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| Monthly Newsletter | Issue 05- September 2010 |
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APTN Secretariat Congratulates the
Winner of Best Entrepreneur of the Year 2009 in Sri Lanka.
APTN Secretariat congratulates G.A. Deepika Priyadarshani, proprietor, Suriyawewa Nenasala for winning the Best Entrepreneur of the Year 2009 award organised by the Hambantota Youth Business Program in Sri Lanka. Deepika is an experienced telecentre manager with over four years experience in telecentre activities. She is a Nenasala ambassador for the Hambantota district, southern part of Sri Lanka. Deepika is employed as a graduated instructor at Ministry of Youth affairs in Sri Lanka in her profession. Over the past few years Suriyawewa Nenasala has rendered a valuable service to community who could not afford the benefits of ICT. 'Nenasakmana': mobile telecentre is one of the unique expansion of the IT services done by the Suriyawewa Nenasala not only for the people in Sooriyawewa, but also for the disadvantaged communities in remote areas as well." APTN Secretariat sends their warm wishes to Deforepika and Suriyawewa Nenasala for their future endeavor.
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Telecentre.org, Intel to hold webinar on Solar Power for Off-grid PC Deployments
 Telecentre.org Foundation and Intel will hold a webinar on "Solar Power for Off-grid PC Deployments: Prospects, Challenges and Opportunities" on Thursday, 30 September at 16:00 - 17:30 Manila time (08:00 - 09:30 GMT).
The objective of this webinar (seminar on the web) is to equip the audience with the knowledge to understand the major issues in designing a solar deployment and to provide some guidance on how to budget for a potential deployment. While this webinar is focused on locations in areas with no grid access, many of the learning's such as utilizing low power PC's will also be applicable to places with unreliable electricity supply. |
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Telecentres in postal offices: Another innovation of the Philippines Commission on ICT  Written By: Cuchie Echeverria The Philippine Community eCenter Program, spearheaded by the Commission on ICT (CICT), will be expanding its reach by making use of existing postal offices as telecentre service delivery channels.
This development is a product of the partnership agreement inked by the CICT and the Philippine Postal Corporation during the launch of the "Get Online Philippines!" campaign (inspired by Telecentre Europe's Get Online Day initiative) in June in commemoration of national ICT month in the country.
The partnership agreement covers the piloting of said initiative in six postal offices in different parts of the country. It seeks to promote community development through the use of ICT for effective and efficient governance by making use of existing government infrastructure. As such, the pilot postal offices will serve as telecentres (locally branded as Community eCenters or CeCs) and will offer various telecentre tools and products on top of their existing postal services.
Relative to this, the designated staff of each of the six pilot sites will be made to undergo the necessary training for CeC knowledge workers under the telecentre.org-Philippine CeC Academy. In addition, the pilot sites will also be provided with equipment and one-year Internet connectivity grants to help the new telecentres get off the ground.
For other updates on the Philippine CeC Program,
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Nenasala Skill Development Training Program- Phase II 
Written by: Seuwandi Yapa In a further move to achieving the objective of empowering the rural community with the dividends of ICT, the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) organized their 2nd phase of Nenasala (telecentre) Skill Development Training Program for recently. Phase 2 training session accommodated 4 batches with over 230 Nenasala managers and operators came from round the country.
The first batch included 63 of rural and youthful Nenasala operators spread from throughout the island assembled for a six-day tailor-made training at the well-equipped MAS Institute of Management and Technology (MIMT) in Tulhiriya, Sri Lanka. The skills development training program was organized as a residential training where food and accommodation for the participants were provided free of charge during the training. The training session for 63 participants from the 1st batch was held on 02nd to 06th of August. The second batch which consisted with 75 Nenasala Managers and operators participated for their training at the same premises from 26th to 31st August 2010. The training program for the batch 3 was specially arranged and dedicated to Tamil language speaking Nenasala managers and operators who are especially coming from North and East of Sri Lanka: former war torn areas of the country. The group included 44 Nenasala managers and operators whose training was allocated from 28th August to 03rd September 2010. The 4th batch of the Nenasala managers and operators will include 50 participants and their training program is scheduled to be kicked off on 18th September 2010. |
Bangladesh Telecentre Network Honored for ICT Innovation
Written by Md.Sadikur Rahman
Bangladesh Telecentre Network received two awards in the E-content & ICT4D Award 2010 jointly organized by MoSICT (Ministry of Science Information Communication Technology) and D Net. The award ceremony was held on August 9, 2010 at the National Museum auditorium where Finance Minister AMA Muhit attended the ceremony as the chief guest and State Minister for Science and ICT Yeafesh Osman was special guest.
In category of 'e-Enterprise & livelihood' ' byabsharkhobor.com' and in category of 'Business & Commerce' ' msme.com.bd' both have been recognized as First Runner Up by the grand jury of the 'National e-content & ICT4D Award 2010'. The jury panel choices the winners out of 48 finalists. A total of 93 initiatives have been nominated for the contest.
