[Sigiii-l] Fwd: February 2013 issue of Information Technology in Developing Countries (IFIP WG9.4 Newsletter)

[Michel Menou]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	February 2013 issue of Information Technology in Developing 
Countries (IFIP WG9.4 Newsletter)
Date: 	Sat, 9 Mar 2013 14:07:30 +0530
From: 	ifipnewsletter <ifipnewsletter at iimahd.ernet.in>
To: 	



Warm Greetings

Dear Subscriber,

Warm Greetings! The February 2013 issue of '/Information Technology in 
Developing Countries/' is now available at: 
http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/egov/ifip/current.htm

The current issue of Information Technology in Developing Countries 
carries five articles and two conference announcements.

The first article by Nirmal Kishor Prasad describes the System for 
Computerised Registration (SCORE) of properties in the state of Bihar, 
India. SCORE was implemented across all 111 registry offices of the 
state in a record time of three months on an innovative as well as 
indigenously evolved cost effective model of Hardware on Hire Basis 
(HOHB), yielding a sharp increase in the state's revenue, accrual of Rs. 
25 million of funds within 15 months, and creating ample job 
opportunities and healthy competition among the local entrepreneurs. 
This innovative ICT solution uses technologies like finger print 
biometric devices, web cameras and scanners, and has effectively changed 
the 200 old system of manual property registration to a less-paper one. 
The article exemplifies how the HOHB model can ensure a sustainable and 
result oriented public/private collaboration for projects that are 
large-scale in nature and citizen centric.

The next article by Carol Dsouza and Shefali Atrey is titled "ICT for 
Social Change" and shares insights obtained through exploring the 
potential of ICT in selected Indian schools. The article discusses how 
good quality education in schools is about helping the young learners 
become global citizens, through multidisciplinary and real-life based 
teaching learning, having a holistic approach towards their natural and 
socio-economic environment, and how the use of ICT facilitates meeting 
of some of the pedagogical challenges- learning about abstract concepts, 
working in groups and teams, connecting real-life to the classroom, 
appreciating differences among individuals, etc. The authors have 
illustrated this by describing a three-year long process of using ICT 
for creative and productive learning, through which there was visible 
transformation in the learners- not just in the knowledge domain, but 
much more in their social interaction and social skills.

This is followed by an article by Stephen Ruth, Mahabir Pun and Samuel 
Stone on the "Nepal Wireless" initiative. The article describes the 
success of a non-profit Internet service provider called Nepal Wireless, 
which provides connectivity services in the central region of Nepal. The 
success of this project illustrates how Nepal, like many other 
developing nations, has found certain applications to be particularly 
valuable for early adoption, either because they foster a government 
agenda- tourism, discouraging poaching, etc.- or align with both 
regional and national objectives, like improving practices in 
agriculture, environmental protection, and medicine. The article also 
provides an update on this Nepal project, describing some of its 
subsequent income-producing applications after initial Internet 
connectivity, and describes examples of similar applications in other 
developing nations.

"Akshaya as a Cradle for Entrepreneurship" by Korath V. Mathew and Jiji 
Umesh describes the success of the Akshaya project, which was launched 
by the Government of the state of Kerala, India in 2002. The initial 
purpose of the project was to cut across barriers of society, culture 
and language to bridge the digital divide and deliver the benefits of 
information technology to the common man. But in its current form, it 
has gone far beyond that and its success has helped the common man to 
make a living out of social entrepreneurship and ensured the financial 
sustainability of Akshaya entrepreneurs through a multitude of citizen 
services.

The last article on "Digital Content and Paper-Pencil Curriculum" by 
Utpal Mallik examines popular assumptions on the role of digital content 
in the school and how that role fits into the overall curriculum design. 
The author feels that as computers and the World Wide Web reach India's 
schools, what constitutes their effective use in education of children 
should be open to debate. He also emphasizes that though it has been 
widely accepted as an argument for school computing that since 
technology is powerful, it must bring about some spectacular changes in 
the content, process and outcome of schooling, the argument calls for 
careful scrutiny since the process of schooling is deeply rooted in a 
rigid systemic reality and its outcome cannot change if the process does 
not.

Upcoming conferences include eLearning Africa 2013 to be held in 
Windhoek, Namibia from May 29 to 31, 2013, and the International 
Conference on Rural ICT Development (RICTD) at Melaka, Malaysia from 
June 25 to 27, 2013.

We hope you will find this issue interesting and we look forward to 
receiving your feedback on the same. We welcome your contributions for 
the forthcoming issue of the IFIP WG 9.4 Newsletter. Interested 
contributors are requested to refer to the guidelines for authors 
available at: http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/egov/ifip/guidelines.htm  or 
may mail us at: ifipnewsletter at iimahd.ernet.in 
<mailto:ifipnewsletter at iimahd.ernet.in>

The February 2013 issue can be directly accessed at: 
http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/egov/ifip/feb2013/feb2013.htm. A downloadable 
PDF version of this issue is also available on our website (URL: 
http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/egov/ifip/feb2013/feb2013.pdf) to ease access 
and facilitate printing.

With Best Regards,

Editorial Team, IFIP WG 9.4 Newsletter.

Centre for Electronic Governance,

Indian Institute of Management,

Ahmedabad - 380 015, India

Phone: +91 79 6632 4128

URL: http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/egov/ifip/wg.htm



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