The situation we are in is a context of crisis of political legitimacy. This means much less political participation in general and, more specifically, protest voting, young people voting less, decreasing levels of affiliation to parties or other civic organizations, etc.
On the other hand, we see the explosion of the Information Society and of the Web 2.0, “participative” by definition. ICTs are adopted by political organizations in the fields of eGovernment — to provide public services for the citizen — and eDemocracy — to enhance and foster participation.
Two different perspectives in the crossroads between political disaffection and the Information Society:
Cyberoptimism: ICTs will lead to a mobilization effect. More people will participate because participation costs are lower, there is much more information than before, etc.
Cyberpessimism: ICTs will lead to new elites because of the digital divide. The existing differences between the ones that participated and the ones that didn’t are broadened.
Realists: we need more empirical studies (and to avoid technological determinism).
We have new technologies for citizen participation but, what tools for what uses? A research for the Barcelona county council.
After a survey within the Barcelona municipalities, we can state:
There are different participation activities depending on whether the communication is horizontal or vertical.
There are topics more prone to intensively use ICTs: urban planning, youngsters, education and equality, elder people, sustainability.
Not organized citizens, resources, transversal coordination are variables that are usually identified as barriers not overcome; while training, innovation, agenda, associations or political agreement are usually identified as goals reached through ICT-enhanced participation.
The study then goes on to analyze tools and applications and how they fit in the participation process:
Directionality, quantitative: one-to-one, one-to-many, many to many.
Competences: basic, advanced, expert.
Applications: type of tool, cost, hosting, “mashability”.
Participation moments:
Mobilization: information about the participation process and the goals to be achieved.
Development: putting into practice the participation project.
Closing: stating the decision being made.
Follow up: monitoring and assessment of the decision reached.
A first analysis of 19 international cases, we see that most tools have a one-to-many directionality, are bidirectional, and are mainly used in the mobilization moment. User registration and the data they have to provide is an important issue and must be decided in advance, as happens with deciding the goals and functioning of the process, which includes defining and identifying the role of the online facilitator. Free software is usually the option chosen, and accessibility (in a broad sense) is normally taken into account.
We find two different models. Even if models are not “pure”, we can see opposite approaches: Initiatives aimed at community building, characterized by being open, relational, fostering engagement, using free tools and aiming at a networked participation, with a facilitator that engages in a bidirectional conversation. And policy oriented initiatives, characterized by being more formal (or formalized), focussing at decision-taking and representation, using own platforms and more “traditional” participation means, with a facilitator that guides and information that flows asymmetrically and unidirectionally.
Cloud computing is both an opportunity and a challenge. On the one hand, there are legal hazards that need being solved, but that also disclose some interesting spaces. Indeed, the new a-institutional logic is disruptive but also provides new ways of learning, as the public and private spheres intersect one to each other and get confused (want it or not) one with each other. It is a response to the de-legitimation of political institutions, but it is also a reassurance that citizens do care about public affairs: the crisis is in the institutions, not in participation itself.
Bernard Woolley: “Well, yes, Sir…I mean, it [open government] is the Minister’s policy after all.”
Sir Arnold: “My dear boy, it is a contradiction in terms: you can be open or you can have government.”
(from Yes Minister, 1980)
Evgeny Morozov, Georgetown University’s E. A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
Decisions made at the technological level in Western economies/businesses will affect how cyberactivism takes place… all over the world. What Google, Twitter or Facebook decides impacts citizen action everywhere.
There is much effort on building social capital online, uploading content, gathering people in a group, and this effort relies on a potential arbitrary decision by the owner of the online platform, who serves who knows whose will. Groups in social networking sites disappear every day without previous notice and most times without an explicit and clear reason for it.
But regulating these corporations is often seen as a barrier to democratize more quickly less democratic countries. You don’t want to “spoil” a Web 2.0 application if it is seldom used to raise protests against non-democratic regimes, or used on human emergencies, etc.
But outside of Western countries, most applications are owned and run by local companies that have less freedom of choice than in other places of the World. If the Chinese or Russian or Iranian governments ask for user personal data to these companies, they have little chances not to deliver them. This makes datamining by governments very easy and very effective to locate and identify dissidents.
Besides direct extortion to companies, governments can directly monitor and put up several kinds of citizen surveillance, including entering an individual’s computer because the government infiltrated the computer with a trojan or any other kind of spy-software. Of all, the major problem is not even being aware of that manipulation. Same applies to web servers, of course.
