As part of some on-going projects in various parts of the world I’ve been thinking about the overall model of Telecentres which, along with commercially run Cybercafes (also known as Internet Cafes ), continue to be the primary means by which computing and the Internet are being made available at the community level.
What is becoming clear is that the first generation of Telecentres which provided a basis for first introducing the Internet (and computing) to many parts of the world and particularly into rural areas has now for many become more or less obsolete and for some time a new set of approaches has been emerging in many parts of the Telecentre world.
The first generation of Telecentres were specifically focused on two priorities:
- familiarizing populations to the Internet in contexts where the Internet was a new and unfamiliar facility.
- providing access to computing and the Internet for populations who otherwise would have no or only very limited access because of cost, lack of knowledge, lack of infrastructure or other reasons.
But now, some 20 years + into the personal computing era, the task of “familiarizing” populations concerning computing and the Internet has been largely accomplished¸ in Less Developed Countries particulalry through computing programs in schools, through the media, through widespread computerization in places of work, and in part through the success of the Telecentre programs themselves. Similarly access to computers and the Internet is very much more widespread (and less costly) now than earlier because of low cost computers and Internet access.
The overall mission identified for Telecentres has not been completely accomplished—there are countries, regions, categories of the population still unfamiliar with computers and the Internet or still without usable access at a low enough cost. However, it does mean that it is now time to articulate a new mission and thus a new mission for (Next Generation) Telecentres.
The second generation of Telecentres (NGTs) are being built on the foundations of the first but they recognize that at least some of the tasks undertaken by first generation Telecentres have, to a considerable degree been accomplished, and also that the technological ecology of which Telecentres are a part has evolved considerably.
NGTs differ from the earlier generation by being less concerned with providing simple access and being more concerned with providing specific kinds of services and supports to specific populations. Thus for example, the new generation of Telecentres are being implemented to provide small business supports in low income areas, farming supports in agricultural areas, access to e-government and e-health services, community based multi-media training and production oportunities and so on.
As well, NGTs are now more focused on the longer term sustainability of the centres and thus are linking activities into a much wider range of business models (including hybrid models with for-profit and not-for-profit-activities and funding. with a strong recognition of the value of broad community support as a basis for longer term “social sustainability”. In many cases the funding/business model is directly linked to the specific activity area or community of users thus providing a stronger likelihood of longer term financial and social sustainability.
Finally, NGTs recognize the advances that have been made in computing and in Internet connectivity and for the most part build their design, activities, and functionalities on an anticipated platform of Broadband connectivity. What this means is that activities within NGTs are based on the current or anticipated availability of Broadband connectivity.
With funding for the initial round of Telecentres largely being completed and a significant reduction in interest in funding this approach, Next Generation Telecentres are emerging as a necessary advance and as a way of continuing support for the broad integration of otherwise excluded segments of the population into the advancing and developing information society/digital economy. Moving beyond simple access to providing means for effectively using this access in support of economic and social development (digital inclusion) is increasingly providing the basis for telecentre development in national contexts where issues of simple access and digital familiarization have been largely resolved.
Countries such as Hungary with its Telecottages program for small business support and development or local developments such as the Sitakund multi-media centre in Bangladesh (part of the UNESCO Community Multi-media Centre Program) or the physically disabled support centres that are being planned for Malaysia are all examples of this emerging trend.
Thus NGTs have the following characteristics among others;
- built on a platform of affordable access to Internet and computing facilities (First Generation);
- structured and designed so as to provide support to certain specific application areas and targeted towards certain categories of potential users (among others) including where required specialized software (or hardware), specialized training facilities (and specially trained support staff); links to application related external resources and networks and so on;
- designed around a variety of business models but in each case with a specific concern and design for “sustainability”;
- recognize that “social” sustainability can in certain instances be as significant a factor for long term development as “financial” sustainability and with a design for social sustainability built into the model; and
- recognize the possibility of hybrid and entrepreneurial business models including both for-profit and not-for-profit activities (and funding sources).
One consequence of this emerging trend is that the funding approaches for Telecentres is becoming rather more complex with potential funders being found among those providing support for the specific application area and a significant reduction in potential support for more general purpose, access oriented telecentres.
