A Portable Telecenter: Suggestions Please!
Hello Everyone!
I recently joined the community, and started working on telecenters from six months back. I worked with the OLPC Project for sometime, and then helped indirectly with a similar project involving the CMPC. I realized then that combining the two ideas would be a fantastic concept, and have been working on the idea since. I am not sure if someone else is working on it too, but it'd be fantastic if you let me know. The project I am going to talk about is just a proposal, it'd be great if you could give suggestions and point out possible areas where it might not work.
Please look at this with a very critical eye. Suggestions Please!
Portable Netbooks In Rural Communication
The Concept
We know about Telecenters. We know about the oh-so-cheap netbooks that are the so popular nowadays. My idea: lets make a portable telecenter, so that if it does not work out, it can be taken to any other place by one or two persons. Also, telecenters tend to be power-hungry, and it'd be difficult to imagine a telcenter running solely on solar power. With, say, four notebooks, a router, and some solar panels, and some optional components, the entire telecenter can run on solar power AND be highly portable.
The two highlights:
1) Highly Portable. If it doesn't work out well in a village, its only a matter of packing up and going to the next.
2) No problem of Power. Very Important for a country like mine, where even the capital sees 18 hours of power cuts during winter months, and 70 percent of the villages are un-electrified.
3) Apart from the solar panel thing, Dead Cheap. I'll come to this point later.
How It will work
Another important point: the telecenter will be commercial. This is important because from government telecenters in our country, we have seen that these things tend to fizzle out. After the first few months, several expensive detachable components(eg RAM, etc) are seen missing. An important point to remember, however: all the money made will go to making new telecenters.
So, what happens? This is the ideal case. A villager/village institution who can afford to make an initial investment of around US$ 2000-2500 is chosen, given basic training, and given the equipment. While using internet in the villages is awesome, he will mainly market himself(allow me to use a male for the example) as a way to contact relatives outside the country in VERY cheap rates, using VOIP. Further, he will encourage the villagers to ask there relatives abroad to use skype, and show the advantages of video chat. The cost will be minimum, consumer satisfaction high, and the consumers will be spending a lot less per call, on both the sides. As a result, spending on communication will go down and the operator can direct the money saved on other services such as photo printing(optional but highly profitable) internet browsing, etc. The telecenter will obviously charge money for this, but even after charging minimal amount, this should prove to be profitable.
So how is this MY project? As an experiment, five operators in five villages will be given a set of equipments each, and given training. They can use the equipment free of cost(or maybe just a little) for the initial three months, and if they feel it will be profitable, they must either buy it, or rent it. The money will go directly to a fund that will buy more such sets. For the money the operators pay, they will receive constant training, and maybe additional equipments, with some arrangement.
Now, this appears to be a purely business venture. To make it more of a social venture, the center will do several other things. For $1-2 monthly per person per month, the center will give computer classes to school-children, one hour every week. They will be taught to use the internet, and internet use for students will get 33% discount, or something similar to that affect. On days of the week business is not very good, the center could even make an arrangement with local schools for the computer use. The private schools will pay more than the public schools. Remember, we are in a village that is yet to see electricity, though has cell-phones, which are charged by some limited solar panels.
The center will promote journalism too. Almost every village has a reporter or the other. Journalists, will get limited hours of internet per week where they have to pay a lot less than the usual hours, maybe a fourth. However, in return, they must post their reports to a website of the telecenter networks too. If their agreement doesn't allow them to, they may publish a condensed version, but that rarely happens i rural villages. Thus we will have a site with news coming out from every village, most of which will never see newspaper publishing. Villagers in neighboring villages, and people who have gone abroad to work, are bound to find this useful. In addition, if a news item seems interesting, the network can buy it from the reporters, and market it. Remember, the money will go to making more telecenters, or for health issues, which I am coming to.
