Volume 7, No. 2, April 1997
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First I must share the happy news that COMNET-IT has come forward with financial support for the newsletter for another year. We would like to cut down the hard copy print run. If you wish to switch to the electronic version please let us know. Since funding agency has changed, it is also time to reconstitute the editorial committee. We have now included Mr. Rogers W'O Okot-Uma of COMSEC and Mr. Henry Almango of COMNET-IT in the editorial committee. Dr. Korpela and I will continue to be the other members. Not all of our correspondents have been active in contributing material and we should perhaps induct some fresh blood. I invite volunteers particularly from Africa to come forward. I would also like to acknowledge the contributions of Mr. EV Narayanan and Ms. Shilpi Pillai for maintaining a record of timely publication of the newsletter. It is becoming clear that diffusion of Information Technology in Developing Countries is being severely restricted because of poor telecom infrastructure. Government monopolies providing telecom services are often unaware that the policies followed by them are hindering the growth of the IT industry. For example, in India we still have a public sector monopoly providing access to the Internet. This has limited the number of internet addresses in India to just 40,000. Interconnection between private sector providers of email services is not permitted. High band width T2 and T3 leased lines are just not available, restricting the opportunity of new industries such as in creating websites. It is hoped that the promised 50 billion dollar investment in the next decade in the telecom sector in India will not be stunted because of slipshod implementation of the reform program. We carry in this issue a report on a workshop conducted at IIM, Ahmedabad to launch a telecom policy study centre. In times to come, the centre will collaborate with similar agencies in other developing countries. We also carry a detailed piece on India's telecom policy reforms in basic services. In addition, there are articles on Internet and its potential use in development. Shirin has written an interesting piece on consequences of promoting the growth of an information industry on the social and physical fabric of a city.
The Internet: Opportunity or Threat James Corbin In his article entitled "The Internet: An opportunity for developing countries?" in the January 1997 issue of “Information Technology in Developing Countries” Shirin Madon invited comments on the complex subject "Can the Internet be regarded as an opportunity or a threat for developing countries." This article responds to his request from a Caribbean perspective. With every
technology, there are threats and opportunities. Consider the case of the
automobile. This technology eliminated the horse and buggy but at the same
time replaced one kind of pollution with another. It kills thousands of
persons on a yearly basis and will continue to do so for as long as there
is an automobile. But the benefits provided by this technology far
outweighs the costs and the world will never go back to the horse and
buggy except perhaps in the event of some unprecedented worldwide
catastrophe. Opportunities The Internet offers the Caribbean basin region and indeed all developing countries the opportunity perhaps for the first time in history, to market products to a world wide audience without incurring the huge expenses associated with the marketing effort required to penetrate developed world markets. The Internet reduces the disparities between the developed and developing world. One still has to purchase the technology from the developed world but the creation of professional Web sites is an intellectual exercise which can be executed just as efficiently by a person in New York sitting at a personal computer as by a person in Bridgetown, Barbados sitting at a similar PC. On the other hand, setting up a car manufacturing facility in Barbados versus setting up one in New York is a different proposition. Most Caribbean economies rely heavily on tourism as their major income earner . Hotels, Hotel Associations and Governmental agencies have been using the Internet to market their products but in most cases the WWW site simply shows what is offered. This now needs to be enhanced to enable prospective visitors to immediately make a hotel reservation once they have reviewed a site and made up their minds. CARICOM (Caribbean Common Market), a grouping of fourteen Caribbean countries has a primary mandate to provide a framework for regional political and economic integration. The Internet provides the opportunity for this Organization to provide worldwide access to its Trade Information Database (CARTIS). The penetration of the Internet in the region with over 700 sites in the Caribbean basin, provides quick access to information and is an excellent tool for business communication. A simple example underscores the point. A businessman in Barbados wanting to purchase orchids was able to find a producer in Thailand and make a purchase using e-mail over the space of just two days. This process would have taken weeks and much expense with telephone calls and faxes between the two countries, if connectivity was not provided via the Internet. Business is not
the only area where opportunities exists. In the area of sport, King
Cricket provides the opportunity. The exploits of the World-famous West
Indies Cricket Team are detailed at a WWW site which also
promotes and sells cricket merchandise. This is just another example of
using the Internet to generate revenue without incurring high marketing
costs. Threats As was noted previously with all technologies, threats do exist. "The Internet superhighway or dirt track?" which was published by the Panos Institute (http://www.panos.com) warns that a new "information poverty" threatens the developing world. The report states that 70% of the computers attached to the Internet are located in the USA, fewer than 10 African countries are connected, and the technology required to access the Internet is considerably less accessible and more expensive in the South than in the Industrialized world. The following statistics listed in the report require serious consideration: 80% of the world's population still lack the most basic telecommunication service. A modem in India costs four times as much as that in the USA. Internet access is generally 12 times more expensive in the developing world than in the USA. The conclusion is that the Internet in the developing world is likely to be confined to a privileged elite more so than in the North. The facts support this. The cost of a typical multi-media pentium PC which sells for US$1800 in Miami (the unofficial capital of the Caribbean) will sell for about US$2500 to US$4500 in the Caribbean, depend-ing on the country. Price fluctuations are based on shipping costs, duties and consumption taxes.Exchange rates also play a significant part with rates of local currencies to the US dollar varying from 2:1 in some countries to as much as 132:1 in others. Monthly costs for an Internet service varies from a flat rate of US$25 per month in Barbados to a tariff structure based on time. For example: 0-10 hours
US$2 per hour Telephone penetration is a key pre-requisite to making connection to the Internet. Telephone penetration in the region varies from 389 per 1000 persons in Antigua to 60 per 1000 persons in Guyana. The total population of the CARICOM region is 6.7 million with Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, and Guyana accounting for 5.3 million (79%).(3). The telephone penetration per 1000 persons in these three countries are the lowest in the region at 85, 161 and 60 respectively (Fig 1). Cable and Wireless, the giant British Telecommunica-tions company is either the majority or sole share-holder in the telecommunications companies in all the CARICOM countries except the Bahamas, Belize and Trinidad and Tobago. In Trinidad and Tobago, Cable and Wireless is the minority (49%) shareholder. The Company had been investing heavily in the region and this augurs extremely well for the development of telecommunications. Recent major investments include a US$62M, 1,714 KM fibre system (The Eastern Caribbean Fibre System), commissioned in 1995, which connects the British Virgin Islands in the north to Trinidad and Tobago in the south via the islands of the Eastern Caribbean and permits connection to North America and Europe via existing fibre optic systems that operate from Tortola in the north and Trinidad in the south. A US$28.3M Western Caribbean Fibre System,commissioned in 1996, and some 870 KM in length connects Jamaica and the Cayman islands. The company over the past five years has invested some US$1000M in the region and has announced plans to invest an equivalent amount over the next five years. Country