Pamela McLean
May 3, 2010
Hi Mike
There is so much here that I would love to discuss with you, about the history of ICT for under-served communities, that I don’t know where to start. Maybe….right at the beginning, then jump to the end (what is happening now) and see if I can come back to “the middle” (lessons learned, analysis etc) at a later date.
So – right to the beginning. You mention “Moving beyond simple access to providing means for effectively using this access” – and that links us to a paper you wrote in First Monday back in December 2003 http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1107/1027
In there you wrote “What has been lost is the vision of achieving the widest possible distribution to communities and individuals …of the remarkable opportunities for …. innovation; for active participation and devolved control; for an amplification of creativity and an intensification of “voice” which ICTs are making available.
Also, in the public discussions around the WSIS there is little sense of the Internet as a network, a network of networks, a technology with the capacity to engage and enable interaction across geographies and boundaries, both physical and cultural, and to support initiatives from the “bottom up” as well as the “top down”. Nor, and finally, is there the sense of the creative ebullience that the Internet has let loose… alternative patterns of governance and consultation, new forms of services and production opportunities and new styles of knowledge creation and effective use.”
As I read that immediately in my mind I was back in 2003. I remembered a list called (I think) “Voices of the South” which was an attempt to get the those voices heard at WSIS. At one point people were discussing “community” and I posted an email that I had recently received from Chief Gbade Adejumo. The email described how the local community had celebrated the opening of the “Community Digital Information Centre” at Ago-Are (in June 2003). I gradually shared more about this and thus entered into discussion with Krishna Alluri of COL (Commonwealth of Learning) about realities on the ground. As the “Voices of the South” discussion continued, and we explored practical issues, I discovered that the problems I described for rural Nigeria were echoed by other members on the list – even as far away as rural India.
Back in 2003 I was so ignorant that I thought the Ago-Are Info Centre was a Telecentre – I didn’t realise that “real telecentres” were government funded. Given the Ago-Are Info Centre was somewhat different I should probably describe it a little more.
The Info Centre was the vision of a local man – the late Peter Adetunji Oyawale – son of an illiterate farmer. Against the odds Peter got an education and then an IT training in the navy. I knew him from when he was living in London, married to a friend of mine, and trying to set up an ambitious digital inclusion project in his home area. Tragically Peter was killed in Nigeria in December 2000, in the early stages of implementing his project. All the equipment he had taken with him from the UK to launch the project was stolen, and, through his death, all the skills, knowledge and time he intended to give were also lost. However his friends and supporters carried forward fragments of his vision to see what could be achieved. As a result VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) volunteer David Mutua from Kenya came to Ago-Are to work with Peter’s Uncle Timothy, with support from Chiefs Adejumo, Adetola and Mojoyinola, and also from Peter’s widow Agnita, and me in the UK. The Ago-Are community provided the location for the Info Centre, and VSO had been able to help David to find money for three refurbished computers, a photo-copier, a printer, and a temperamental second-hand generator. There was also free training on a one-week computer course for two members of the community – who, in return, were to work as volunteers for the centre for three months, while it got on its feet. There was no external funding.
So the Info Centre was launched, back in 2003, and those ideals that you were thinking and writing back in 2003 have also been in my heart, and influencing my activities, through the intervening years. I knew back then that I didn’t know exactly what Peter wanted to happen, and so, somehow, I had to discover the details of his vision alongside his contacts in Nigeria. Over the years I have been taught and supported by many generous and patient “cultural mentors” online and F2F during visits to Africa. I have experienced first hand all that you described back in 2003 regarding ‘the remarkable opportunities for …. an intensification of “voice” which ICTs are making available.’ the ‘sense of the Internet as a network, a network of networks, a technology with the capacity to engage and enable interaction across geographies and boundaries, both physical and cultural, and to support initiatives from the “bottom up” ‘ and ‘the creative ebullience that the Internet has let loose’
I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to learn so much thanks to my Internet-enabled ongoing connections with the network of people I have come to know in Africa. I have struggled to share what I have been learning with established institutions “on my side of the digital divide” (in the “bandwidth rich” world) – but have usually found that established institutions prefer top-down information flows and it is hard to feed any “bottom up” information in against that current. I remain hopeful that ‘ alternative patterns of governance and consultation, new forms of services and production opportunities and new styles of knowledge creation and effective use.” ‘ will be recognised as desirable and valuable and when that day comes Dadamac will be ready to provide information from the “bottom up” and to enable the powers that be to engage in genuine consultation with people on the ground who really do know that realities that “development programmes” and “poverty alleviation initiatives” claim to want to address.