On the legal side, governments or several lobbies have the power to manipulate content online, by crowding out conversations. If this is a trivial debate, then the influence of the strong part has no major impact. But if that is a pre-election debate, it can lead to indirect tampering and not-really-legitimate democratic participation.
And doing all that is not very difficult: custom police can (actually do) google people and see what comes up in the search results, scan their Facebook profiles, see who a specific person is related to and, according to that, decide to decline a visa request.
Besides governments, authors that we would not consider very “democratic” (e.g. fascist movements) are doing impressive things online in social networking sites, mashups, etc. So, Web 2.0 and cloud computing tools are double-edged swords and both serve noble and evil purposes and goals, like e.g. mapping where ethnics minorities are mashing up rich public data with map applications either to avoid or to attack them.
There is a dynamic that the Internet brings and that might makes us stop and think whether we like it or not: is a shift towards full openness a good thing? is a shift towards direct democracy a good thing too?
Discussion
Ana Sofía Cardenal: can you provide more information about the survey you talked about? Batlle: the survey was made in 112 cities (more than 10,000h less Barcelona). 81% answered the survey explaining use of ICT in participation initiatives.
Ana Sofía Cardenal: why nationalist movements are more present online than liberal ones? Morozov: the short answer is that hate travels more faster than hope online. But it might be more about phobia rather than nationalism. On the other hand, the Internet has no borders and allows for birds of the same flock to cluster around online spaces rather than having to stick to their artificial national myths.
Ismael Peña-López: data havens yes or no? protection or impunity? Morozov: One the one hand, governments should not support law circumvention tools (like TOR), basically because they are massively used by criminals, or by people whose purpose is not very clear and its justification varies depends on your approach. Regarding Wikileaks, the problem is that once a hot file is out, it is difficult to block, and the more you try to block it, the more it is disseminated (the Streisand effect). Something should be done, yes, but it is not clear what.
Ronald Leenes: It is also true that governments also use tools that activists use for security reasons, so they should at least allow for these tools to develop and even be funded. Morozov: right, but you cannot be pushing for the rule of law and with the other hand allowing the proliferation of tools that are clearly used to break the rule of law. Leenes: this apply to many technologies!
Jordi Vilanova: We’re talking about social networking sites as being run by corporations, but it is likely that in the future we find SNS being ruled by foundations or non-governmental organizations. So, there still is some room for Web 2.0 applications being “safely” used by individuals. A second comment is that we are looking at non-democratic regimes but, in the meanwhile, so-called liberal democracies are trimming citizen rights with the excuse of security and so. So we should be more concerned about these hypocrite countries. Morozov: it is true that foundations can run their own SNS, but the thing is that most times is not about the tool, but about audience and critical mass, and this audience is in private corporations’ platforms, and this will be difficult to change. And regarding transparency, transparency has to come with footnotes to avoid misleads.
Privacy in the Cloud, a Misty Topic? Ronald Leenes, Universiteit van Tilburg
An introduction to Cloud Computing
What is the relationship between Cloud computing, Grid computing, service oriented architecture (SOA) and Web 2.0?
Increasingly, data and applications are stored and/or run on a web server that hosts what usually was on your local machine. The web browser becomes the usual platform. Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources.
If we talk about “resources”, the definition becomes broader, as we can also speak about computing power or computing time. And these resources are shared by many users, instead of having a dedicated machine. This provide rapid elasticity that allows for easy and quick scaling (up or down).
Models
Software as a Service (Saas): e.g. webmail, online office applications; etc.
Platform as a Service (Paas): e.g. Amazon AWS platform;
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): all the power you might have in our PC, in the cloud.
Advantages
Price: many cloud services are reee.
Reliability: redundancy of services and scalability makes the system more stable.
Accessibility: your services, everywhere.
No piracy.
Multiple business models: fees, ads, etc.
Always current version of the software, no needs to update.
Privacy and security issues
Privacy: bodily integrity, data protection, inviolability of the home, secrecy of communications. The later two are specially relevant for cloud computing.
Data protection goals aim at facilitating the free flow of information while providing a minimum level of data protection. Data aspects: confidentiality, integrity, availability. The three of them are (more or less) under control while data are stored in a PC. In the cloud it is certainly less so.
