On 8/11/05, Jim Stodder wrote:
> Point (1): There would be large pedagogical advantages, even in the 1st
> world, to having MUCH greater use of sophisticated DE. However -- and
> this is key to my argument -- the institutional constraint of Academic
> Tenure, at both the Primary-Secondary and Univ
Dear GKD Members,
With all respect (but based on my almost 20 years of experience) what
was missed in the catalogue of Key Questions is whether there are
social-cultural contexts that condition success or failure? (i.e.,
[il]literacy, ethnic, cultural or religious [un]homogeneity at the local
leve
Dear Colleagues,
I'm a little bit puzzled: if the cost of the components by themselves
and isolated add up to $90 - assuming low costs due to the scale of the
operation - they will be assembled into a laptop which is then
preloaded, tested, packed, stored and shipped all for $0? (this is
necessary
Dear Colleagues,
I don't pretend to add another round to the ongoing debate whether the
term "Information Society for All" as such is a misnomer or has
implicitly very specific and limited objectives in mind and hence should
be replaced by another, more appropriate term. Mostly likely, it
should.
On 12/20/04, Darrell Owen wrote:
> When an Internet infrastructure can expand delivery of education,
> economic opportunity, expand markets, improve health care, improve
> agricultural production or increase prices paid to the farms for their
> crops, then the benefits will likely be such as to ov
Dear Colleagues,
As it was tacitly touched upon in our recent focused discussion and is a
hot topic for WSIS-2005, I would be interested in other opinions.
To state it: in many cases they should not!...and not for the sake of
avoiding spending but rather to avoid harming the "Developing"
Countrie
Dear Colleagues,
I suspect that we operate under two quite different concepts of "poor",
which in turn gives rise to more confusion.
Under the first concept -as for instance used by UNDP for the Human
Development Index- "poor" or "not so poor" is -to put it briefly-
measured in terms of "liberty"
Dear Al,
(1) It's simply and plainly wrong that "what sells, serves" - sometimes
it serves, sometimes it doesn't.
(2) It's again a gross misperception that earnings even of hundreds of
thousands of "new" middlemen in ICT-service-distribution-chains
"eradicate poverty".
(3) If it were true, then
Dear Al,
On one side you are perfectly right: large corporations do have
resources like technical expertise, logistics and capital, that could
and should be leveraged to fight poverty (yet be aware of Halliburton's
performance in Iraq or the Water-companies in Bolivia).
Yet I'm afraid that your d
Initial remarks: the Moderator's question does not contain a definition
of "profit"; it might be a monetary return on invested capital, it might
be an excess over pure operation-costs, it might be equal to the
operation costs but those who use the offered ICT-services do better by
using those servi
Dear Al,
I'm by no means saying that it is impossible (or even only un-ethical)
to make profit out of selling needed (!) ICT-services to whomsoever
-poor included. I do agree that there may be -or even there are already
proven- win-win situations. You point out some candidates. I do however
insist
Dear Colleagues,
I think we should separate (and not mix) the question of what marketing
and packaging strategies are needed to sell ICT-services to the poor in
a profitable way from what ICT-services the poor might need (and how to
provide them in sustainable, maybe even profitable way). The form
Dear Sam,
Though I agree with your intention, I disagree that there is commonly
shared definition even of Cyber-crime.
Why? Looking strictly at criminal-codes in different countries, there
are Internet-based activities which are protected by the Constitution in
one country, and are criminal offen
Dear Mr. Sharkovski,
I do understand perfectly your frustration, yet don't share your opinion
- or perception - that there are just some powerful anonymous groups out
there, which intentionally try to harm Macedonia by putting it on a
black list. Why should they? (And by the way, this IMHO applies
Dear Colleagues,
(1) Commerce at a distance with shortened transaction-times, was well
started about 150 years ago by an invention called the "Telegraph" and
the respective world-wide network.
(2) May I recall that the very Credit Card (as handsome substitute for
the much older Credit Letter) was
Dear GKD Members,
I'm setting up the initial balance sheets and specs for a National
Crusade by which we pretend to equip each and every of the 6700 public
school in the country with a low-scale internet access (2 computers per
school, sufficient bandwidth for email and slow downloading of mid-siz
Dear GKD Members,
I would think it's extremely useful to precisely define that about which
we are going to exchange opinions.
