telecentre

This APDIP e-Note argues that with telecentres now being part of national roll-out programmes in many countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region, a second generation of telecentres is evolving. Telecentre 2.0. is a general model that does away with further piloting of telecentres as a development mechanism. This APDIP e-Note outlines how the Telecentre 2.0 model can help countries that do not have established telecentres on a country-wide basis in doing so by drawing on previous and well-documented experiences from other countries.

This case study details the e-Knowledge Public Domain project that aims to extend the use of Community e-Centers in the Philippines from simply being a means to access information to becoming local knowledge production centres. The strategy is to develop appropriate ICT skills in communities to enable community members to create relevant digital content.

Zunia is an online network for knowledge exchange among development professionals worldwide. Its communities cover major topic areas with more than 200 partnering organizations to help guide content. Zunia was launched in July 2009. Previously, the knowledge-sharing site of Development Gateway was dgCommunities. All the content from that site was migrated to Zunia.

The aim of this paper is to examine the utility of ICT4D project efficacy. Particular consideration is given to the Village Phone Programme in Bangladesh and the Nakaseke Multipurpose Community Telecentre in Uganda. The results show that the Village Phone Programme, which focuses primarily on the economic empowerment of project beneficiaries, and the Nakaseke Telecentre, which prioritizes expanding service provision, both fall short to take into consideration the extreme poor and disadvantaged; a remarkable weakness in conventional ICT4D programming.

These manuals will address various questions in four main areas – grassroots marketing; grassroots communications, entrepreneurship, and info-mediary skills (managing telecentres). The manuals will seek to provide valuable information that will help both trainers of telecentre managers and the managers themselves learn about different aspects of telecentre management, to become more knowledgeable, and to gain some specialized skills so that they can make a success out of the telecentres they run.

For at least a decade governments and nonprofit organizations, often supported by bilateral aid, have experimented with telecentres as a means to extend access to computers, the Internet, and other information and communication services to rural and low-income urban areas of developing countries. Results have been mixed. This Note proposes a guide for government policy on telecentres conceived as private businesses—though with development functions—that are commercially sustainable beyond initial public support.

This handbook of training materials for telecentre staff was created by a team from Cornell University, in collaboration with telecentres throughout the world. The handbook is organized in 10 modules. It addresses the wide range of different factors that may come into play in the planning and daily functioning of a telecentre for community development. It is not only a self-learning tool and management guide for telecentre staffs, but also a reference resource to guide the reader toward a future search for additional educational materials.

First published in 1997, the CTC Center Start-Up Manual is widely recognized as a principal guide for establishing CTCs and serves as an organized patchwork of CTC experiences. With support from the Surdna Foundation, the manual was updated in January 2003 to reflect developing CTC experiences and needs. The manual include issues related to: determining programme focus, staffing, software selection, hardware and security, outreach, self-assessment, budgeting, funding and preparing a business plan.

The telecentre.org Academy is a global initiative to provide telecentre managers with ongoing training, capacity building, and professional development opportunities. Structured as a consortium of national academies and partners with a small global support unit, the Academy supports and coordinates training programmes, promotes the collaborative development and sharing of resources, and maintains accreditation and certification standards.

This is a software package of 2 CDs for telecentres. It includes Office productivity tools OpenOffice.org, Internet browser Firefox, instant manager Pidgin, graphics software GIMP and many other applications that telecentres need. This is a collaboration between the Bangladesh Telecentre Network and the Bangladesh Open Source Network.