Don Cameron wrote: >A recent discussion on another forum really strengthened the need to clarify >just what the term 'Telecentre' means. A proponent of South Korea's 'PC >Bangs' (Korean parlance for an Internet Café) described the 20,000 South >Korean 'PC Bangs' as Telecentre's. The use of this descriptor was argued by >other respondents as inappropriate because not one of these commercial Cyber >Cafés is community based or driven by development objectives (most are >simply computer gaming venues). None are true Telecentre's as all commenced >life as commercial ventures vying for an ever decreasing market; a market >where home PC adoption makes 'PC Bangs' largely obsolete (South Korea is the >worlds most wired nation and while there were more than 50,000 PC Bangs in >year 2000, today there are less than 20,000 due to changing market >conditions). I can only wonder at a market where 30,000 small businesses >vanish in the space of 4 short years! > > And when those businesses disappear - what will happen to the community? So the community may not have originally been the driving factor, but the community is now a driving factor...
>There are many lessons to be learnt from the Korean experience and to me, >the two most evident are: > >1/ Sustainability is not as simplistic as a choice of software or venue as >it contains many variables of importance; not the least being the matter of >a mission driven by need and supported by the community. A Telecentre that >looses community focus is doomed to the anonymity of being 'just another >provider' in a highly competitive market. > Well, this goes back to the Cluetrain Manifesto - 'Markets are discussions'. Telecentres are water, and we can provide water, but people have to want to drink it. In a business, it's in the interest of the business to create something attractive, but in the case of funded Telecentres... is there such a need? So there's also the issue of motivation of the Telecentre itself. Those that meet a need or want of a community survive, and are good investments. Those that do not... >2/ WSIS makes scant reference to the threat of ICT's and totally fails to >provide deliverables for threat mitigation other than a few oblique >references to Spam and security - yet South Korea teaches that development >is also not as simplistic as 'build it and they will come and prosper'. The >populace of this highly wired nation are increasingly called to deal with >the downside of interactive ICT's. Quite apart from the loss of 30,000 small >businesses, one-third of South Korea's online population; more than 20% of >the total population are now considered to be 'Internet Addicts'. The >Government is so concerned about the social implications that South Korea >has established a "Centre for Internet Addiction Prevention and Counselling" >that receives thousands of requests for help per day. > > Wow. I wonder why people feel that they have become addicted. Do they surf the internet to the point where they lose interest in other things? >We are potentially opening Pandora's Box and WSIS seeks to hasten the >process by placing unrealistic timeliness on Governments to achieve a vision >yet to be tested or evaluated, even less understood. If Telecentre's can >promote anything to this process I hope it is that of caution; of slowing >down the zealous nature of WSIS to drive change overnight. Telecentre's have >a long history of promoting managed and contributory development and >acknowledge that development does not occur in quantum leaps - I hope we can >bring our culture, ethos and work ethic to the table of WSIS. > > This makes a lot of sense. Could we talk about this some more? I think this is pretty important... -- Taran Rampersad [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxgazette.com http://www.a42.com http://www.worldchanging.com http://www.knowprose.com http://www.easylum.net " It requires greater courage to preserve inner freedom, to move on in one's inward journey into new realms, than to stand defiantly for outer freedom."— Rollo May _______________________________________________ telecentres mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/telecentres To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
