New Businesses for the Sustainability of Telecentres

“My farther reads the news paper online, now he does not want to buy the papers” – some anecdotes tries to prove that Telecentres are fully integrated with rural societies and they depend on the Telecentres for various services.

In fact, if a person in rural Sri Lanka tries to read a news paper on line, he has to pay at least $ 0.5 whereas he can buy the new paper for around $ 0.25. It may be worth for a busy executive to read the online version of a news paper but may not be for rural folks.

Telecentres made the technology available for rural communities. So what?

The real issue was we didn’t have applicable content and services to deliver through Telecentres. So services such as Dialog tradenet (www.tradenet.lk) can make a real difference in terms of providing relevant services to the community while sustaining Telecentres with incremental revenue.

Three potential roles

1. Finding products or services at cheaper rates for the community in the area (used products, etc.). That could be even finding the raw materials for SME businesses.

2. Help entrepreneurs to find the market. Exploit the free advertising opportunity in tradenet. There is a potential of reaching a huge market of nearly seven million people (customer base of Dialog).

3. Playing the role of an intermediary/Broker. Most of the rural products and service sellers find it difficult to interact with modern markets. So telecentre operator can play the role of intermediary to bridge the gap.

-Sameera.

Telecentre Management Course by IGNOU

“Telecentres are not sustainable; it is just waste of money”.

Let’s stop blaming telecentres, understand what went wrong and what went well. Let’s get things corrected. Now we should promote Telecentre Management as a profession not as just looking after some computers in a rural hut.

Starting a Telecentre Management Course is a really good and timely initiative by The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) together with other likeminded organizations.

Telecentre Management Course Contents;

CTCM-01: Fundamentals of Telecentres
CTCM-02: Understanding Community Needs
CTCM-03: Community Informatics
CTCM-04: Planning a Telecentre
CTCM-05: Telecentre Management Techniques
CTCM-06: Qualities of Telecentre Operators
CTCM-07: Basic IT Skills
CTCM-08: Content and Services in Telecentres
CTCM-09: Community Use of Telecentre
CTCM-10: Information Management at Telecentres
CTCM-11: Promoting Your Telecentre
CTCM-12: Assessing the Progress of Telecentres

It is good to hear that the course is going to be available in 10 international languages making it accessible to Telecentre Operators in other developing countries.

-Sameera.

Can Telecenters become Disaster Early Warning Centers?

Yes, it can be. Telecentre is a place rich with ICT

No, it is too much to expect from a Telecentre.

Most of the telecentres are located in rural areas; most of those areas are prone to disasters, natural or man-made. Telecentres located in those areas but still with ICT facilities telephone, internet, fax, etc. can receive a message from a central disaster early warning centre.

So if we have a simple mechanism to disseminate that information, may be using megaphones we can convert a Telecentre to Early Warning Centre in the village. Even after the disaster occurred, that Telecentre can continue a play a role of coordinating the relief work, impact assessment, finding missing people (http://www.sahana.lk/), etc.

How many of you have tried this? What went well? What went wrong?

Sameera
http://ict4d-in-srilanka.blogspot.com/

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Sustainability of Telecentres

Note: My intention is not to promote any product, brand or company, but to promote sustainability of Telecentres.

On my way to Hambantota (A district in the deep south of Sri Lanka), I could see many Telecentres (Nenasalas). Out of those Telecentres some of them were with billboard as shown in the above image. Some others, which did not have those kinds of billboards, were closed and not operational.

I don’t try to come to the conclusion that those were closed simply because they did not have billboards provided by a private company.

But those billboards show us how far they have got integrated with other systems, for their own sustainability. Most of the Telecentres initiated with public funds or with funding from development organizations could be sustained through the involvement of the private sector.

Fortunately in Sri Lanka, the macro level policy decisions also have contributed towards the sustainability. Making a competitive environment within the telecommunication industry, adoption of new technologies such as Wi-MAX and HSPA are favorable for sustainability of Telecentres.

-Sameera.