The first thing to state is that, in the cloud, you don’t know where your data exactly are. Indeed, those date are interlinkable by other services, which make them even more ubiquitous while difficult to locate.
Second is that, in “physical” life, one’s identity is made up of different and partial identities of one self. There is a certain control to segregate audiences according to what they can see of me. Not in the cloud. To a large extent, we’re evolving toward a world where you are who Google says that you are (JD Lassica).
As data travel from my browser (and through the Internet) to a cloud service, anyone can potentially intercept your travelling data. The way to avoid this is use encryption (HTTPS) but cloud services do not usually have the incentive to (unlike banks, that are liable for data loss or money stealing) and do have incentives not to (HTTPS requires much more server power and time to encrypt and decrypt, thus making it more expensive at the aggregate level).
Personal data: data that can lead to identification of a person (data subject). Thus, personal data can be taken very broadly as even an e-mail message can lead to identifiable individuals. A processor is a body that processes personal data. A data controller holds or stores personal data.
The DPD is applicable when the data controller is within the European Union jurisdiction, regardless of where the data processor is.
Thus, if Google just provides a platform where the user processes their data, then Google is not a controller, but a processor, which means it is being affected differently by the (European) law. But if data, after being processed, are stored in Google’s servers, then Google becomes a controller. So, cloud service providers can switch between data controlling and data processing or both at a time, with legal consequences.
DPD principles: transparency, legitimate purpose and proportionality.
Discussion
Jordi Vilanova: are there any legal differences in privacy between individuals and institutions? A: legally, in strict sense it only applies to individuals. In the case of companies, we would be talking about intellectual property, trade secrets, etc.
Mònica Vilasau: to balance unequal distribution of bargaining power between service providers and users, what should be done? More regulation? Better contracts? Is the data protection directive enough for cloud computing? A: Contracts should suffice, as they are a very powerful tool. The difference is that in the EU privacy is a public good that needs to be protected, so the law will always be above any contract; while in the US privacy is something that can be bargained between contractors. The DPD is not enough for cloud computing, because its purpose was to regulate over the data controller, a very identifiable agent at a time (e.g. a hospital having data of you). But now, who is a data controller or a processor is very difficult to identify.
Q: Is one of the problems that cloud services are based in the US? A: Yes, of course, if data controllers, processors and subjects were in the same jurisdiction that would make things much easier.
Mònica Vilasau: what about cookies? A: if you accept cookies, you get less of your privay. If you do not, the service provider is no more a data controller (it is not storing data from you, because you refused the cookie) and then you are no more under the DPD. This is an ironic dichotomy.
Christopher Westrup: Contribution of Social Research on ICT4D
Optimism as to the scope of ICT4D:
Ending of isolation;
social and political mobilization and participation;
increased collaboration;
focus on the poorest communities;
pressure for collective global action;
Some “divisions”: scholars vs. practitioners; development experts vs. ICT tool developers. It nevertheless seems that the “social” part of technologies is increasing, as we have been witnessing since the appearance of the Web 2.0 and, most especially, since the raise of social networking sites and social media in general.
Key issues:
Understanding the link between ICTs and Development;
Understanding the social influence, crucially important to the trajectory of any technology-based project
ICT facilitated collaboration;
Local adaptation;
Focus on the plight of marginalised groups.
Perspectives of social sciences in ICT4D:
What is happening: taking a God’s eye view of the field.
What is the framework: framing social contributions, what we find and how we can intervene: transfer and diffusion discourse vs. ICT as the product of socially embedded action (micro approach).
How can an impact be made: a transformative discourse: Information Systems innovation as a product of and produces change in the social, political and economic conditions of developing countries (micro approach).
Methods
Should take both macro and micro together and focus on how both come together in the process of development.
Designing technology is also designing the social, as technologies are designed with contexts in mind.
Technologies are appropriated and used sometimes in unexpected ways, implementation can be highly innovative. We need to look very carefully at how projects are implemented. The processes are crucial.
Any action is about redistributing resources, about gainers and losers. ICT4D engages in a redistribution of resources and development can be understood as interacting processes of dependence and independence.
Successful case: M-Pesa
M-Pesa ad in Kenya about mobile banking:
Department for International Development video about M-Pesa:
M-Pesa has been hugely successful and is still growing. What has been its “process” in terms of and ICT4D (research) project?