The telecenters will work with the networks and hospitals in Kathmandu to give some hours of telemedicine services. The service will have a entry feel, but negligible, just enough to deter those who will try to hog the time with the doctor just to make sure they are perfectly healthy. With a help of a local health assistant(who will have to be paid), the doctors in the big cities will check patients, and make recommendations. This will have multiple implications: the doctors will be interested because they can serve in the rural areas without actually going there, the villagers will get expert advise for a minimal fee. The portability of the center will be useful here: it can be taken to different villages, and to the patients, if need arises.
If everything works out as mentioned, the telecenters could work as a center for connecting the villages they represent to the world. They could employ local people, in exchange for internet hours, or for money, to keep track of the NGO and INGO works in the villages. This way such organizations to refer to that database, and avoid overlapping programs, and coordinate their activities in a better way.
The main source of income for the centers however will be VOIP calls. Lets say, for some reason, a village does not work out as expected. All one would have to do would be to pack up the netbooks, the router, and maybe the chargers, along with some extra materials and get going. It would easily be taken by one person, two at the most. The operator could rent a room in yet another village, which he believes might work out better, set up the equipments and get going, within less than a day. He would have to spend most of the time advertising, but villages being what they are, and the computers so rarely seen, that is not bound to be a very big problem. Even if the calls do not make good money, simply working with schools is bound to be a good source of return. I estimate that the investment will return in 2-3 yrs, and within 5 years, the operator will have quite alluring returns. An article in a newspaper, unfortunately for which I could not find link, stated that telecenter made US$ 20,000 in two years. While expecting that would be very optimistic, it does show the potential of what can be done.
In the worst-case scenario, where nothing will work and the idea appears to fail, the project will still not fail completely. Since there is little sunken costs, the entire setup could be donated to a local school, after some training, and that would still be a big contribution to the community. If the idea does work out, the sets could be updated every three years, and the replaced sets could be donated to the local schools. If the center is making good profits, the time could be made shorter...
End
That's the basic idea for the project. Please do make suggestions, and be critical. I plan to submit the project to any agency interested. Do you think I should modify the revenue-generation model? Because it might sound like a for-profit project, which it is NOT. I was just trying to make it sustainable. That way, the success of one telecenter will pave way for several others, and the failure will slow down the pace, according to the market forces.
I recently joined the community, and started working on telecenters from six months back. I worked with the OLPC Project for sometime, and then helped indirectly with a similar project involving the CMPC. I realized then that combining the two ideas would be a fantastic concept, and have been working on the idea since. I am not sure if someone else is working on it too, but it'd be fantastic if you let me know. The project I am going to talk about is just a proposal, it'd be great if you could give suggestions and point out possible areas where it might not work.
Please look at this with a very critical eye. Suggestions Please!
Portable Netbooks In Rural Communication
The Concept
We know about Telecenters. We know about the oh-so-cheap netbooks that are the so popular nowadays. My idea: lets make a portable telecenter, so that if it does not work out, it can be taken to any other place by one or two persons. Also, telecenters tend to be power-hungry, and it'd be difficult to imagine a telcenter running solely on solar power. With, say, four notebooks, a router, and some solar panels, and some optional components, the entire telecenter can run on solar power AND be highly portable.
The two highlights:
1) Highly Portable. If it doesn't work out well in a village, its only a matter of packing up and going to the next.
2) No problem of Power. Very Important for a country like mine, where even the capital sees 18 hours of power cuts during winter months, and 70 percent of the villages are un-electrified.
3) Apart from the solar panel thing, Dead Cheap. I'll come to this point later.
How It will work
Another important point: the telecenter will be commercial. This is important because from government telecenters in our country, we have seen that these things tend to fizzle out. After the first few months, several expensive detachable components(eg RAM, etc) are seen missing. An important point to remember, however: all the money made will go to making new telecenters.
So, what happens? This is the ideal case. A villager/village institution who can afford to make an initial investment of around US$ 2000-2500 is chosen, given basic training, and given the equipment. While using internet in the villages is awesome, he will mainly market himself(allow me to use a male for the example) as a way to contact relatives outside the country in VERY cheap rates, using VOIP. Further, he will encourage the villagers to ask there relatives abroad to use skype, and show the advantages of video chat. The cost will be minimum, consumer satisfaction high, and the consumers will be spending a lot less per call, on both the sides. As a result, spending on communication will go down and the operator can direct the money saved on other services such as photo printing(optional but highly profitable) internet browsing, etc. The telecenter will obviously charge money for this, but even after charging minimal amount, this should prove to be profitable.
