[GKD] Kyrgyzstan ICT Action Plan: Round Table
Kyrgyzstan ICT Action Plan Round Table in Bishkek, Friday, July 25, 2003 UNDP Kyrgyzstan in collaboration with the ICT Council under the President of the Kyrgyz Republic will be hosting a Round Table meeting involving stakeholders for development in Bishkek on Friday, July 25, 2003. Richard Labelle, an ICT consultant for UNDP, will be delivering a report and comments on the ICT Action Plan, including recommendations for strengthening the report and moving it forward. The ICT Action Plan is divided into 5 parts, including three substantive components: e-government, e-economy, e-education; and two support components: legislation and infrastructure for the ICT Action Plan. Key issues for discussion will centre on the relationship between the proposals made and the demand and state of development of the ICT marketplace in Kyrgyzstan. Other issues include the priorities for the Action Plan, the sequencing of implementation, how to bridge the digital divide separating the rural dwellers from those living in urban areas including Bishkek, how to strengthen the capacity of the private sector to make use of ICTs. The Round Table meeting will take place all of Friday, July 25. Details about the venue can be ontained from UNDP Kyrgyzstan directly. Please communicate directly with Ms. Yukiko Uchiyama, ICT for Dev. Specialist at the UNDP office in Bishkek ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). Richard Labelle Consultant, ICT for Development UNDP Kyrgyzstan ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** 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] Djibouti ICT Strategy and Action plan
y and action plan are available online at the following site: www.mccpt.dj. Choose the option : 'Societe de l'information NTICs'. The strategy and action plan are available in French and the Action plan is available in English. Thanks to ITU for its strong support of this process, including the translation of the Action Plan to English and especially to Miloud Ameziane of the ITU regional office in Cairo for his continued support and encouragement. Also many thanks to l'Agence Internationale de la Francophonie, Unesco and the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) for its ongoing support and involvement. For more information, please communicate directly with the Ministry: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Richard Labelle Consultant, ICTs for development UNDP ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** 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/>
Re: [GKD] Using Instant Messaging with Volunteers
Volunteers excepted, Instant messaging based on PCs has limited application for the public at large in many countries in the developing world when compared to the use of equivalent applications associated with hand held devices. These include mobile phones with microbrowsers or more likely SMS and/or voice over mobile telephony. While the latter two apps would not permit the point and click utility that you have programmed into the instant messaging application, it would be very useful nevertheless (and I presume point and click could also be implemented using microbrowsers). Let me reiterate the importance of SMS and mobile tepephony here in Botswana. In May there were 332,000 mobile phones in Botswana and about 150,000 land lines for a population of close to 1.7 million people. Just today I learned that as of Sept. 02, there are exactly 367,254 cell phone users in Botswana. A stunning increase of about 35,000 over a few months. In all, it is estimated that there are 65,000 PCs in Botswana, and most of these are in the urban areas and in schools (every one of the 250 secondary schools in the country for example). Could it be that mobile phones diffuse sufficiently in countries like Botswana such that we can start talking about universal service and not just universal access? Guido, write apps for handhelds... Consider their use for enabling access to info of local import: local and regional market info, weather, account enquiries with banks and utilities, breaking news, local stock market quotes, etc. When the number of community access centres achieves a penetration similar to that of mobile phones (on a public access basis), consider Instant Messaging as well (there are virtually no community access centres in Botswana, although this is set to change very quickly). Richard Labelle Consultant, UNDP, Gaborone, Botswana Human Development Report 2002-03 (Science and tech. for human development). Guido Sohne wrote: > Instant messaging does not have to solely be limited to use of widely > distributed chat clients. I wrote an application earlier this year > that utilized instant messaging technology but worked by embedding the > technology into the application itself. > > The business case