People on the ground saw that mobile phones were being used to send credit between people, and rethought the whole concept of a mobile phone into a mobile banking service.
In Tanzania, notwithstanding, the system has not been as successful. Why? Market share of Safaricom, the operator: from 80% in Kenya to 45% in Tanzania. In Kenya, many people and well organized, which helped in training them about the new system. Not the same thing in Tanzania. In Kenya it has had very tolerant regulation from the market, as it does not operate under the assumption that it is a bank.
Macro and micro approach: to make a change, but looking at what was happening.
People where using the technology in their own way.
People appropriated the new technology producing a very innovative way of doing things.
We cannot tell exactly about the redistribution outcomes and the (new) processes of dependence and independence, but there have certainly been some as now money transactions are controlled/centralized by new actors.
Conclusions
Understanding the social implications is crucial to assess the impact of ICTs.
The social and the technical are interlinked.
Technologies are not neutral.
There always is a redistribution of resources.
Discussion
Q: Is there any tool in the social sciences toolbox to assess the “non-neutrality” of a specific technology and its implications before it being applied? A: It would be great to have it, but it most likely does not exist. Methodologies are usually used not to assess but to provide a “scientific background” that what we intended to do is backed by evidence.
Q: Would a private company have invested in a project like M-Pesa without public money behind? How can we justify public money (DFID’s) put into a private company (Safaricom/Vodafone)? A: It was believed that a way to bring change could be by changing the market, by changing commercial relationships and the market status quo. So, the outcome is also benefiting private companies, the lion’s share goes to the community at large.
Ismael Peña-López: Action is about redistributing resources or about creating more wealth by making more resources available? Why should there always be a trade-off (of resources, power, etc.) that implies redistribution? A: Agreed that it should not necessarily be a zero-sum game, and it is right to say that resources are not fix and can be increased, but it is also true that power (that controls these resources) actually is redistributed by our direct action on the resources. Thus, even if resources could be grown, power (and, hence, resources indirectly) will definitely suffer a redistribution [I really loved this answer, which I fully share].
Wikimedia is about the community, about volunteering. Since the project kicked off in 2001, there have been created 13 million articles in 271 languagesw, 17 million pages, 325 million edits, 330 million visits monthly, 100,000 active contributors (edit 5 times a month at least), over 50 books published on the Wikimedia phenomena, etc. All coordinated by the 27 world chapters of the Wikimedia Foundation, though with only 35 employees.
If we look not at what’s in there, but what people is looking for (visits to the website), some Wikipedias may already be shifting from encyclopedic core to more topical and current events content. On the contrary, though, 1/3 of the hits of the Spanish Wikipedia deals with science and technology content.
Besides current events or news, local content is increasingly searched for. There is also an increase of geotagged content on Wikipedia, thus the interest in local content. As anecdote, it can be said that the second Wikipedia ever created was the Catalan Viquipèdia.
Management model
Provide physical home (servers)
Basic rules
Leave the community work and grow on its own
Power shift to the citizen
Technology: insfrastructure, tools, open source
Cultural Movement: free culture (Linux, Apache), free knowledge
License structure: GNU FDL, Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA)
All in all, the question was that anyone could contribute and the result would be open to everyone.
How do we take care of the community: transparency, trust, thankfulness, respect, responsiveness.
Business Model
Servant-leaders achieve results for their organizations by giving priority attention to the needs of their colleagues and those they serve. Collaboration, communication, culture.
Create a platform, let other people build (i.e. Mediawiki). It happens everywhere: Google, Apple, Amazon, FaceBook, etc. This also applies to Education, as everyone has something to bring on the table. You have to figure out how to make people that know be involved in the process.
Small “workforce” that can adapt to market changes very quickly, plus a virtual larger “workforce”, using the community as research and development.
You have to figure out what you’re good at, and forget about controlling the whole value change. Do not try and do everything. Networks form to address needs: you have to figure out where you fill into that.
Discussion
Ismael Peña-López: would your model be different were the Wikimedia Foundation be Wikimedia “for profit” Corporation? It depends on your project, as everyone is different and there is not a unique model, but leveraging the community might still apply. You definitely have to focus in your goal and where you can contribute best to achieve it. If you’re running a talent based project, you definitely have to share some of the wealth in it. Talent goes where it is appreciated most.