Enough of the starting point. Now back to the present, and all that you are trying to address with your ideas for Next Generation Telecentres.
It is not possible here, now, to share all the observations that your blog post has raised in my mind. Instead I am simply sharing some fragments of information that would frame a discussion with you if I had the opportunity.
> I have mentioned the starting point.
> It lead to what I now do with John Dada in rural Nigeria and online http://www,dadamac.net
> I would also like to also point to what people are doing now in Ago-Are – still waiting for “usable access at a low enough cost” http://dadamac.posterous.com/collaboration-opportunity-mobile-phones-in-ru
> The situation of Zittnet is relevant, at the forefront of Internet connectivity in rural Nigeria http://www.dadamac.net/projects/rural-connectivity
> This well-informed viewpoint on what is happening regarding mobile phones and their impact on cyber cafes (typically in cities or large towns) is also relevant http://www.davidajao.com/blog/2010/05/02/are-mobile-phones-pushing-cyber-cafes-out-of-business/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OluniyiDavidAjao+%28Oluniyi+David+Ajao%29
> It is worth noting that the quality of mobile phone network availability and reliability that many of us tend to take for granted is not necessarily replicated in rural Africa, even if there is, in theory, the possibility of using phones.
Maybe there will be a chance for discussion at ICTD2010. I am also hoping that the members of the Zittnet team will also be joining in there online from Nigeria (if the submission I have put in for a workshop is accepted). They know first hand the realities of providing useful services, aspects of local demand and the problems of sustainability (all in the context of working alongside a long-established indigenous community development organisation that is addressing issues of rural development in a holistic way).
Maybe sometime the tide will finally turn and voices from the “bottom up” will start to be heard. Who knows – maybe one day your suggestion of “alternative patterns of consultation” will come true and when if it does – well – Dadamac is available, ready, willing and able to feed in information from the “bottom up”.
Meanwhile – it is great to be reading your blog and to be able to connect with you on our various areas of shared concern and vision.
Pamela
Don Cameron
May 4, 2010
A really interesting piece Mike highlighting many of the changes facing today’s Telecentres – I do wonder however if establishments designed to focus on ‘specific application areas and targeted towards certain categories of potential users’, are in fact Telecentre’s at all, or something else perhaps evolved from the foundation of a Telecentre.
We have similarly targeted establishments operating in Australia commonly called NPO Business Incubation Centre’s, BEC’s (Business Enterprise Centre’s), Government Shopfronts etc. – Isn’t a Telecentre by definition an establishment providing service to all sectors of community and interest?
Cheers, Don
gurstein
May 4, 2010
Don,
I think the issue is that there is continuity with the previous activities, programs, funding and NGTs are an evolution in many cases from existing facilities programs into these new functions.
Mike
Ricard Faura i Homedes
May 25, 2011
Hi Mike!
I’d like to participate in this interesting discussion. My name is Ricard Faura, I’m responsible on promoting the so-called “knowledge society” at the Government of Catalonia, and I’m member of the Management Board of the Spanish Network of “Telecenters” (Public Internet Access Points – PIAPs) (http://www.comunidaddetelecentros.net)
In this association we have started to think about what should be the future of telecenters and telecenter networks. We work altogether with several experts who will help us in this question. I would like you to participate in this debate to try to answer this item, which is nowadays on the public agenda of many governments and international organizations. I’m sure that telecenters have much to say on the future of our society, as far as they are able to adapt themselves to this new society that is coming and may respond to its needs.
Ricard Faura