[GKD] Query on Simputer (India)
Dear GKD Members: I am working on an article on the Simputer, and would be very grateful if you could spare a few moments to give me your views on the same. Could you kindly let me know: 1. What is your view of the utility of the Simputer? 2. Is its potential getting eroded by falling palmtop prices? Or is the comparison with a low-cost palmtop unfair to the Simputer? 3. Should a country like India go in for greater hardware innovation? 4. What would you view to the be the main contribution of the Simputer? (i) Low cost (ii) Open-design (iii) Fact that it comes from a Third World country? (iv) Attempt to be friendly to the rural villager? (v) Anything else? 5. We in India have been falling short of the promise of a number of IT-for-development projects? Why do you feel this is so? 6. If you had a say in designing the Simputer differently, what would it be? 7. Simputer has received a whole lot of favourable press coverage. Do you feel this was (i) deserved (ii) undeserved (iii) lesser than deserved? 8. How do projects like the Simputer rate on scalability, software, interface, userability? What is your understanding of the problems and obstacles in taking this from the lab to manufacturing? Why haven't computer companies or other industrialists coming forward to support this? 9. Will the Simputer be able to sell at the sub-$200 price? 10. Any other comments. Thanks a lot. If you could send in the comments by March 12, I'd be very grateful. Frederick. PS: Please visit the http://linuxinindia.pitas.com site below... -- Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa * India 832.409490 / 409783 BYTESFORALL www.bytesforall.org * GNU-LINUX http://linuxinindia.pitas.com Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] * SMS [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Saligao Goa India Writing with a difference... on what makes *the* difference ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, an NGO that is a GKP member*** 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.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
[GKD] UCLA Community Technology Conference
UCLA community technology conference. 2.15.02. Copyright 2002 Steve Cisler. Okay to post on other lists and non-profit servers Los Angeles has a great many projects focused on community technology and innovative uses of ICT. One group that is leading the way at the University of California Los Angeles is the Advanced Policy Institute in the School of Public Policy and Social Research. They have a project to collaborate with librarians in Nairobi, Kenya, to help them with the African Virtual Library-Kenya. Based on their successful project called Neighborhood Knowledge Los Angeles (NKLA) , the AVLK project sent four librarians to spend a week at the institute. During that time, Bill Pitkin and his colleagues organized a one day conference on community technology and invited some interesting people to talk about domestic projects and several outside of the U.S. It was an important visit for me, aside from the conference. Just after my Peace Corps service in Africa, I had been admitted to the African Studies program to research the spread of Islam is Mauritania and Senegal in 1967. However, the U.S. military felt my time should be spent in other tropical climates, and I never attended the university, though I did visit a friend who was also admitted to the program. This was my first visit back to the campus after 34 years... The morning of February 15 we arrived to register and have breakfast. The Institute did not trumpet its own projects very much, but they deserve a close study by readers of this short report. NKLA began in 1995 and continued with the support of grant money from the NTIA in the Department of Commerce (the same program that has been cut from the proposed US budget by the Bush regime). The project provided access to city information on building permits, tax delinquincy, and affordable housing. One of the challenges was the integration of data from disparate sources. The community was involved not just as users but also through hundreds of outreach sessions. Locals were also involved in asset-mapping for local neighborhoods, and a number of new projects grew out of this. Now, they are working on a project for the state of California that will concentrate on urban areas but also include a few smaller towns in the collection, publishing, and mapping process. Michael Gurstein of the New Jersey Institute of Technology gave a short keynote address. He teaches courses in community informatics and the digital firm. He discussed a large pharmaceutical company that is one of the most digitally integrated in the world. It fulfills over 8000 prescriptions in an hour, in contrast to his uncle, the proverbial small town pharmacist in a small town on the Canadian prarie, who might have done that many in a month. One of the points he made was that only certain cross sections of the business sector were reaping the benefits of the integration of this expensive technology. Smaller firms, more conservative firms, non-profits, and whole other countries lack the skills, money, and inclination to match these investments. In some ways the increased integration puts those firms even further away from groups satisfied with just a functioning LAN or new database or active web site, not to mention those groups too poor to have any equipment at all. Gurstein hopes that community informatics will renew