Population GDP
GDP/ Tel./ Bahamas
273,000
0.6 10,300
313 Fig (1): Source: CANTO & 1996 Caribbean Basin Commercial Profile Shirin Madon states that "although governments would like to regulate information flows on networks, the exponential rate at which information is becoming available on the Internet makes censoring tedious and burdensome." I would argue that it is almost im-possible for countries in the Caribbean to censor material on the Internet primarily due to their small size and proximity to the USA. The story of the German government in its attempt to censor neo-Nazi material being placed on the Internet from a Canadian site by blocking access to the site led to the material being mirrored at major sites in the USA, including prestigious universities sites such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The German government was forced to lift the ban and to simply state that it is illegal to place neo-Nazi material on Internet sites located in Germany. A casual perusal of the material currently existing on the Internet about any Caribbean country will reveal that some proportion of it is erroneous. However up to now, no Caribbean government has taken the initiative in rebutting this information. Singapore on the other hand takes a very active role in rebutting any information which the government considers not in its best interest. Increasing use of the Internet in the Caribbean will perhaps force the various governments at some point to take a keen interest in ensuring the accuracy of information accessible on their country, institutions and citizens via this medium. The challenge then for developing countries, is to constantly seek to use the Internet to strategically locate themselves within the global market, so that they maximize every opportunity for accelerated growth, having acquired adequate knowledge of the threats, in order to minimize these. Bangalore : Internal Disparities of a City Caught up in the Information Age Shirin Madon Introduction New areas of the
world and new regions within countries are experiencing growth by entering
the information age as manufacturers and users of information technology.
However, often growth and decline take place simultaneously within the
same region due to the tension that results from participa-tion in global
operations and local socio-economic development. Bangalore presents a
major case study of this tension. While the city is most discussed in the
literature for its recent integration into the global economy, this paper
focuses on the accompanying social decline in the region. Bangalore joins the global information economy Bangalore plays a prominent role in international electronics, telecommunications and information technology contributing almost 40% of India's production in high technology industrial sectors. The availability of highly skilled technicians, relative political and social stability within the state, the absence of labour conflicts, and an efficient banking network have meant that almost every big player in the information technology scene, both indigenous and multinational companies, has its place there. Many of the high-tech companies in Bangalore are growing by more than 50% a year and are employing increasing numbers of graduates. In fact, the increasing demand for highly-skilled `knowledge' workers threatens to outstrip the potential of local institutes in Bangalore to produce such skills and many of the high-tech companies have to recruit their workforce from other cities. In recent years, an increasing number of specialized small-scale workshops have been established to supply the high technology industries. These workshops, most of which are characterized as being in the informal sector, recruit an increasing number of semi-skilled migrant workers and help to bridge the gap between the demand and supply of labour. To capitalise on its emergence as a popular location for software research, Bangalore has established a soft-ware technology park at Electronics City, just three-quarters of a mile out of the city. Hundreds of acres of research laboratories are occupied in the park by the likes of IBM, 3M, Motorola, Sanyo and Texas Instruments. Companies who locate within the park are insulated from the world outside by power generators, by the leasing of special telephone lines and by an international-style work environment. Bangalore is also in the throes of constructing a new upmarket international information technology park in the suburb of the city which is intended to provide a boost to industrial activity in Bangalore, in particular to the electronics and software industries (India Today, 1995). Increasingly, the presence of a sizeable modern industrial sector has brought prosperity to the city and has given its central parts a cosmopolitan outlook. Measured in terms of expensive restaurants and pubs, boutiques, shopping plazas and other signs of available purchasing power in the context of western behaviour patterns, a middle class is strikingly present in the central parts of the city and in other expensive areas beyond the centre. A similar indicator of prosperity is the boom in the construction industry catering for the upper segments of the housing market and for commercial use. For all the above
reasons, today Bangalore is conceived internationally as a prosperous and
modern Indian city. But this label is misleading as discussed in the next
section. Growing internal disparities in Bangalore and its environs Although Bangalore has achieved the title of the `silicon valley of South Asia', at least three more characteristics have to be added to portray the reality of the situation. First, there exist gross inequality between groups of different socio-economic status within the city of Bangalore and the region of Karnataka. Second, extreme poverty prevails amongst many inhabitants in the city. Third, there is an acute problem of civic deficiency both in Bangalore city and in the state of Karnataka together with poor access to information outside the capital. These three characteristics will be described in the remainder of this paper. First, contrary to the international reputation earned by Bangalore, the advent of the information age has yet to make a dent in the overall economic picture of the state which remains primarily an agricultural state. Out of a total population of almost 50m. people, around 76% live in rural areas and there is a high incidence of rural poverty in these areas. For example, 95% of the rural poor population in Karnataka have an annual family income of less than $102 (Nicoll, 1995). A sizeable share of the increase in the population of Bangalore city is related to migration. Many house-holds of predominantly landless agricultural labourers and marginal farmers have been pushed out of their native rural villages by lack of means to survive and have been forced to move to Bangalore to find employment in the informal sectors as unskilled labourers. Tension has escalated within the city of Bangalore with the vast influx of migrant labourers from other Indian states, mainly from neighbourhood Tamil Nadu. These Tamil migrants seek menial jobs in construction and pose a real threat to local poor inhabitants as witnessed in the violent anti-Tamil riots of 1991. Foreign high-technology companies are largely responsible for the rampant wage inflation in Bangalore, particularly among experienced technical staff. For example, these companies typically offer remuneration of about $395 a month growing to triple the salary over 3-4 years. These discrepancies have led to social tension between the state government in Karnataka which is committed to supporting the influx of multinational companies into the state, and the lobby of farmers and agricultural workers who are against the establishment of high-technology multinational fast-food chains within the state. The latest of these attacks was recently launched against the KFC chain by a lobby of Karnataka farmers (Nicoll, 1995). Second, although poverty could be claimed to be of nationwide concern, in Bangalore the problem is more acute. In terms of absolute numbers, the poor easily predominate over the middle classes and professionals. While the share of urban inhabitants living in huts without access to infrastructure facilities is relatively small in Bangalore (10%) in contrast to other Indian metropolis (25-30%), there has been an exponential growth in this share over the last decade. The condition is continuously deteriorating both in terms of an increase in new slum areas and in terms of an increase in the population density of existing slums (de Wit, 1992). The discrepancy