So how is this MY project? As an experiment, five operators in five villages will be given a set of equipments each, and given training. They can use the equipment free of cost(or maybe just a little) for the initial three months, and if they feel it will be profitable, they must either buy it, or rent it. The money will go directly to a fund that will buy more such sets. For the money the operators pay, they will receive constant training, and maybe additional equipments, with some arrangement.
Now, this appears to be a purely business venture. To make it more of a social venture, the center will do several other things. For $1-2 monthly per person per month, the center will give computer classes to school-children, one hour every week. They will be taught to use the internet, and internet use for students will get 33% discount, or something similar to that affect. On days of the week business is not very good, the center could even make an arrangement with local schools for the computer use. The private schools will pay more than the public schools. Remember, we are in a village that is yet to see electricity, though has cell-phones, which are charged by some limited solar panels.
The center will promote journalism too. Almost every village has a reporter or the other. Journalists, will get limited hours of internet per week where they have to pay a lot less than the usual hours, maybe a fourth. However, in return, they must post their reports to a website of the telecenter networks too. If their agreement doesn't allow them to, they may publish a condensed version, but that rarely happens i rural villages. Thus we will have a site with news coming out from every village, most of which will never see newspaper publishing. Villagers in neighboring villages, and people who have gone abroad to work, are bound to find this useful. In addition, if a news item seems interesting, the network can buy it from the reporters, and market it. Remember, the money will go to making more telecenters, or for health issues, which I am coming to.
The telecenters will work with the networks and hospitals in Kathmandu to give some hours of telemedicine services. The service will have a entry feel, but negligible, just enough to deter those who will try to hog the time with the doctor just to make sure they are perfectly healthy. With a help of a local health assistant(who will have to be paid), the doctors in the big cities will check patients, and make recommendations. This will have multiple implications: the doctors will be interested because they can serve in the rural areas without actually going there, the villagers will get expert advise for a minimal fee. The portability of the center will be useful here: it can be taken to different villages, and to the patients, if need arises.
If everything works out as mentioned, the telecenters could work as a center for connecting the villages they represent to the world. They could employ local people, in exchange for internet hours, or for money, to keep track of the NGO and INGO works in the villages. This way such organizations to refer to that database, and avoid overlapping programs, and coordinate their activities in a better way.
The main source of income for the centers however will be VOIP calls. Lets say, for some reason, a village does not work out as expected. All one would have to do would be to pack up the netbooks, the router, and maybe the chargers, along with some extra materials and get going. It would easily be taken by one person, two at the most. The operator could rent a room in yet another village, which he believes might work out better, set up the equipments and get going, within less than a day. He would have to spend most of the time advertising, but villages being what they are, and the computers so rarely seen, that is not bound to be a very big problem. Even if the calls do not make good money, simply working with schools is bound to be a good source of return. I estimate that the investment will return in 2-3 yrs, and within 5 years, the operator will have quite alluring returns. An article in a newspaper, unfortunately for which I could not find link, stated that telecenter made US$ 20,000 in two years. While expecting that would be very optimistic, it does show the potential of what can be done.
In the worst-case scenario, where nothing will work and the idea appears to fail, the project will still not fail completely. Since there is little sunken costs, the entire setup could be donated to a local school, after some training, and that would still be a big contribution to the community. If the idea does work out, the sets could be updated every three years, and the replaced sets could be donated to the local schools. If the center is making good profits, the time could be made shorter...
End
That's the basic idea for the project. Please do make suggestions, and be critical. I plan to submit the project to any agency interested. Do you think I should modify the revenue-generation model? Because it might sound like a for-profit project, which it is NOT. I was just trying to make it sustainable. That way, the success of one telecenter will pave way for several others, and the failure will slow down the pace, according to the market forces.