was to improve the situation of businesses trying to > source scarce foreign exchange in an economy where the telephone > system was quite bad, making it a pain to comb several commercial > banks and forex bureaux looking for foreign exchange. Calling eight > banks could easily take the whole afternoon, and foreign exchange, > especially in large quantities, can often take a long time to source. > > The answer was to create an application that published foreign > exchange rates, allowing banks and forex bureaux to publish their own > rates. Users could click on a price and chat with the person who set > the price. In addition, due to the use of store and forward > technology, disconnecting from the network and later reconnecting to > the network resulted in all price updates being received in such a > manner that each party using the system would see up to date prices in > all the major currencies. > > This may not necessarily be instant messaging work with volunteers, > but I think that it is interesting all the same and wanted to share it > with others, especially since I was the one who wrote the application, > so it was a labour of love. ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** 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/>
Re: [GKD] Using Instant Messaging with Volunteers
Volunteers excepted, Instant messaging based on PCs has limited application for the public at large in many countries in the developing world when compared to the use of equivalent applications associated with hand held devices. These include mobile phones with microbrowsers or more likely SMS and/or voice over mobile telephony. While the latter two apps would not permit the point and click utility that you have programmed into the instant messaging application, it would be very useful nevertheless (and I presume point and click could also be implemented using microbrowsers). Let me reiterate the importance of SMS and mobile tepephony here in Botswana. In May there were 332,000 mobile phones in Botswana and about 150,000 land lines for a population of close to 1.7 million people. Just today I learned that as of Sept. 02, there are exactly 367,254 cell phone users in Botswana. A stunning increase of about 35,000 over a few months. In all, it is estimated that there are 65,000 PCs in Botswana, and most of these are in the urban areas and in schools (every one of the 250 secondary schools in the country for example). Could it be that mobile phones diffuse sufficiently in countries like Botswana such that we can start talking about universal service and not just universal access? Guido, write apps for handhelds... Consider their use for enabling access to info of local import: local and regional market info, weather, account enquiries with banks and utilities, breaking news, local stock market quotes, etc. When the number of community access centres achieves a penetration similar to that of mobile phones (on a public access basis), consider Instant Messaging as well (there are virtually no community access centres in Botswana, although this is set to change very quickly). Richard Labelle Consultant, UNDP, Gaborone, Botswana Human Development Report 2002-03 (Science and tech. for human development). Guido Sohne wrote: > Instant messaging does not have to solely be limited to use of widely > distributed chat clients. I wrote an application earlier this year > that utilized instant messaging technology but worked by embedding the > technology into the application itself. > > The business case was to improve the situation of businesses trying to > source scarce foreign exchange in an economy where the telephone > system was quite bad, making it a pain to comb several commercial > banks and forex bureaux looking for foreign exchange. Calling eight > banks could easily take the whole afternoon, and foreign exchange, > especially in large quantities, can often take a long time to source. > > The answer was to create an application that published foreign > exchange rates, allowing banks and forex bureaux to publish their own > rates. Users could click on a price and chat with the person who set > the price. In addition, due to the use of store and forward > technology, disconnecting from the network and later reconnecting to > the network resulted in all price updates being received in such a > manner that each party using the system would see up to date prices in > all the major currencies. > > This may not necessarily be instant messaging work with volunteers, > but I think that it is interesting all the same and wanted to share it > with others, especially since I was the one who wrote the application, > so it was a labour of love. ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** 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] RFI: SMS Messaging for SMMEs & Local/Community Dev.