in habitat conditions between the rich and the poor inhabitants is also more extreme and dramatically visible in Bangalore than in other cities. Due to societal modernization, the state is pressurized to cut down trees to accommodate use of central urban land for non-residential purposes and for expensive housing. Local middle-class residents and the urban poor are driven out of the city because of the rise in price of real estate and rent in the city centre. They are therefore forced to squat on the urban fringe and to incur transport costs of commuting to the city each day in search for work (India Today, 1995). While it is an open question as to whether the proliferation of shanty towns and environmental degradation is as a result of rural distress and increased population growth, or due to urbanization and globalization, what is certainly noticeable is the increasingly negative attitude of policy-makers and planners in Bangalore towards slums. In discussions held between the author and Bangalore state authorities, most policy-makers did not officially acknowledge slum-dwellers as citizens of the city even though they clearly constitute the majority of the population. This attitude is reflected in the periodic demolition of any visible manifestations of poverty such as the frequent `clean-up' programmes in which squatter settlements are demolished in order to preserve the quality of life of the so-called `modern' sector. A growing number of small, recently-established non-government organizations such as Civic and the Bangalore Poverty Alleviation Programme (BUPP) have taken issue with the claim that slum-dwellers have no right to live in the city. According to these groups, the recent internationalization of industrial activity in Bangalore has had a negative impact on the poor since less money is allocated to improving public services and providing urban development program-mes. These organizations are striving to give poor urbanites some say in the functioning of the city and are currently fighting against the state government's decision to force slum dwellers to share their already scanty land with private entrepreneurs. The BUPP is also developing an information system on slum acti-vities using data compiled by slum-dwellers themselves on the status of the land they occupy, the number of people living in each hut, access to amenities, slum dwellers' prioritization of their own problems, and on the nature of information and communication channels between economic agents in the informal sector. The information from the system will be circulated to city authorities for planning purposes and to slum dwellers themselves to make them more aware of their role in the life of the city. Third, civic deficiencies caused partially by Bangalore's industrial success needs to be faced. Although software companies are not big power users, they need to install voltage regulators, uninterrupted power supplies and generators to run their computers because of shortages of power. Similarly, there is a looming water shortage with mains water available only two days a week and bore holes drying up. The Bangalore Development Authority is trying to encourage more private sector involvement in the development of infrastructure, especially transport. In terms of industrial develop-ment, the city has almost reached saturation point. Today, the state of Karnataka is home to some 114 companies - all of which are located in Bangalore due to the poor infrastructure facilities outside the city. The development of secondary cities within the state of Karnataka has been envisaged for some time by the Bangalore metropolitan regional development author-ity with an ambitious project to develop a mega ring road and a light railway connecting all towns in the state. However, little has been done to date. As a result, thousands of young computer professionals continue to struggle along terrible roads to get to their jobs in software factories. In terms of information infrastructure in the region, this remains confined to the business community in the city with poor access to information outside the capital. While the 1965 Public Library Act specified the setting up of 10 district libraries and 120 sub-district libraries by the mid-1980s, resources in the district and sub-district libraries were suffering from decline in funding resulting in inadequate building maintenance and staffing levels, discontinuation of periodicals, and outdated book collections. In terms of information and communication systems for the public sector and for universal usage, each district in the country has an information centre set up by the National Informatics Centre for the purposes of planning and monitoring of development programmes and for disseminating information to the public. However, to date, these systems have been largely underutilised with a few districts performing ad hoc data processing rather than improving productivity of development programmes (Madon, 1994). To sum up, in
recent years, Bangalore has grown into a modern, industrial city. Its
economy has become more competitive, global and increasingly dominated by
information and communication technology. How-ever, at the same
time, the city and region of Karna-taka has experienced growing poverty,
social in-equality and gross deficiencies in public services. Reconciling the twin processes of globalization and local regional development There is an evident tension between the notions of entering the global information society and local development. The recent pressures to deregulate, privatize, and to be connected to the global market have forced many governments in developing countries to relegate the problem of poverty and gross internal disparities to the background. The previous section reveals how the majority of the population in the state of Karnataka face increasing deprivation and poor access to civic amenities and information while a minority take advantage of the prosperity brought about by closer integration of the city with the global economy. However, the ability of Bangalore to continue to parti-cipate in global activities is heavily influenced by the progress made in resolving internal disparities. Hence, the difficult challenge for governance in cities like Bangalore is how to provide services for a rapidly growing population, a large proportion of whom are illiterate, and at the same time seek to lock the city into the benefits of the global economy. At a regional level, the challenge facing local government is how to direct investment towards creating a greater synthesis in urban-rural planning efforts. In order to achieve this goal, old systems of city management with an overdependence on organized government need to be replaced with alternative `appropriate' institutions. There is growing evidence that many non-government institutions and community organizations have achieved considerable success in involving the poor in both urban and rural areas in infrastructure-building projects. In the case of Bangalore, the previous sections reveals that community organizations such as BUPP and Civic are attempting to legitimize and record the economic activities of slum dwellers and semi-skilled workers in the informal sector. Another crucial function which can be served by these organisa-tions relates to their attempt to capture information about social networks and channels of communication for those engaged in economic activity outside the formal economy. To date, we know very little about these information flows. With the backing of local government, grassroots mobilization can play a more decisive role as representatives of civil societies and thereby restore some level of local control in the globalization process. For example, the pricing policy, the credit policy and the industrial policy of local government would all have to be synchronized to support micro-level initiatives of community organizations. To conclude, the
current study is only a stepping stone and needs to be built on through a
greater under-standing of how global processes locate in local
terri-tories. This requires new concepts and research strategies that
combine analysis of economic indicators and ethnography to investigate how
the rapid growth of informatisation affects the social fabric of
developing countries. References
