Partnering with i4d... I had been planning to meet the i4d team since the time I came to work with UNESCO in New Delhi last year. I have read and heard about the magazine and Fred (Co-founder, Bytes for All) was already in the editorial board of the magazine. Because of our different involvements with the team, we always thought to do something together. There were other encouragements too. Ravi Gupta, the founder of i4d magazine has been very supportive to ‘Bytes for All’ and was an easy person to communicate with. Anyway, we met sometime in June/July last year at CSDMS office. The fact that I didn’t meet Fred in real life in the last 6 years of working together at B4All- was a big surprise for him (I met Fred at last in January this year and that myth is gone!) and for me the surprise was to talk to Jaya (Editorial Consultant to i4d) by miming or by writing as she was on ‘no-talk’ mode that day. But it was all too fun as we all had been friends and colleagues. I proposed a number of ideas on collaboration. I thought I would need to give explanation on each of these but surprisingly whatever I proposed, Ravi replied with confidence- ‘Yes Partha, lets do it’. It means, we didn’t have much paper work on collaboration but had trust and goodwill to start with. So, we simply jumped on and worked out other details as we proceed. Well, I wouldn’t say, all the plans are materialised as of now but at least one has clicked very well and that is what you are reading here – a collaborative space for Bytes for All. At this age of networked environment, collaborative craziness probably has a value. Few crazy ideas on the network can create a sane trend. We started ‘Bytes for All’ in a similar fashion – without any formal planning or paperwork and our simple experimentation ended in creating a formal network of ICT4D imitators and observers in South Asia – a region where even people to people contact is seen as a subject of conspiracy theory. The discussion summary that we’re compiling and publishing here has other objectives too. Our ‘Bytes for All Readers Forum’ was bustling with ideas, debate and discussions and we had been looking an option so that these can be shared with a wider audience. This is particularly important in a region such as, South Asia where a significant majority is without Internet connectivity. Therefore content dissemination thorough mainstream print media or through TV-radio media is an important option. Bytes for All discussion summary published through i4d is a small step to that direction. i4d and ‘Bytes for All’ both being kindred spirit, aim to provide a platform for thinkers, initiators, observers to interact with each other and to contribute the practice, through an open ended content management system. I congratulate i4d for completing a milestone of 25th issue publication. It is a big achievement in overcoming its childhood. We plan to do more work with i4d and wish all the successes in the coming years. Partha Pratim Sarker Co-founder, Bytes for All (www.bytesforall.net)

e-Commerce

Economics of a website
One of our readers Dipti, had a poser “How does Google.com benefit when we use it?” Thejesh of techmag.biz shared that giant portals like Google, Yahoo and Amazon earn revenue by way of advert-isements, which are also context sensitive, i.e. the ads are related to the search key given by the user. A few cents per user click are paid to the portal by the ad agencies. Some portals like Amazon.com also sell products, which gets a percentage (as high as 10 percent) for every buy made by a user. Some portals are exclusively e-Commerce sites. If a website has value added content, it could charge the user for viewing this content. Some websites send their content to subscribers as a newsletter, either free or for a fee. If you are a budding writer and cannot find a publisher, then some websites (www. lulu.com) can do that for you. Publishing is free but the website charges commission for each book sold. The criteria for success is that the website must be famous, reliable and get a few million hits every month! Another reader Reuban added: A search engine, can power other sites e.g. Yahoo, used to be powered by Google. Of course, the search engine charges for all these facilities that it provides.


Environment

Flood in Mumbai
Mumbai (India) was at the mercy of the rain gods this monsoon. It is now, faced with tackling the after effects of the floodwaters, death and disease. With floodwaters standing 13 feet deep in some places, the blame game, so effectively played by the politicians and bureaucrats can wait. Mumbai needs help. Help in whatever way you can. Check out the following sites:
http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com;
http://cloudburstmumbai.blogspot.com


Education

Recent happenings in Pakistan

• The Government of Pakistan has decided to launch two IT educational channels by mid July 2006 for the promotion of information technology in the country.
• Pakistan is taking a step towards e-Governance by initiating computerisation of land records or Patwars.
• The Government of Pakistan has decided to launch an IT awareness campaign in the capital city of Islamabad.

No roads, no problem we have boats!
Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, a Bangladesh NGO (www.interconnection.org/sss/) has come up with an innovative method to reach to the rural masses in the Bangladesh watershed. The NGO uses indigenous boats that have been converted into mobile libraries, schools, and mobile Internet educational units. These boats rely on generators or solar energy power and mobile phones for Internet access. Through this programme, farmers, women and children benefit with livelihood information like agriculture prices.

