.. how can we adapt it to our lifestyle..

If we think in this framework, we can be more indigenous, and automatically
innovation will emerge, when we start implementing it..

Regards,
Senthil Raja
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[Ilugc] AEC IT and Rural India Conference

2008-07-26 Thread Raman.P
Dear Luggies

Arunai Engg College, Tiruvannamalai is organising an International
Conference on Information Technology for Rural Development from
29th Aug to 31 Aug 08.

Thiagu and me visited their college on 25 jul 08 and had discussion
with management,faculty and students on how ILUGC can participate 
in it.

We have broadly identified the following areas

1.Village GIS system: This will use the openstreetmap to provide
all information like vao office, schools etc.

2.Agri/botanical information. The details about the crop, soil
  and other such information to be aggregated using some tool.

3.Women self help group, their activities, how to start, what
  are the products produced, credits etc.

4.Veterinary information system: The detaills of live stock,
  their dieseases etc.,

5. Primary health info system like immunisation, sanitation
   etc.

6. Tele health : enabling consultation with specialist remotely.

7. Bridging digital divide using Lowcost computing in rural schools 
   with ltsp based thin clients

8. Computer aided learning using educational software like gcompris
   kstars etc.

9. Computers in local language 

For 2-5 we have to think of proper tool - may be wiki like.

Students have suggested few

10. A remotely operated system with some wifi technology to control
irrigation channel, switching on/off the pumpsets etc.

12. Some kind of web based aggregation tool to provided rural related
data from various websites.


Suggestions are welcome. Please keep in mind following constraints

a.Time is short less than 30 days, so only what is possible
  within the time should be aimed at.
b.We have to involve their students and get things done or do it
  ourselves
c.We have to visit atleast twice before the event to guide
  the students, though most guidance can be over net -  but net
  penetration isn't very high.

d.We need atleast 20 physical volunteers


Needless to say we talking about FOSS based tools/work only.

Raman.P


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Re: [Ilugc] AEC IT and Rural India Conference

2008-07-26 Thread Aanjhan R
On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 8:12 PM, Raman.P [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 8. Computer aided learning using educational software like gcompris
   kstars etc.

The KDE Education project has a whole list of very good tools. One can
have a look of all the tools available here

http://edu.kde.org/ (The new program STEP is one amazing tool. It will
be great if one can manage to run KDE 4.x and show this tool)

 d.We need atleast 20 physical volunteers

I can be available for a day or two. Please feel free to ping me.

Thanks and Regards,
Aanjhan
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