A Report on the Workshop on Telecom Policy Research Subhash Bhatnagar A workshop on Telecom Policy was held on 28th February and 1st March, 1997 at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) to launch a centre for Telecom Policy Studies in collabor-ation with University of McGill, Canada. The centre is being funded by the Canadian Development Aid Agency, CIDA. The Workshop was attended by 50 delegates including researchers from IIMA and McGill Univer-sity, policy makers from Telecom Commission, repre-sentatives of public sector service providers such as DoT, MTNL, VSNL, private service providers, and financial institutions. Delivering the key note address, Mr.N Vittal, former chairman of telecom commission said that the setting up of the Centre for Telecom Policy Studies at IIMA could not have been more timely. The National Tele-com Policy was announced in 1994 but the implemen-tation has run into a muddle. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has just been set up. There is an urgent need for a lot of policy input and develop-ing new options to ensure that the Indian telecom emerges as one of the most efficient and effective telecom sectors in the world. Mr. Vittal wanted the Telecom Policy Studies Centre to emerge as a signifi-cant think tank which should work closely with the policy makers in government and other stake holders. Mr. Vittal mentioned several areas which could be taken up for research, but singled out finance as a very significant factor in the growth of this infra-structure. He wanted the centre to have a close look into the basis of tariff setting of the Department of Telecommunication to provide inputs to fine tune the tariff structure with the objective of promoting growth when the telecom scene becomes pluralistic. The following position papers were presented by the faculty from IIMA and McGill during the workshop: Assessing needs for telecom services in rural and urban areas; Formulating Policies to enhance wide area connectivity for computer communications and value-added services; Linking Telecom technologies complimentaries, Capabilities and Policies; Financing telecom infrastructure - policy issues; Issue in opera-tionalizing a regulatory framework in India; and International telecommunications alliances, lessons for Indian firms. The papers by IIMA faculty were deve-loped on the basis of short research studies conducted over a 2 month period. The study on rural telephone service focussed on usage patterns, perception of service quality, and perception of fairness of charges. Some interesting facts relating to purposes for which telephones are used in urban and rural areas were presented in the first session on assessment of needs. A large proportion - 84% of the users are using Public Call Offices (PCO) rather than panchayat telephones which are also meant to provide access to the public. It, therefore, looks like 0.243 million village public telephones located in panchayat may have to be phased out as they have failed to serve as call office easily accessible to the public. Most of the public call office users have to currently travel to other villages to use such PCOs. This is indicative of the potential for expanding access in rural areas. Interest-ingly, people were also using PCOs for receiving calls and were willing to pay a service charge for this faci-lity. In general, the perception of quality in terms of congestion, disruption mid-way through calls, and clarity of voice was low. Most rural respondents felt that the current one time charges as well as usage charge were quite acceptable. In the urban areas it was surprising to find that a large number of non-owners and owners use the public call offices. The usage pattern is quite sensitive to the rate structure. Nearly 70% of the STD calls are made during off-peak times. In terms of revenues, the corporate lines terminating into PABXs are highly profitable, almost 50 times more than personal tele-phone lines. Even in the urban areas, the current one time usage charge seems to be quite acceptable. The perception of the quality by urban consumers was rated as "unsatisfactory". Data about current expenditure patterns by phone owners was presented for both urban as well as rural areas. Such data could be used to understand the nature of elasticity in demand for basic services. In rural areas, creating more public call offices under private ownership seems to be the way to expand access to telephony. There are rural PCO's which earn as much as Rs.13,000 a month, indicating locations where new PCO's need to be added. It is evident that a large amount of research will need to be done to develop models for projecting the growth of demand for a variety of basic and value added services. These studies would have to focus on understanding the behaviour of consumer in different market segments. Demand models would have to be built to project the demand for finer segments of the market. Research is needed to identify the criterion for segmenting the market. It may be possible to identify characteristics of villages and towns which can identify high potential market for telecom services. The session on technology development suggested that India should identify specific areas where critical amount of resources should be provided to develop technology. One of the problems with the policies in the past has been that research funds have been distributed equally across a large number of activities/ organizations. It was also pointed out that mechanism need to be found to sustain excellence achieved by some R & D organizations in selected areas. While CDOT came up with a world class product suitable for Indian conditions in their rural exchange, the develop-ment did not keep pace during the last decade. It should be possible to identify markets for different types of equipment that will be needed during the next 10 years when India expects to spend nearly 50 billion dollars on telecom infrastructure. Given the large size of the market, efforts need to be made to concentrate on technology development in areas where it is poss-ible to develop appropriate skills as well as to provide adequate resources given the potential manufacturing base that can be developed. An experiment in Madhya Pradesh on extending STD service to 1800 of the 2600 rural exchanges was also presented in the first session. It has shown that considerable revenue increase can be obtained by providing such services in rural areas. A 50% increase in revenue per line was experienced. The revenue per line varied from Rs.71 to Rs.455 per customer. In some areas the number of telephones over the last 2 years has doubled and the revenue per line has also increas-ed marginally. The presentation from Madhya Pradesh showed that with some leadership, even government departments can operate with dynamism and become responsive to the consumers needs. It is a moot question whether we need corporatisation of DoT or simply large inputs of training at various levels to bring an attitudinal change and invigorate the dormant capabilities in a cadre of officers who are technically as good as any in the private sector. Perhaps both training and corporatisation is needed simultaneously. The discussion on regulation highlighted the fact that several countries have evolved a regulatory mechanism through experimentation over the last three decades with different models. While it is possible to learn from the experience of others, there is no single model which may be best suited for India. In some countries, a number of agencies which can act as a counter balance to each other have been found to be most effective. In India we will have to learn from the experience of TRI to evolve an appropriate model. It is, however, clear that a regulation authority with a limited scope but adequate support in terms of staff and other resources may be more effective than an agency which is burdened with a wide scope but becomes ineffective because of its lack of ability to carry out appropriate analysis and research in a large number of areas. The panel of three major service providers highlighted the less than attractive profitability projections from their investments, particularly because the rules of the game are being made unfavourable to them mid stream. They all cited the example of hike in charges for a fixed line phone to connect to a mobile phone, from that of a local call charge to ten Rupees. Several characteristics of the telecom business were high-lighted. The investments will have to come upfront whereas the income may take long years to build up. Rates of return in the short run are negative, but if the demand booms in the long run because of technolo-gical factors, innovations in value added services and high economic growth, long term players would be able to exploit their presence. The discussion on financing of telecom infrastructure also focused on economic rate of return on investment. Several factors leading to uncertainties in future cash stream were identified and regulation through price capping vis-a-vis a cap on rate of return were discussed. The presenter and the bankers in the audience agreed that the projection of cash flows made by companies were far from realistic and more