This is great achievement of BTN in the first national competition of its kind in Bangladesh.
BTN express heartfelt thanks to the team who really worked hard to make it successful and credit also goes to the implementing members / partners at field and other relevant stakeholders. Also BTN secretariat would like to give special thanks to the team members of the Advisory Committee of this initiative. It will be a great encouragement for all of BTN members to do more good works in coming days. |
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| Telecentre News Beyond Asia Pacific |
Small tech grants, big differences for rural women in Africa
Women in rural areas play a central role in the agricultural economy of African region, which means that they often work long hours, leaving little time for learning how to use new technologies. Yet, access to new technologies affect both men and women in remote areas. In a new publication, GenARDIS 2002 - 2010: Small grants that made big changes for women in agriculture Jenny Radloff explores how seed grants that were disbursed to innovative initiative
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Access to new information and communications technologies (ICTs) affects both men and women living in remote areas. Governments and the telecommunications sector do not prioritise infrastructure in rural areas because the population is generally poor and dispersed. Efforts to roll out infrastructure and training are focused in urban areas where the population is more concentrated and the profits more immediate and reliable. However, for women living in rural areas, access to ICTs means first overcoming multiple barriers relating not only to their location, but also their gender.
Women play a central role in the agricultural economy, which means that their hours of work are long, leaving little time for learning how to use new technologies. Women cannot migrate as easily as men to towns and cities where training in new technologies is more available. Apart from agricultural production, women rather than men have the added responsibilities of caring for children and the elderly. In many communities cultural attitudes disallow women from visiting public access points, often because they are frequented by men or because women are not allowed out of their homes without being accompanied by men.
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European Skills for Employability Awards
Courtesy: www.telecentreeurope.ning.com
 The European Alliance on Skills for Employability has launched the European Skills for Employability Awards!
Have you created or implemented an initiative that has used ICT training or digital technology skills development to raise employment prospects and improve digital and social inclusion?
If so, you should enter the European Skills for Employability Awards.
Your initiative could be recognized as one of the best skills for employability projects across Europe and showcased to the rest of the EU as an example of best practice. Additionally, by reaching this stage you could go onto win one of 3 individual category awards that will be presented at the European Employment Forum in Brussels on 24-25 November 2010.
There are three competition categories:
- Accessibility and Employability
- Integrated employability model & use of collaboration technology
- Youth and Employability
Learn how you can apply: http://www.employabilityalliance.eu/news2.php?id=14
Closing date is 30th September 2010.
Please contact Yanne Courcoux at secretariat@employabilityalliance.eu should you have any question.
Read MORE
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Southern African Telecentre Network- Regional Planning Workshop Report- Download Available
Courtesy: www.satnetwork.org
The Southern African Telecentre Network (SATNET) and ICT organisations assembled in Lusaka from 23rd to 25th June 2010. In order to scale up the work of the regional telecentre network and facilitate economic development in Southern Africa, SATNET secretariat organised a regional planning workshop in June 2010 to respond to the needs and challenges of telecentres as well as information resource centres in southern Africa.
The workshop was organised in line with its action plan for 2010. This was also a process to fulfill responses as recommended at the International Conference on sustainable telecentres in Africa that was held in June 2008, supported by Technical Centre for Agricultural Cooperation (CTA).
The workshop provided opportunities to national networks and focal points to interact share their experiences and learn from each other. The workshop provided a coordinated institutional platform through which information sharing opportunities and experiences can be fostered to benefit and impact on social and economic development in the region. Being an emerging regional ICT initiative, the event was to facilitate regional interactions among national network member countries and share information, pursue knowledge sharing opportunities on the work of telecentres and ICT4D activities in Southern Africa.
Specifically the workshop enabled selected member countries to review past activities and deliberate on current issues and plan for the strong regional knowledge sharing network for sustainable development of telecentres to impact on social and economic regional development in Southern Africa.
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Contact Info: Asia-Pacific Telecentre Network Secretariat,
ICT Agency of Sri Lanka,
No. 160/24, Kirimandala Mawatha,
Colombo 05, Sri Lanka.
Tel: +94-11-23699099 Ext. 327
Fax: +94-11-2368387
email: info@aptn.asia / web: www.aptn.asia |
| Asia Pacific Telecentre Network |
| JOIN APTN | The Asia-Pacific Telecentre Network (APTN) is a collaborative initiative of the United Nations' Economic and Social Commission for the Asia-Pacific (UN-ESCAP) and telecentre.org and APTN Secretariat presently being hosted at ICT Agency (ICTA) Sri Lanka. The network will promote innovation and knowledge-sharing amongst Telecentre organizations in the Asia-Pacific region where Telecentres are growing exponentially each year. The APTN is expected to be developed into a unique network of Governments and Private sector supported telecentres, telecentre service providers, research & development organizations, telecentre experts, consultants and other stake holders active in the field of communication and information technology. APTN will serve as the focal network or the knowledge hub for communication and information technology in the Asia Pacific region. |
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