To clarify some citations:
"Since FY97, the Bank has spent some US$220 million for corporate,
network, and Regional knowledge-sharing activities and more than US$60
milli
Dear Scott (and GKD community),
(a) I'm involved with the Development Gateway project since March 2002
(as National Coordinator for Nicaragua)
(b) I've got working experience with WB as a local (!) consultant for
ICT related matters since 1994, therefore:
(1) the World Bank is a BANK not a charit
Centralized Management Information system
approach with extensive ex-post audits and benchmarking from the late
70's to early 80's of last century -which in general failed-, the second
the smoother, more effective and efficient management philosophy of
empowerment, downsizing, networking and c
Dear Michael,
I am well aware of the claimed "global" impact of ICT on overall
capital-productivity, i.e. that improved supply- and distribution
chain-management reduced the amount of capital bound to goods in store,
that improved decision making reduced time-to-market, that standardizing
procedur
Dear GKD Members,
In the same line of questions I raised earlier about measurable and
scaleable impact of ICT on Poverty Reduction, sustained by hard evidence
-best at before-after or control-group comparison-, I would like to ask
for more specific evidence of ICT-impact on the competiveness (and
Dear Joy,
Actually the situation is worse: in most cases the proposed indicators
for eReadiness do not permit to reflect adequately the local context,
i.e. they blur instead of sharpen the eReadiness-picture ... and hence
suggest bad strategies.
Example: obviously illiteracy is an obstacle to use
Let me preface my comments by some more general considerations:
(a) No matter how wealthy he might be, a donor is only willing to
finance operation costs -- or even a substantial fraction thereof -- for
1 or 2 years.
(b) As accumulated cost for ongoing operations rapidly exceeds inital
investments
ive
thresholds, which means a required initial investment in organization,
tools and equipment, which doesn't pay off unless a certain minimal
market-position with respect to the next scale is obtained. (Upscaling
implies discontinuous steps unlike simple growth that fills up a
existing potential
I would like to throw in my 20 ounces of salt ... and support Pam
McLean.
Stories from my life:
When changing the German National Research Center for Computing in 1985
for the Engineering University of Nicaragua I felt like I was
transported to the moon - dark side. Whereas in Germany I had alrea
Dear GKD Colleagues,
Jean-Marie Blanchard wrote:
> Main barriers to Internet penetration are identified as: lack of Telecom
> infrastructure, limitation of population income, not adequate enough
> content and applications, lack of local expertise and population
> awarenessAlcatel is participa
Estimadas & estimados,
A little bit ago I posted a request for references to ICT4POOR projects
which -based on empirical evidence- had improved the economic situation
of the poor or the miserable. I did receive some references though not
much and most either talking about potentials or about susta
rd facts.
I'm straight looking for projects where the people (or the community)
was poor (miserable) before and where by using ICT themselves they
were less poor (less miserable) after and ICT is the key element for
success. Any reference with concrete cases & data will be ext
Hi Don & Timothy and all, to throw in my 10% of IMHO:
(1) Computer-waste (or Garbage) is highly toxic. Therefore most OECD
countries, at least those of the north, have very strict rules in place,
sustained by laws and regulations and enforced by high penalities, about
how to handle this waste to m
Dear all,
Just as I had a recent presentation on the topic in El Salvador (for
directors of primary and secondary schools, I'll forward the ppt in
Spanish to whomever likes a copy), I would like to describe another pitfall
or mistake committed many, many times by people from the north.
They stil
Philipp Schmidt wrote:
> The ARPANET, the first stage of what has grown into today's Internet,
> was implemented by the U.S. military. It was then extended to be used
> by U.S. universities mainly for research purposes. It seems that
> anybody wanting to connect to the network that was up to this
You should be more precise:
The world except US is being ripped off by the US Telcos.
Reason: the situation you describe is true for all Internet-connections
from outside the US.
According to ITU we're talking about 500 Million (!) US$ anually at
least that US Telcos would lose (or would have t
Dear GKD Members,
I accepted to do an e-Readiness evaluation of Nicaragua based on the
Harvard Evaluation-guide (which by the way is the almost the same as the
Worldbank and the GDG-Foundation use).
The more I get into it, the more I feel that this approach does not fit
to the specific situation
Dear GKD Members,
At some point in this discussion, the question was raised whether those
with access are yielding.
I 'connected' Nicaragua to the Internet (blue node in 1989, online 1993)
and I'm doing know -13 years later- a global eReadiness study, among
others to evaluate how far we've gotte
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