effort is required to understand growth of demand for services. Discussing a specific case, it was shown that the concept of majority stake holding by Indian companies has already been diluted through the mechanism of a web of holding companies and cross investments. Another presentation highlighted the capacity of Government corporations in raising debt finance of large magnitudes. This may however apply to only highly profitable companies operating in urban areas. Perhaps the most lively discussion followed the presen-tation on policy hindrances in enhancing data commu-nication activity and building up an industry for value added services in India. Monopoly of VSNL in provid-ing internet access, pricing of leased lines, availability of leased lines and limitation on inter-connection amongst different networks of service providers were pointed out as a few examples of policy changes that are needed. It was pointed out that India has the skill base to garner a large share of the multi billion dollar outsourced software development and other allied service market, if the data communication infra-structure can be strengthened and made user friendly. From the interactions in the workshop, it was evident that the senior officials of DoT have still not reconciled to the entry of private operators in direct competition with them. It is natural that DoT officials will protect their own interest and therefore create as many diffi-culties for the private operators. The formation of TRAI has not come a day too soon. TRAI must create a level playing field for all the service providers and nudge the competitors to cooperate rather than confront. Fortunately if private operators do invest in augmenting the basic network, both parties may gain in terms of increased traffic. A lot will depend on the processes that TRAI adopts in resolving some of the immediate conflicts about interconnect charges. These processes will need to be opened, inviting the opinions of as many stake holders. DoT has always operated as a monopoly in a situation where demand has far exceeded the supply. A much greater marketing orientation will have to be provided through training to enable DoT officials to understand the fact that demand can be created through better service and newer services which add value. They will have to view their business from the perspective of the consumer. The final session was to set the agenda for the proposed centre. It was a brief session as the agenda had emerged with reasonable clarity through all the sessions. It was also articulated in a paper," An overview of the proposed centre", distributed to the participants. The scope of research is intended to cover the following aspects of telecom policy: Defining and clarifying of policy objectives, monitoring and review of policy performance and implementation requirements. Restructuring, competition, privatization, industry development, investment and financing are some of the issues that will get covered by the research agenda. Essentially the following three types of research will be undertaken by the centre : Focus on fundamental issues where basic under-standing of some phenomena needs to be enhanced. Examples of such areas would be to understand the social and economic impact of telecom in rural areas and effect of privatization/ corporatisation of government departments on increase in operational efficiency. Such research will enable the centre to articulate meaningful targets and objectives for the development of the telecom sector and develop policy options for reaching such goals. Tracking the experiences of other countries which have deregulated their telecom sector through policy changes. Such changes have resulted in conse-quences which were intended as well as some which were unintended. There is no single model that can be followed universally but the experience of other countries can be useful in avoiding some pitfalls. IIMA's association with McGill will be particularly useful in this type of research. The bulk of the research would be undertaken in areas where issues arising out of implementation of the policy need further resolution. These studies could also be commissioned by the relevant implementing agencies. The centre will engage in continuous interaction with policy makers, researchers and industry leaders by inviting them to spend some time at the Institute and engage them in discussion in formal and informal fora. India's Telecom Reforms in Basic Services: One step forward and two backwards? Rekha Jain Introduction India's National Telecom Policy (1994) and announce-ments regarding setting up of the proposed Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had raised hopes of faster telecom reforms. By 1996, cellular and paging services by private service providers had become operational in many cities. Private provision of radio paging and cellular phones across the larger cities is certainly a step forward in involving the private sector in infrastructure provision. In 1995, government planned for the entry of private operators in basic services and these steps, it was believed, had initiated a new phase of telecom service provision. But these developments need to be viewed keeping in mind that there are a variety of regulatory issues (such as interconnection agreements between cellular operators and DOT, arbitration mechanisms and ensuring more uniform spread of telecom services, especially in rural areas) which are yet to be addressed in order to make the sector functioning smoother and more attractive for private investments. Experience in Basic Services For service provision, the entire country was divided into 20 circles, categorised as A,B, or C depending upon their revenue potential. In this case as in the cellular case, there was to be a single step bidding process, with the award going to the highest bidder. The entire exercise of involving private sector has been contentious, from the specification of tender docu-ments, (which had apparently different figures for demand in different parts and was unclear at several places) to the evaluation of bids and their subsequent awards. The process of qualifying bidders specifically mandated foreign collaboration and ruled out any Indian public sector organizations. The criteria for bid evaluation was not specified in the beginning and neither were parameters such as maximum number of licenses to be issued per operator. The tender evalua-tion committee came in for a lot of criticism since it had to admit that it had made mistakes in evaluating bids for two circles. One single company quoted highest bids in nine of the 20 circles, while 5 circles received extremely low and single bids. Since no ceiling on number of circles was specified before the bid evaluation, there was specula-tion as to whether any single company could pay the license amount in all the circles, were it to be awarded all of them. This became extremely debatable espe-cially as the amounts quoted by it were high by any industry standards ($15 bn over 15 years). Even though it had not been specified in the bid evaluation criteria, DOT introduced a "reasonableness" criteria in evaluating bids. This was based on the difference in bid amounts and profits that the companies could hope to make. There were other problems with the offered bids as some of the C circle bids were at least as high as those in B circles. In the middle of this debate, the government allowed compa-nies to "choose" three circles, as it felt by awarding all qualifying bids to a single company, it would be replacing the public monopoly by a private monopoly. Many people felt that by allowing companies to choose and not letting them withdraw on their own would have forced the companies to pay the "minimum reserve price" and generated additional funds in the government account. In contrast, there were circles for which there was a single bid and there were 15 circles which were put up for rebidding. Even after award of bids, interconnect agreements between DOT and service providers which were supposed to be a pre-requisite for provision of services have yet to be satisfactorily sorted out, despite several rounds of meetings between DOT and service providers. Key Issues Obviously, there have been a number of issues which could have been handled better or differently such as design of the bidding and evaluation process. We do not propose to discuss the alternatives for each of these but treat this as a symptom of the following major problems which have not been adequately addressed prior to the introduction of competition: [I] separation of policy, regulation and operation within DOT. [II] lack of adequate planning in : (a) involvement of private service provision. The differences in the market positions of the estab-lished