Q: Is it a must to have a professional core? A: It really depends on what you want to achieve. There is definitely not “a” model.
Silvia Bravo: where do we start from? A: Figure out what your goals are and find who’s your champion. Once the project is started, things become easier, but the difficult thing is to start up the project, and the role of the champion is crucial here. Then, you need to create something that people can build things on top of. Make sure you have a clear goal, find out what tools will you be needing and get a champion to promote the project.
Q: how do you deal with security hazards/attacks? A: It is very important to have a clear and shared framework (linked to your goals) that everybody can relate to. And the system works the same way.
Q: what’s the physical structure like? A: only 20 servers [guess I got that right], as most information is only text. But the challenge is how to keep up with changes and still being able to bring the relevant information, which increasingly comes in rich media (photo, sound, video, etc.). That’s why Wikimedia Foundation engages in partnerships with the corporate sector to be ahead of the future.
Llorenç Valverde: how do we engage the community, and invite everyone to add value? A: Culture is the biggest problem. The way collaboration and sharing ideas happens varies a lot depending on the culture, understanding culture not only at the country level, but also at the company level. E.g. if you’re a newcomer to a firm, you might have brilliant ideas but you might not be (self)legitimate to share them openly. Culture is doubtless the toughest part of all.
Llorenç Valverde: so the starting point is to share information within the organization? A: Certainly. Add everybody in the process.
And I’ll begin with a strong agreement: the iPad is very likely to do more than the One-Laptop-Per-Child, just because the OLPC is doing very little for education, as I think is clearly explained in the Framing the Digital Divide in Higher Education monograph. But it is also possible that the iPad will do as little as the OLPC, just because it’s not about devices.
Just for the sake of clarity let us look at some points raised by the monograph authors, Verdegem and DiMaio about access to e-Government (including the “e-” part), keeping in mind that I fully share DiMaio’s vision on what e-Government should be and the conviction that, somehow, we’ll get to that point.
Affordability
This still is a key issue for many people not to go online, hence not to use e-Government services. It is decreasing in importance and becoming almost marginal in higher income countries. But. While a desktop/laptop + broadband connectivity might be affordable, the addition of a second device + the addition of a second broadband service (3G or whatever) is definitely not affordable for many many people.
Yes, I am assuming having both devices and duplication of Internet access services. But I think this will be the scenario in the short and middle run, for the simple reason that the iPad is not a typing-aimed device or a hard-computing-power device, besides the fact that I do not believe in quantum leaps in computer adoption (i.e. in the short run, iPad users will be computer users, not late-adopters).
Skills
Claire from liberTIC recently commented about lack of skills playing havoc on e-Democracy and Democracy at large.
I think the iPad — as its i-predecessors — will make computer usage simple, much simpler than before. But e-Government is not only about computer usage, but much more. As I introduced in Towards a comprehensive definition of digital skills and Goverati: New competencies for politics, government and participation, there is much field in the area of digital competences that the iPad just won’t and cannot address. And, as time goes by, technological literacy is less of an issue, which is were the iPad could make a major contribution.
Availability
Which leads to where the Gordian knot is: existence and access to content and services. I fully agree that the iPad can contribute to ease access to online public services through its applications, and I am already looking forward this to happen. But the prerequisite is either open data or open application programming interfaces (APIs). There already exist devices and applications to access online public services. And their successes and failures have mostly depended (a) on the richness of the data they could access and (b) the degree in which they could make an impact or contribute to a change. We take for granted that iPad applications will play magic, but the magic is in the data, not the device (though magic wands always help, let’s admit it).
Awareness and peopleware
But things can exist, be accessible, be affordable and people know how to use them, and still don’t make any use of them. This is, indeed, the tragedy of e-Government (and Internet adoption at large) today in higher income countries: I either don’t know what’s out there or frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. The iPad can raise awareness, and the more friendly user interface will help, but I haven’t seen much success in iPhone educational or e-Government applications being used massively.
I honestly doubt that the problem of e-Government (lack of) pervasiveness is a matter of the device, but of peopleware. If Obama succeeded it was not because of the Internet, but because of “hope”. And the Internet was there to deliver it, of course, and to channel people’s hope back. If Ushahidi succeeded in Kenya it was not because of SMSs and mashups, but because of the basic substrate upon which these were erected. I find AppsForDemocracy not only an amazing initiative, but amazing things in themselves and I look forward the day they will be used massively. But, so far, I have the sense it’s just for us the usual e-Government suspects.