Students develop FM radio software
Engineering students in Chandigarh (India) have developed software ‘Music on Demand’ that will enable FM jockeys to play songs to their listeners immediately. Thus making the programme live. Currently radio jockeys have to manually scan through their music libraries, resulting in most programmes being telecast after being recorded. All this is set to change if the ‘Music on Demand’ software finds its way into the recording studios.
http://in.rediff.com/money/2005/aug/10radio.htm


Livelihood

Rags to riches story: How digital photography changed the life of a rural youth
Shumon a youth in rural Bangladesh was not even a matriculate and had no computer experience. Given this background, Shumon knew that it would be difficult for him to get a lucrative job, or even start a profitable conventional business. Shumon learnt about the cost effective business opportunity in digital photography. He set up his own studio in his village. To click a photograph, the villagers had to earlier travel to nearby townships. They could now do it locally. He not only caters to identity card photographs, but also takes photography contracts at marriages and other social functions. He now makes a handsome profit every month by rural standards and even encourages and guides his contemporaries to be similarly self reliant. All this however was achieved through sheer hard work and self-learning.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/message/6381


Technology

Nepal using cheap and simple technologies
The Tansen CMC (Community Multimedia Center) in Nepal has been recognised for the use of cheap and simple technologies. The CMC combines diverse technologies like computers, Internet, CD-ROMs, specialised software and the local cable TV network effectively. Using these technologies the CMC over the years has trained the local community to create multimedia content for marriages and other social functions. This has helped the local youth to find employment and earn income. The CMC also runs its own channel on cable TV. Wherein the host browses the net on camera for community centric websites.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/message/6480


e-Governance

Framework for e-Governance
IBM has presented a framework for e-Governance in the form of a paper. The paper presents a framework that simplifies the task of developing, deploying and managing complex e-Governance applications. The paper being circulated on the Bytes for All Readers list brought interesting observations from readers. One of BFA’s active readers Satish Jha, felt that the IBM framework being no doubt very visionary, however, will remain only on paper and not achieve anything other than creating synergies among like minded individuals, unless we get it ‘right’ at the conceptual level. Zubair Faisal Abbasi from BFA echoed Dr. Jha’s views saying that, behind every byte jostling through e-Functionality, there is a person with socio-institutional habits and idiosyncrasies. Zubair further added that the potential in e-Governance applications must be matched by creating a demand for such applications. Ananya from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), Shillong wondered whether, today’s catchwords of transparency and right-to-information, had any bearing on e-Governance, or vice-versa. Kris Dev of International Transparency and Accountability Network, summarised the debate saying that e-Governance must be for the citizens, of the citizens and by the citizens. e-Governance projects must not mean buying and ‘showing’ of expensive hardware that is hardly put to use later once the initial hoopla is over.
http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/485/mittal.html


Community Radio

Radio station in US$ 120!
A low budget, ‘rough and ready’ radio station has been built for just US$ 120 by three students in Haryana, India. The developers call it the suitcase radio station. It weighs a total of 12 kg. And the raw materials were procured from the local market in Ambala (Haryana). The airwaves can be transmitted up to a radius of 15 Km. The developers also say that for a cost of around US$ 500 the radio station can be upgraded too. Though the Indian Supreme Court has passed a judgment allowing the public full rights to transmission, running a private radio station still remains illegal in India which is sad given the innovative application areas for a low budget FM radio station. Recently a volunteer organisation organised a tribal seminar for tribal communities all over India. The seminar kept playing in four different languages from four different FM radio stations live. This report sparked off a tęte-ŕ-tęte in the Bytes for All readers list. Ananya Guha of IGNOU Shillong, informed that elsewhere over the world, air waves are being used for learning. Gurudutt Verma, thought that the Indian government should open up airwaves now. Being low-tech will also bring youngsters closer to physics.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/regionalnews/story/2005/08/050823_radio_station.shtml

Bytes for All: www.bytesforall.net
Bytes For All Readers Discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers
Bytes for All RSS syndication: http://www.bytesforall.net/index_html/RSS
Bytes for All Readers Forum RSS syndication:
http://rss.groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/rss
Bytes for All discussion summary compiled by:
Archana P. Nagvekar, Bytes for All, India