service provider, DOT and newer entrants poses major problems in design and implementa-tion of interconnect agreements. (b) Managing the transition from a monopoly to a competitive environment poses challenges both for the incumbent and newer service providers. The basic concern is management of this process without recourse to too much litigation, provision of healthy environment for growth of newer entrants and ensuring the fulfillment of govern-ment's social development goals. Although, it is common knowledge that above issues need to be addressed for proper and planned develop-ment of the sector, very little has been done either by DOT or the industry associations. The industry has responded in a reactive mode rather than by being pro-active. To be fair, senior management at DOT have not been responsive to the needs of the sector. They have not openly involved the various stakeholders in discussion of issues. For example, the committee set up to draft interconnect agreements consisted largely of DOT officials. No inputs were sought from other service providers. It is generally believed that setting up of the proposed Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) would address the issues. The recommendations stated below could have been useful during the interim period. It is understandable that government and DOT would drag its feet over setting up of TRAI, as setting up such a body would reduce their control over the sector. Some private operators who benefit from weak or absent regulation would also oppose such a move. Even now after TRAI has been set up, it would be considerable time before this body devises its systems and processes. Fortunately its first few deliberations reported in the press indicate that TRAI means business and is likely to take a neutral stance in disputes between private and public service providers. Recommendations: Most governments having a track record of success in the reform process planned for the change. Usually, such governments have been guided by a blueprint for privatization/reform which specify the broad para-meters of reform. For example, both in Malaysia and UK details of the privatization process were worked out and followed. In the Indian context, the govern-ment has taken a piecemeal approach to the reforms process and has been largely driven by political expediency. Senior decision makers need to stress upon the development of such a blueprint. In many countries, telecom sector is among the first few sectors to be privatised, deregulated etc. and success of handling reforms in this sector is taken as a test bed for future reforms (Malaysia, UK). In the Indian case, there has been no public discussion/white paper on reforms in telecom sector. For example, although there have been a number of government commissioned reports regarding restructuring of DOT, which are yet to be addressed each one of them has been shrouded in controversy. This only shows the lack of purpose and political will surrounding the exercise. There is a need to demand a wider debate involving actors from various stakeholders on DOT restruc-turing. Industry, which can play a critical role in catalysing policy decisions has taken a short sighted view of the reform process. Industry associations have clamored for specific actions such as reduction in various duties, uniformity in tax structures etc. but by doing so have missed the woods for the trees. Although specific conce-ssions are designed to make the industry more stream-lined and competitive, few if any agencies have firmly insisted on having the required legislation, design and implementation of processes before the bidding process started. A strong and well functioning TRAI would have ensured implementation of those conditions (such as interconnect agreements) which would have facili-tated functioning of service providers. The setting up of such a body as a pre-condition to the private service provision, would have shielded the private operators from political expediency. Even though it may appear that setting up TRAI as a pre-condition for tenders would have delayed the basic service provision, experience has shown that in the absence of a regula-tory agency, the entire process of basic service provi-sion has been in, any case been, delayed at every stage. Perhaps, the delays resulting from setting up of TRAI may well have been worth it. The absence of a regulatory body need not have deterred the industry from forcing DOT to adopt a more open approach to the bidding process. This requires that the companies work together even at the cost of some of them having to forego short term gains. For example, the companies could have sponsored research with the objective of designing a more objective bidding process. There is enormous amount of experience both from developing and developed countries related to auctioning of services, specification of bids, bidding process, evaluation and subsequent conditions for award of bids which could have been used both by DOT and the industry. The coming to-gether of experts with the relevant experience from industry, DOT and academics would have made the exercise more rigorous and transparent. For example, FCC's experience of auctioning of bids for radio spectrum license is an example of how the industry, academicians and FCC worked together to evolve a process of licensing which would allow a fair and judicious use of the spectrum, allow the government to incorporate its social development goals (such as allocation of a minimum number of licenses for the disadvantaged groups), and the long term sector growth issues. When such examples are highlighted, it is common to say, "it may work elsewhere, but in India these solutions do not work as our work culture and problems are unique". While it is true that some of our specific problems may be unique, many countries which have been through the reform process, have evolved some techniques and solutions, at least parts of which may be suited to our conditions. The remaining parts could be modified as per our condi-tions. Surely, there is no point in re-inventing the entire wheel everytime. Blueprint for a Digital Economy in a Developing Country Madanmohan Rao The information age. The era of the network. Electronic townhalls. The digital marketspace. Global chat rooms. An empowered populace. Typical Internet hype? Not so, according to several analysts, who insist that digital technologies like online services and the Internet will far outperform the wildest predictions of today. Regarded as the next major paradigm shift in computing since the invention of the personal computer and the next revolution in publishing since the invention of the Gutenberg printing press, online services and the Internet are ushering in new patterns of human communication, collaboration, and commerce worldwide. This column outlines a blueprint at the national level for harnessing the digital advantage, taking into account some of the unique characteristics which distinguish developing economies (like India) from those of the North (such as the U.S.). There are three key characteristics of a digital economy: digital networked infrastructure, digitisation of the information and communication processes in organizations, and the creation of online linkages between organizations and services on a domestic and global scale. This series of articles will argue that developing countries like India can operate as a major player in the information-enabled age if there is a conducive regulatory environment for widespread affordable access to online technologies, R&D in network hardware and software platforms, internal and external use of such technologies by the corporate, government, and academic sectors, and cross-organisational links and forums for amplifying the developmental effects of such technologies. Digital Networked Infrastructure: Affordable PCs, workstations, local area networks, routers, wireless and wireline communications links, broadband conduits, and modems, as well as message board and online publishing software constitute the backbone of the digital economy. Currently, U.S. companies control the lion's share in this market. For instance, Cisco Systems, the leading supplier of Internet routing equipment, now ranks 52nd in the London-based Financial Times' Global 500 listing, with a market capitalisation of $35.3 billion, up from $20.9 billion and 92nd place a year ago. While it will certainly be a formidable challenge for an Indian company to take on the likes of Cisco or Net-scape, there are tremendous opportunities in out-sourcing component technologies, or joint R&D and marketing. U.S. based International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts that slower growth in the PC market in 1997 will be offset by the ballooning