The Asian telecentre movement: the role of networks and their future Chairs: Reshan Dewapura, Information and Communication Technology Office (ICTA) of Sri Lanka
Asia and Pacific region has, out of all the UN regions of the world, been the most economically prosperous. But also the one more populated and the most disaster prone in the work, including human disasters caused by poverty.
The region has a wider disparity in the Internet usage, and the digital divide will come not from access, but from broadband or lowband access.
Why a need for community e-centres? Disconnected rural areas, population under poverty line, etc.
The Nenasala (Wisdom Outlet) project in Sri Lanka has inscreased IT literacy rate from 9.7% i 2004 to more than 20% in 2008, aiming to have 1,000 centres in 2010.
Key issues:
Leadership and organization
Financial viability
Services
Ownership and access
The Asian telecentre movement Srinivas S Tadigadapa, APAC Intel Singapore
Provide public access to information for education, personal usage, social and economic develoment… Thus, they need not being limited to just kiosks, but shared access for education, telehealth, etc.
Sustainability:
Financial sustainability
Sustaining staff capability
Sustaining community acceptance
Sustaining service delivery
Key challenges
Connectivity
Linking up to local self governing bodies to telecentres
Diversity introduces complexy: each area has its own requirements, local community involvement and content, creating value at the grass roots is a challenge, etc.
Proper power back up remains a challenge
WiMAX is certainly the solution for last mile access.
Telecentres as access to e-services, a key to service utility. Shared access is important as a bridge to economic growth, employment, training & PC ownership.
Network mid-life crisis — What it is and managment Meddie Mayanja, telecentre.org, International Development Research Centre
Signs of mid-life crisis (Richard McDermott, 2004)
Loss of momentum
Loss of attention
Localization
Avoiding mid-life crisis in networks:
Clear purpose
Active leadership
Critical members engaged
Sense of accomplishment
High expectation, not only the one who’s leading, but of all the constituents of the network
Asian Pacific TeleNetwork (APTN) Dil Piyaratna, Asia Pacific Telecentre Network, ICTA Sri Lanka
In Asia, the most affected by the digital divide are the rural poor. That’s why telecentres deliver more than ICTs: shared access at low cost, meeting place for networking, knowledge centre, access to capital assets, training centre, etc.
Operational challenges
Sustainability
Lack of IT knowlegeable staff
Community acceptance
High cost of broadband
Lack of content in local languags
Sustainability is beyond financial sustainability. Here is where networks of telecentres can enable knowledge sustainability, or help in achieving financial or self-financial sustainability.
Roger Harris explains how seeking financial sustainability leads to losing your “for development” aim, while forgetting about it turns you into an inefficient government service provider.
The Asia Pacific Telecentre Network (APTN) was launched in november 2008 by UNESCAP and forms now part of telecentre.org.
APTN’s role:
Information sharing. APTN to act as the knowledge hub in the Asia Pacific region, being a repository of knowledge.
Facilitate knowledge exchange between national telecentre networks
Facilitate study tours among networks
Consultancy assistance, facilitating consultancy work in Asia Pacific, or creating a database of experts in various areas
Funding assistance, accessing potential donors jointly with member networks and go together for greater credibility
Event coordination, coordinating events in partnership with eAsia or other larger events (resource sharing, knowledge sharing)
Resource mobilization, working together towards a common goal
Enabling policy, assisting governments to implement the telecentre component in eGovernment programmes, and including telecentres inproviding government services to citizens in the rural areas
USAID, Last Mile Initiative
Commercial approach, looking at it from a market perspective, with minimum or no subsidies, but an entrepreneur running a centre which provides services on a price-basis (not for free).
The centres run as franchises. Wireless broadband was deployed for the centres and the founding was lobbied for at two national banks.
A package of services (business-in-a-box) was provided so that to lower the barriers of entry.
Lessons learnt
The packaged model included fixed prices, but communities are different, and so ought to be prices
Services need to go beyond ICT, beyond the PC, beyond Internet access. The telecentre operator has to be free to implement whatever he foresees
The franchise itself was hard to sustain and ended up being taken up by Dialog (telecom)
The private sector has to see that these telecentres are useful to deploy their businesses