Tags: netbooks, portable, propsal, research, solar-powered, telecenter
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jimmy L. Calata on -
"Telecentres that are mobile, reaching out for more people."
This could be a good strategy to reach people in the mountains and far-flung areas where, meantime, there is no internet connectivity or even electricity.
A mobile CeC/telecentre (vehicle) can be equipped with:
a. Wi-fi equipment for internet connectivity
b. Generator (or solar panels) for electricity
c. Multimedia equipment: notebooks/netbooks, data projector
d. Multimedia presentations: CDs/DVDs, posters, brochures, books, journals
e. Technical people (experts in agriculture, health, education, etc) who'll conduct the presentations and discussions with the people
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Permalink Reply by Jimmy L. Calata on
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This model could work independently or as an enhancement to existing mobile models like the model used by Efren Penaflorida of the Philippines who was named 2009 CNN Hero of the Year for initiating a "pushcart classroom” to indigent children.
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Permalink Reply by Jimmy L. Calata on
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His "enhanced" model could then be renamed as "ePushcart Classroom".
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Permalink Reply by Alan Foo on -
A good idea made possible by the advent of low cost netbooks and low cost Solar power to power the netbook.
Your idea is likened to a villager who used a micro credit and bought one handphone and charges the locals using that handphone with users' own sim cards. It became a viable business and livelihood for one man benefitting the people in his area too poor to have a handphone.
Actually such telecenters with minimal overheads can be viable. There are many services that your mobile telecenters can provide including technical services , contents for school work etc.
I came across a very interesting article , shown to me by one of the telecenter contacts...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/journalismcompetition/professional-two-wh...
They are called infoladies...carrying a netbook providing many kinds of services. These ladies ride bicycles.
Read on.
Regards
Alan
www.paperlesshomework.com
We specialised in closing the digital divides for a greener world without broadband.
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Permalink Reply by Sandra Nassali on -
Hello Runil, i like your ideas..they are dependable, not over-loaded, sustainable and realistic...i can only advise you to look into the Telecentre Cook Book below, it has some pretty good ideas for telecentres and other rural communication initiatives. Also, check out this link, it has good tips on how to run telecentres that move; www.mobiletelecenters.com
01_unesco_telecentre_basics-1.pdf
Cheers
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Permalink Reply by Cuchie Echeverria on -
Here's a related story that might interest you and the rest of our friends in this community. We actually already have the so-called eTrike or Mobile Telecenter in the Philippines. You may also check out related links below for some ideas:
Philippines Mobile Telecenters Profile
Filipino youth launch mobile telecenter
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Permalink Reply by Jimmy L. Calata on
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These Philippine models were conceptualized with the disadvantaged areas of urban Manila as primary target implementation sites. I am thinking of the strategic use of the mobile models in the mountains and far-flung areas where there is no internet connectivity or even electricity. Digital divide and social exclusion in those areas are more pronounced. Exposure to these mobile telecentres of people in those areas might encourage their local chief executives to establish or to help expedite the establishment of fixed telecentres in their respective villages/communities. A nationwide community-based clamor for telecentres would eventually force a corresponding national policy.