of the Internet. Internet users are tipped to double to 68 million globally, while online transactions quadruple. Other predictions for 1997 by IDC: growth of Web develop-ment tools, and proliferation of "push" technologies like PointCast. Though the Internet may be too expensive and too slow for many users in countries like India, a national online service with appropriate pools of regional content is likely to be more affordable and relevant. Hence the need to spur the creation of more domestic content online via interoperable front-end and back-end software for publishing and viewing documents in the various regional languages. In addition to accessibility of technologies, affordability of such access is a burning issue for a developing country with inequities as harsh as in India. Given an understandable focus on other, more pressing deve-lopment issues, the governments of developing nations would be better advised in formulating an appropriate framework for competition between online service pro-viders so as to drive access cost down. Setting aside vast sums of funding for Internet access in primary schools or developing a comprehensive national Internet policy may just have to wait till a critical level of participation in the digital economy has been reached. Similarly, instead of expecting universal Internet access, more planning and development is required in second-level, indirect effects of online technologies on other sectors of society. Access should be granted first to larger universities and research organizations, and then onwards to other educational institutes. Organisational Adoption: Some companies may be better suited to harness opportunity at the infra-structure level. Most organizations, however, are likely to find significant gains in efficiency, convenience and growth via adoption of online technologies at the operational level. E-mail - especially to overseas recipients - can be more affordable, avoids the delays in "phone-tag," allows direct re-use of keyed-in material, and facilitates group collaboration between diverse users in far-flung corners of the globe. Making information available on the Web is cheaper than in the print or broadcast media; it is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; and lends itself to hyperlinking and database searches. Two steps, then, for an organization to adopt are: informatisation and digitisation. The former involves identifying and formalising the information component of the various organisational activities; the latter involves converting such information into digital form for better internal and external use. For instance, compilations of frequently asked questions (FAQs) and product documentation can be published on a Web site in an organized manner, improving a company's customer service operations. Intranets ("private" internets) are particularly useful for organizations characterized by large internal information flows or a cross-border reach. The Internet allows academics in developing countries to gain access to and publish in discussion fora and online sites around the globe; re-designing course packages for online delivery via Intranets and BBSs can spread out scarce educational expertise. The government can make information on some of its policies - especially ones often misunderstood by the international press - thoroughly documented and well-structured on the Web. Public service information - ranging from train timetables to forms for applying for various licenses - lends itself well to round-the clock accessibility and distribution via online services, especially through public "kiosks." Non-profit groups and activists have already been using online services to exchange stra-tegic information and coordinate activities with allies across borders. Cross-Organisational Linkages: The fullest poten-tial of a digital economy can be realised via creation of online linkages between diverse organizations and services on a domestic and global scale. An excellent example of an activity which involves cooperation from various sectors in society is trade. A key priority for national development is the increase in volume of exports without degradation of environmental or human conditions, thus creating employment opportu-nities and bringing in badly-needed revenues. Numerous Web-based initiatives are just being launched in countries around the world, which bring together databases of various economic sectors (eg. manufacturers, textile designers), marketing materials from companies (eg. product brochures), transporta-tion information from freight organizations (eg. shipping lines), regulatory information from the government (eg. customs, tariffs; visa offices in different countries), political and economic news from the media, research reports and analysis from academics, and critiques from citizens' groups (eg. environmentalists) - all of which can be accessed through links from a single Web site. Such informa-tion services can be a boon to those seeking trade opportunities with a country. News media and policy organizations can harness the Net to exchange news and strategic information with counterparts in other countries. While the above picture has clearly been painted with very broad brush strokes, future refinements will need to focus on fleshing out each of the individual components of the digital advantage. As countries around the world realize the importance of the networked economy - best evinced by the recent gathering of the World Economic Forum at Davis, Switzerland - it is vital that an organization (say, the Internet Society for each country) be formed to formally address such issues. Meeting the Information Needs of Health Workers in Developing Countries Richard Smith Health workers in the developing world are starved of the information that is the lifeblood of effective health care. As a direct result, their patients suffer and die. In the words of the late James Grant, former executive director of Unicef "The most urgent task before us is to get medical and health knowledge to those most in need of that knowledge. Of the approximately 50 million people who were dying each year in the late 1980s, fully two thirds could have been saved through the application of that knowledge." Providing access to reliable health information for health workers in developing countries is potentially the single most cost effective and achievable strategy for sustainable improvement in health care. Cost effective because the amounts of money required are negligible compared with those invested in health services. Achievable because providers of health information have the will and commitment to make it happen, and because information technology presents exciting new opportunities to complement conventional methods of dissemination. And sustainable because information access is the sine qua non of the professional development of all health workers-the most vital asset of any healthcare system. In 1994 and 1995, the BMJ hosted international meetings to look for ways to improve the dissemination of health information to, from, and within the developing world. The meetings showed that the overall impact of providing health information would be greatly enhanced by increased coordination, analysis, and funding. A new programme was needed to serve as a point of reference for those who supply and receive information, to build a global picture of their activities and needs, and to argue their case with others. This programme is now being introduced within an existing non-profit organization, the Inter-national Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP). Founded in 1991 by the Inter-national Council of Scientific Unions, INASP is a co-operative network of providers and recipients of science information, promoting the exchange of quality information (both printed and electronic) between and within the developed and developing world. The new programme, INASP-Health, serves three main functions. Firstly, it provides a referral and advisory service for information providers and poten-tial recipients. For example, institutions seeking health information can approach INASP directly and be put in touch with the organizations most likely to help. INASP-Health acts as a catalyst for new collabo-rations and initiatives and will soon be launching a dedicated email discussion list to facilitate cooperation and debate. Secondly, INASP-Health aims to build a global picture of health information priorities in the developing world and the most appropriate ways of addressing them. It is developing a specialized database of needs assess-ments, evaluations of cost effectiveness, and other material related to the provision of health information. These data will be made freely available to help with the planning and