the vision to make the Net useful for all. He hopes that Bush's declaration of victory over these disparities won't be echoed in other countries where the situation is even more critical, and victory, if it can be called that, is nowhere in sight. International projects Doe Meyer of the Annenberg Center for Communication talked about the women health and media project in Africa. She emphasized the importance of not concentrating on one medium, so they worked with t-shirts, posters, newsletters, the Net, and video. She showed a video about the National Association of Disabled Women in Zambia and their efforts at AIDS education in rural areas. Net activists should not forget that video can be much more accessible to some people than information on a computer. A video program in the local language can reach many people who may not see any use for the Internet. I spoke about telecenters in Latin America and the different kinds that were emerging in different countries, depending on government policy, the NGO's activities, and consortia like somos@telecentros based in Quito, Ecuador. I mentioned a handbook I had just completed on keeping ICT projects running in developing countries. Lee Thorn of the Jhai Foundation is a real storyteller. To start off with, he admitted he was there to get support for his project in Laos, and he passed around literature (but no collection plate). The Jhai Foundation is built on his idea of reconciliation between the people of Laos (the ones who were bombed) and the U.S. (the ones who did the bombing). Though it was more than 25 years ago, the bombardment of Laos is still
[GKD] Invitation to a Virtual Forum in Spanish-Portuguese
Greetings from Martha Davies Once again, we (ECIE), are working with ITC (International Trade Center) presenting virtual forums. (only in Spanish and Portuguese). We are also presenting real seminars to the Latino communities of the Pacific Northwest area. And...we are preparing to bring Mino, the Ashaninka leader from the jungles of Peru to be part of the CPSR (Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility) conference: Shaping the Network Society scheduled for May. I think it will be very inspirational and motivating to the Latinos in this area to see how Mino and his people are using ICT. And now...the Invitation to the forum: VIRTUAL FORUM LATINPHARMA From March 18th to the 22, 2002 on the Internet (To be presented only in Spanish and Portuguese) To register (free) visit the URL: http://e-connexions.net/mailman/listinfo/forolatinpharma Or send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] requesting your subscription to the Virtual Forum: http://www.ecie.org/latinpharma2002/ --Letter of Invitation-- from Centro de Comercio Internacional UNCTAD/OMC20 Esteemed Colleagues: The LatinPharma event is an initiative entirely dedicated to the pharmaceutical industry of Latin America. LatinPharma, under a methodology developed by the Centro de Comercio Internacional UNCTAD/OMC (CCI) fourteen years ago, has as a fundamental objective, the commercial interchange between countries of the same region. In principle, this event promotes commerce between South-South, without losing sight of the social impact that the medical products have on our world. Access to health treatments is a human right, as it is with the medicine. In the case of LatinPharma; it searches for the Central American integration. For more information please visit: http://www.latinpharmaexpo2002.com.sv The Electronic Forum LatinPharma: Looking for the development of the pharmaceutical industry of this region, topics of interest were identified and organized in a program that has five activities: one virtual called: Virtual Forum LatinPharma, to encourage the diffusion of information, the awareness and the discussion among the academics, professionals, and business people of the sector, on the global tendencies and its impact on Latin America.20 The real activities will be practices that looks into how to assess the technical deficit of the laboratories in Central America to find ways through the use of conferences, international trade fairs, business round table, and individual consultancy to perfect them. To register to the Electronic Forum please visit the following URL: http://e-connexions.net/mailman/listinfo/forolatinpharma Or send e-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Requesting your subscription Other pages of the Electronic Forum: http://www.ecie.org/latinpharma2002/ We request your help to send this message to all the organizations in your country identified with this theme. We are sure that this first electronic forum on this important sector, reaching the four points of Latin America will be very successful. Thanking your participation and cooperation. Cordially, Emmanuel Barreto Assessor of Commercial Promotion20 Coordinator of LatinPharma Centro de Comercio Internacional (UNCTAD/OMC) Palais des Nations 1211 Ginebra Suiza Tel.: (41-22) 730 0251 Fax: (41-22) 730 0249 http://www.latinpharmaexpo2002.com.sv Collaborating with the Virtual Forum: ECIE (NGO registered in USA) http://www.ecie.org/latinpharma2002/ EDUZYME (NGO registered in Peru) http://www.eduzyme.org/ -- To register (free) visit the URL: http://e-connexions.net/mailman/listinfo/forolatinpharma Or send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, an NGO that is a GKP member*** 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.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
