IF we know each other, it will be easier!

1. Telecentre.orgAcademyGlobal Meeting Who is Who IF we know each other, it will be easier!

2. Who are we and where are we from We are here Country: India Leading organization: M S Swaminathan Research Foundation Agents involved in the NTA: Multi-stakeholder partnership (Major: GGA Secretariat, MSSRF, Telecentre.org,, IGNOU, ISRO, etc.) Working languages in the NTA: English

3. What do we do M S Swaminathan Research Foundation Founded in 1988-89 A Not-for-profit Research and Development Foundation 100 Coastal Systems Research 200 Biotechnology 300 Biodiversity 400 Ecotechnology 500 Food Security 600 Education, Communication, Training and Capacity Building

4. Telecentres in your country >300,000 Number of telecentres in your country Which are the most outstanding telecentre networks or actions in your country? Grameen Gyan Abhiyan (Rural Knowledge Empowerment Movement – Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre) Does the NTA leading organization manage a telecentre network? If so, how many telecentres are in the network? More than 400 organizations; More than 200,000 telecentres What are the most popular tasks and usages in the telecentre? Providing locale specific need based information / knowledge in different thematic areas such as agriculture, fisheries, microenterprises, government schemes, civic services, market prices and market linkages for locally produced commodities, weather, and weather crop related advisories, etc. Which social groups use the telecentre most frequently? Under privileged groups who are also economically poor; most of them living below poverty line (i.e, an income of USD 1 or less than per day)

5. Facilitators How is a telecentre motivator’s professional profile in your country? Technocrafts or Social Workers or Subject Matter Specialist What word do you use to refer to a motivator in your country?Knowledge Workers, CIC operators, sanchalaks, CSC managers, etc. >10,000 umber of potential motivators who could be reached in the future

6. About motivator training What is your experience on motivator training up to now? Extensive discussions – Policy makers, research institutions, panchayat leaders, community based organiztions, academics, etc. Document – Village Profiles, Time Line Series Using different participatory rural appraisal techniques - focus group meetings with different sections of the community, transect, time and trend analysis, social mapping, wealth ranking, resource mapping, venn diagram, seasonal diagram, problem matrix, house hold sample surveys, etc. Needs of the communities Linkages Knowledge - Action Locale Specific Demand Driven Content Awareness and Training Programmes

7. Trainings for KWs on General Management of VKCs • Concept of VRC and VKC • Methodology of collection and dissemination of need-based content • Managing users and visitors • How to maintain the user register which contains name of the user, age, education, occupation, the kind of services expected from VRC/VKC • Bill books and other records pertaining to VKC • How to build rapport with users and community members • Gender concerns • Basic hardware and software training • Document frequently asked questions, collection of feed back in the form of case studies, identifying their skills and aptitudes, etc. • VRCs also conduct quiz programmes for KWs based on the availability of content in VKCs • Some of the Knowledge Workers have developed a few training materials related to VKC management based on their field experience and VRC trainings

8. Indian Telecentre Academy – Jamsetji Tata Training School • Different kind of trainings – Knowledge workers / Telecenter Managers / Social Workers / Traditional Knowledge and innovative practitioners • Documenting their expertise and expectations through Participatory knowledge management workshops • Manuals, face-to-face meetings, outside experts, video conferencing and learning modules • Using different ICT and non-ICT tools – VHF, WiFi, Internet, Satellite Based Video-conferencing, Community Newspaper, CDs, Publications, etc. • Developing tool kits for different ICT-models • Running a peer-peer help desk for Telecentres / VRCs / VKCs managers and operators • Conducting studies for different telecenters models to assess the relative advantages and disadvantages of various rural connectivities, contents and business models • Developing a certification and scaling-up program of telecentre training with support from the Indira Gandhi national Open University (Telecenter Managers Certificate Based Curriculum Course)

9. Motivation, needs, contributions What are your expectations from the meeting? What is your motivation? What needs are you expecting to fulfill? Learning from other telecenter networks; How Global Telecenter Academy will play a role in improving regional telecenter managers capacity; Knowing methodology of functioning of other telecentres What could you contribute to the meeting? What are your organization’s strengths? Sharing our experience; Involved in ICT-enabled development activities since 1992; our pilot experiment has become a national movement; addressing the sustainable rural development using different ICT and non-ICT tools

10. Telecentre.orgAcademyGlobal Meeting Thank you