Experiences from Spider projects

1. Experiences from Spider projects • - Rwanda National Data Centre • Bangladesh Virtual Classroom • Åke Grönlund • ake.gronlund@esi.oru.se

2. Target state: A national data centre serving all government departments with applications, backup, and support Rwanda National Data Centre

3. Rwanda National Data Centre Target state Current situation

4. The SIDA project • 25 mSEK • 3 years • RITA – Rwanda IT Authority – handling agency • Part of NICI, national 20 year development plan with ICT as key enabler • 1 Sida consultant, 1 Spider ICT expert

5. The vision, the NICI plan

6. NICI progress • 20 years • 4 phases • 146 projects Performance: • Phase 1 (2000-2005): 25 % • Phase 2 (2005-2010): 0 % (2007)

7. Our support • Timelines, structures and actions • NDC business plan • Relations to other gov agencies • Strategy for data handling in government • NDC construction • Requirement specifications • Contact with builders • Demonstrations, study tour to Sweden • Assessment of development

8. Actions • ICT legislation/”cyberlaws” • National Data Plan for future policy making supporting NDC • Inventory of existing systems • Prioritization plan • Migration plan • Business plan for sustainable operations after implementation • Enterprise Architecture. Utilizing the NDC initiative to create a government information infrastructure • Requirement specification for physical design of NDC • Human capacity development

9. Problems • Noone among the NDC staff had ever seen a data centre of this kind • Project management experience scarce (imported team of 7 from Malaysia in 2007) • General lack of staff. From 13 to 54 in 2007 • Overload (146 projects, 7 project managers) • Lack of continuity in management at RITA • Organizational changes

10. Bangladesh Virtual Classroom

11. Bangladesh Open University • 250 000 registered studentsTertiary education enrollment at BOU – 53% of total enrollment • Problems: High dropout No interaction teachers - students Poor or no feedback from tutors Lack of human contact, etc • Delivery: Pre-recorded lessons on TV/Radio, Video and audio cassettes, printed materials, etcNo record of attendance No feedback on learning impartedNo interactivity

12. Bangladesh Virtual Classroom • Using mobile phones to create ”interactive TV” • 33,1 million mobile phone subscribers (Nov 2007; +6 since May) • At least one accessible in every village • Household access 88.6% urban, 69.1% rural • Basic Q/A interactivity, scaleable • Records of attendance • Records of results • Feedback to students • Upgradeable - possible to combine with Internet

13. Bangladesh Virtual Classroom Example video

14. Sample Graph of Answers

15. Potential Uses • Country wide interactive course delivery • Formal courses: formal educational courses • Non-formal: e.g. arsenic mitigation, health, etc • Can be used to benefit where: • trainees / students are distributed rurally • there is no access to Internet or cost of Internet is high • trainees do not have access to a computer • there is lack of computer literacy • there is a limitation of good teachers • trainees can be taught how to use SMS service of a mobile phone

16. Web site: http://www.electronicgovernment.se/bvc/ Bangladesh Virtual Classroom