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Permalink Reply by Niranjan Meegammana on -
Dear Runil
This idea is very good to expand current telecenter model who lack customers. I am not clearly sure that it should totally run as a business centers, there always people who can't pay, if currently the village does not have ICT so no ICT gaps exist with in, the moment a some get to ICT, the begin to occur and those who have no access will be a resistance, think some part as social
1. The basic equipment set should include shared MMP, you can give free session a month for each village on Agriculture, no charge will help inclusion, a Local donor or business can use your gathering to convey a message, probably sponsor transport & tea
2. The courses you conduct should be planned to give a National value, School Curriculum ICT or ICDL like qualification to make it goal oriented
3. The idea of Telemedicine is very good, you need good portable 3G connection
4. A portable small printer, Scanner, Digital Camera, Video CAM, notebook + webcam is bulky you will need a vehicle. One idea is to use one vehical to drop person and equipment from a resource center and back and arrange visiting Telecenter plan accordingly
5. Journalism Service need to add, creation of letters to government official on various matters will help
6. You need a local partner for promotion, clerical work, finance. Offer a part of revenue and look for a volunteer, since you charge for fee , you will have to pay for rental, electricity, furniture fee. Unless you need to have a bus transformed as a mobile telecenter, then the cost start rocketing, do not go for that opttion, if the market get developped , you can increase visits and later implement a permanent center,
Of course these can be done later, but unless if you embed them in design, larger constraints will occur
Niarnjan Meegammana
Shilpa Sayura Foundation
http://www.shilpasayura.org
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Permalink Reply by Alan Foo on
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I think the bicycle ladies of Bangladesh model would be best for starters and most viable.
If you are talking about serving people of abject poverty, I feel this model is the most suitable.
All you need is a netbook and a cheap solar power plus a bicycle plus a mobile phone with Internet access.
That's it. Practically most of the functions can be had.
Of course , using this model your contents must be small enough to fit into a pen drive , not those giga giga bytes contents you see in most telecenters or CD based systems.
This lady with these basic equipments can
1. provide communication services.. mobile phone
2. provide Internet access - mobile phone no need satellite
3. provide educational contents .. small sized files not those you big sized files..
4. download contents from Internet.. use mobile phone and runs offline not those that MUST be online like flash systems most are using. Online charges too expensive.
5. plus many more...
all these with a cheap netbook, a mobile phone, and a cheap solar panel (maybe bicycle pedal powered when the lady is on the move to charge the batteries). The cost is minimal and can bring in relatively higher revenue per unit of Netbook than having many units as mentioned by certain individuals.
Regards
Alan
www.paperlesshomework.com
Specialist in closing the digital divides.
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Permalink Reply by Jimmy L. Calata on
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First, you have to study the circumstances of the sites where you intend to deploy the mobile telecentre. Find out the needs or problems of the target villages that they could hardly address. Then, think of ICT-based solutions that can help them on such needs or problems. Simple ones would do. You need to impress upon the minds of the village people the usefulness of the telecentre in their day-to-day lives.
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Permalink Reply by RANABIR DAS on -
4 Laptops(2 is good enough) + VSAT + Solar Panels may not be sufficient . If in Nepal remember Cloudy weather and therefore Power may not be sufficient. Would recommend a combination of Diesel/Kerosene generator to give at least 300 watts power. Consider Power Backup w/invertor for 4 hours backup. Yes it will increase costs. Add a Digital camera of say 6-8 mega Pixel. This will bring in quick Revenue. A HP printer with copy scan print(photo quality) may be added. A Total expenditure of Rs150000/- is a good budget.
Look for a centralized population base of atleast 5000-6000 for a semi permanent set up. Keeping this as a centrally hub, spread out weekly each day to villages less than 1000 population. Remember u have to get footfalls.
The Model has to be revenue sustainable through entrepreunal abilities of the Local village person. For this let him bring in 15% to 25% upfront and balance you can fund and recover in Installments over 4 year period. The Local Entrepreuner having plus Class 10 back ground would be good point to start. If the enterprize is charitable then the model will not work. The Local person must have a stake.
eLearning will be your main money spinner. If you can get a few courses delivered through the NET, you could launch certificate courses of 3 months & 6 months.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Foo on
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First what is the cost of VSAT per month?
4 laptops .. how much to charge per hour to be profitable?
What is VSAT speed of downloads? Dial up speed or broadband. These kind of setups normally needs expensive electricity generation equipments and expensive to run.
Current elearning modules are very large sized and most online ... so would be costly to maintain and run
For a rural community far away from urban townships.. the users are mostly poor users.
... With the cost of so much equipment, do you think it is viable or cost effective?
Without govt support most such setups are not sustainable
The bicycle lady is more cost effective with almost no running cost.
Regards
Alan
www..paperlesshomework.com
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