Dear Colleagues, UNDP Botswana is completing the Botswana Human Development Report on Harnessing science and technology for human development. This includes ICTs. We are interested in case studies and applications showing the use of SMS by SMMEs and by businesses in general in the developing world or that may be applicable to the developing world and especially to Botswana. Can you point us in the right direction, suggest urls, etc.? We will share results with the list. Note that in Botswana, which has a highly developed telecommunications infrastructure and a very progressive and liberal regulatory regime, cellular phone coverage reaches potentially 90% of the population. There are over 332,000 cell phones and over 150,000 land lines in a country of 1.7 million people (up from 0 cell phones in 1997). Over 100,000 SMS messages are exchanged daily according to one of the two cell phone operators on just one of the two networks. Many thanks, Richard Labelle, Consultant Team Leader, UNDP, Botswana Human Dev. Report. 2002-03 ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** 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/>
Re: [GKD] Article in Financial Times on How to bridge the digital
divide Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dear Robert Davies, Thank you for this article about sending free PCs from the inventories of companies from around the world. I think the idea of sending PCs that are essentially free may have some potential in some countries and under very specific circumstances. However, in my experience, getting used PCs through customs in many developing countries can be a real problem. It is one reason that few development projects that I know of go this route. And in many countries, having second hand PCs from the first world does not sit well - here they are sending us or dumping their rejects again. This is not the feeling of the ultimate beneficiaries by the way, but it will be the way the government may feel and the government decides what comes in to the country by and large. Plus there are the logistical reasons such as duty on the import of PCs / durable goods, etc. In this and related lists (Afrik-it), there have been and probably still are discussions ongoing on this topic (what experiences have worked and under which circumstances, which organizations do this, etc.). Some projects seem to have potential but I am not convinced that the sending of so called free or recently used PCs per se will work. There has to be a delivery mechanism that will facilitate and help overcome the difficulties that would be encountered, some of which I have alluded to. Consider the following idea that in my understanding has not been attempted before - please correct me if I am mistaken - and that may be a useful way forward. If a 'PC sending project' were incorporated into the activities of donors it would stand more chance of succeeding. If donors could obtain these PCs from a pool of computers that had been certified as operational and use these instead of brand new machines, the savings would be very significant and could thus free up funds for other activities such as awareness promotion and training, etc. A nominal fee could be expended to fund the recovery and certification process (although one would expect that the companies 'donating' these PCs could be prevailed upon to do this themselves). Another idea would be for the refurbishing to be undertaken in beneficiary countries as a way of enhancing local capacity as well as the market for PC maintenance services. The other advantage of incorporating such in the activities of donors is that in many cases, certainly with the UN agencies, including the World Bank and probably other donors as well, importation can take place duty free. While the tax or duty paid on the import of PCs is falling or is low, this can still be an advantage. There have been cases of free PCs being stalled indefinitely at customs because there is duty to be paid, even if the PCs were obtained as donations. In some cases, duty becomes payable once the project is over, so this has to be considered as well. Access to PCs is a most significant drawback when introducing communities to the use of PCs and the Internet. It is not just physical access that is a problem, i.e. having a PC or getting access to one, but being able to use it is also a major challenge. For the poor and especially the illiterate, using the interface is another difficulty to overcome. A keyboard is not a user friendly device. It is not intuitive the way a cell phone is for example. However, one technology that is fairly ubiquitous is the television. Building access models based on Web-TV and set-top boxes or using a hand held icon marked input device (press the cloud or lighting icon for information about the weather) linked by dial-up to the Internet would work in some countries such as China (although many countries do not have telephones in the rural areas where many of the poor reside). In China for example, we have found that this issue is being considered by China Telecom. Connecting the rural poor is a challenge in itself, but getting them to over come the limitations imposed by the keyboard is another area of concern. So work is ongoing on user friendly devices such as those mentioned above (Would very much like to hear from others familiar with this area of concern). Finally, it has to be mentioned that the fledgling PC industry in many countries, and especially in the poorest countries, depend to some extent on donor purchasing of PCs and related services. The proposal mentioned in this article would probably have a negative impact on the sale of PCs through local suppliers in many developing countries, but would probably generate some work on the service side. Whatever model is arrived at, it is very important to bear in mind that the impacts are many fold and that what may appear like a great idea from the comfort of an office near the Tower of London may not be so in downtown Nouakchott or Samarkand. Cheers, Richard Labelle Consultant ********** Richard Labelle Information Techn
