LIRNE at GK3
| 11/12/2007 | to | 13/12/2007 |
[11-13 Dec 07] Global Knowledge 3 (GK3) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia will bring together over 2,000 visionaries, international leaders, practitioners and policy-makers to engage on the theme of Emerging People, Emerging Markets, Emerging Technologies. Many of LIRNE.NET’s researchers will be among them.
LIRNE.NET and its members are organising four sessions:
- » Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid
» Hello Regulator? Regulatory authorities’ information and communication practices
» Making Communities Disaster Resilient
» Making Community-Driven Networks a Reality
Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid
The session will take the form of an interactive quiz show. It will include a video segment describing a 9000 respondent survey conducted among the SEC D&E populations in five countries in Asia, a segment on popular misconceptions, a quiz with two teams and audience participation and a concluding segment, also supported by video content on policy implications. A mobile use survey by the LIRNE.NET Latin America and Caribbean network, DIRSI, will also be launched during the session.
Policy makers, activists and operators talk about the benefits of ICTs for the poor. The survey undertaken by LIRNEasia (and followed by similar work in Africa and Latin America & the Caribbean by other members of LIRNE.NET) provides some counter intuitive evidence. The publicity that has been given to some of the Teleuse@BOP findings has already had good results in the form of influencing the design of new pro-poor products (click here for an example from Sri Lanka).
We believe that sharing these results in an innovative format such as a quiz show can be very effective, not only to communicate the message, but also to make it stick.
Contact: Rohan Samarajiva
Hello Regulator? Regulatory Authorities’ Information and Communication Practices
In this interactive session, civil society, researchers and representatives from the regulatory community will discuss regulatory transparency and effectiveness, using regulator’s websites as a discussion tool. For example, what kind of information should be made available via regulators’ websites? And what are some effective practices in this regard?
By using specific examples – especially from the participating audience – this session will explore how having easy access to regulatory information and processes can support community and public agendas, for example in establishing community networks; lobbying for policies which promote women and girls’ access to ICTs; arguing for consumer rights; and so forth. Can licence forms be downloaded from the Internet? Does the regulator collect statistics disaggregated by gender? Is pricing information available and transparent?
The panelists will consider real life situations presented by participants and comment on the different kinds of regulatory information that could be used in support of achieving their particular goals. A live Internet connection will allow respondents to access and highlight regulator’s websites that demonstrate best and worst practices of effective information provision; and will provide an opportunity for a discussion of benchmarking across the different practices.
Partnership: APC
Contact: Amy Mahan
Making Communities Disaster Resilient
Since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, an alliance of civil society and private sector organizations have been striving to develop a robust solution to the problem of community resilience in the face of hazards like the tsunami. It has ranged from technological innovation (remotely activable warning devices) to field simulations. Many media events and workshops have preceded the proposed event. Now in 2007 the pilot projects are coming to a close and there is real data to be discussed as we move into the implementation phase. We believe that GK3 offers a good platform to disseminate our learnings and to regionalize the project.
Contact: Rohan Samarajiva
Next generation Community-Driven Networks: Options and Policy Openings to Empower Local Communities
Given the growing importance of ICT for local communities and the slow progress in scaling-up provision of affordable access under current approaches, attention has been shifting to exploring the potential of new network management and ownership models in combination with new technologies. Community-driven networks are emerging in Asia, Africa and Latin America, in which the community itself initiates, owns and runs an enterprise to provide low-cost telephony and Internet access, ICT tools and services to facilitate local service development and communication for empowerment, e.g. through community radio and video. However, even as there is emerging interest on the part of regulators and ICTD practitioners, there is very little general awareness of the development role of such networks or of the various business models that demonstrate their feasibility and/or sustainable operation by the local community, or the potential to capture the value-added and profits of ICTs as a sector for the local community. This network model also has the potential to build upon and increase the viability of existing community access and multi-media centers or to facilitate a shared bandwidth and network model right from the start.
Bringing together practitioners, as well as those with regulatory experience and community actors, the panel will focus attention on this practical and scalable emerging option for empowering local communities and build community capital.
Partnership: UNDP
Contact: Bruce Girard
Contact us for more information
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