setting up of new programmes, to provide support for funding applications, and to help develop future strategies. The third function of INASP-Health is advocacy, both at a specific and a general level. For example, it works with organizations such as the Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa (AHILA) to promote their needs to a wider audience, negotiating with publishers and others on their behalf. On a wider scale, INASP-Health will work increasingly with inter-national organizations like the World Health Organisa-tion and World Medical Association and with govern-ments and funding agencies to promote the develop-ment of cost effective strategies and to strengthen political and financial commitment. INASP-Health aims to ensure that the developing world does not get left behind by the information revolution. Rather, it wants to harness the enormous potential to provide the developing world with the information that for too long it has lacked. An Internet Server with Limited Access Ronald E. LaPorte As pointed out in the above editorial, the developing world has only limited access to information in health. However, this deficiency cuts across all sectors includ-ing agriculture, education, social sciences, the basic sciences, etc. How best can this condition be corrected? It can be ameliorated through the Internet. The optimal way to channel journals into developing countries is the Internet. The Internet is rapidly reaching third world nations. All of the major health journals are moving onto the Internet. Soon one will be able to obtain full text articles through the Internet at a price. However, the price is too high for developing countries. Moreover, journals are afraid to put their work onto the Internet, thinking that this will be accessible to the world for free and that their paid subscription base would go down. The solution is to develop a limited access, country - selective Internet server is being developed. Thus the British Medical Journal could permit Uganda, Bolivia and Peru to read the journal on the Internet. A Journal of Agricultural Research might permit Liberia Mongolia and parts of the Sudan to read their journal, and the American Journal of Psychology could be open electronically to Mexico, Rwanda, and parts of Poland. This system is quite secure in that a person in London could not go electronically to Rwanda to read Nature for free. Preparation cost will be very low, because much of the information is already on line or soon will be. This mechanism is just opening up the door to developing countries a little bit. It is unlikely to affect journal revenues, as the countries selected would be those to which there are few if any subscriptions, and little or no hope of future sales. It is flexible, in that that at any point new countries could be added or subtracted and the selection of information can be changed on the basis of what articles are called up by people in developing countries. Finally, and most important, it is humane. The Global Health Network has already contacted certain Journals in health, and 10 have expressed an interest in "opening the door" to developing countries, to start the information in journals flowing. We are connecting many countries in Africa, and we have the most up to date, and comprehensive data on connecti-vity. The Global Health Network will continue to approach journals in all disciplines to open the door, as for the first time in history we have the opportunity to bring up to date knowledge into the areas that need it the most. There is the important decision as to what might be delivered into developing countries. One approach would be to have the developed and developing countries decide what information might be needed in the developing countries. A second would be to put as much information onto the computer as now informa-tion transport costs are approaching zero. A third would be to put everything up, and then look to see which articles and journals are accessed, then one decides what areas are of most interest to developing countries, and these can be expanded, and perhaps those low-usage areas could be dropped. It is likely that researching the usage patterns will be the best approach for determining the type of information of most use to developing countries. This can be readily updated as the usage patterns change over time. The model of the
restricted area server is presented below. By the end of 1997, essentially
all journals will be connected, and the information will flow. If you
would like to help in this effort, please contact a member of the Global
Health Network on their home page: The Global Health Network : Decision Support System Goes on the Web Signaling a new era in academic journals, and in the creation, archiving, refinement and retrieval of knowledge, the Decision Support Systems, a front-running journal in the discipline of MIS, is going online. While the Web's potential to support online journals has been much touted, such efforts mostly stop at putting up abstracts on the web or publicizing the journals through the web. A highly sophisticated system has been developed on the World Wide Web to seamlessly integrate the internal process of handling article submissions and content refinement (the refereeing process), and external processes of reaching the readership. All users
(readers, authors, reviewers, area editors and publishers) will register
with the system that will ensure complete privacy and confidentiality with
different levels of authentication. All papers and articles will be
submitted electronically directly through the Web. A variety of formats
including HTML, Word, PDF, Postscript, etc. will be accepted. The
review process will be completely online with the help of simple clickable
forms. Reviewers will receive automatic notifications and instructions
asking them to log on to the system and review the article which can be
read online. A new process of doing "micro-revisions" in an
informal asynchronous manner has been introduced. When an article is
submitted, a discussion forum is automatically created for authors,
reviewers and area editors to engage in informal discussions that can
result in small revisions and refinements of the article. COMPLETE
anonymity is maintained even within this forum. The Journal is online at
the Some Reflections Regarding the Role of WG9.4 and its Activities Per Lind These reflections are not well structured and may be easily disregarded after some thorough thought. However, only after a Popperian falsification process can we know the answer! As WG9.4 is neither an academic nor a fully pro-fessional construct, it faces the same problem as IFIP itself: what is its identity? This has created difficulties in the past (and still does), partly because it has not been fully accepted by the academic establishment in many countries (e.g. Sweden), nor by vendor organisa-tions. It has received full-hearted support from some third world governments, but this has been more because of lack of competence than as a consequence of the same. (Maybe I am unfair). With new ideas coming up on the scene it might, however, be possible that this position in-between could be turned into something positive. In the present era of networking, linkages between universities and the rest of society (industry, organizations etc.) is highly pitched. An influential concept today is that of "the 3rd mission", i.e. in addition to the traditional university missions of con-ducting research and providing education, the universi-ties must take more active part in the present change process through co-operation programmes in research, training and even consulting. All of a sudden, the methodologies and approaches that have developed as working tools within the academic world (e.g. critical analysis) seem to be useful, even attractive, in the changing world around us. In short, there is a lot of justification for the present trend towards closer co-operation between academia and industry. WG9.4 can have a significant role to play here, within the IT sector, by stimulating and helping local pro-fessionals to build bridges between universities and local industry in the countries. From what I have seen from various WG9.4 workshops and conferences, there are participants from universities, vendors, users, NGOs, GOs, all of which are people interested in the dissemination of IT but with a socio-economic-cultural perspective. By stimulating such people from a country to seek co-operation, there might be a very fruitful dialogue around IT issues. The primary role of WG9.4 in this context, as I see it, would be that of a matching mechanism, something like this: WG9.4 key people are already available in many countries. Identify together with these people a short list of "local IT-problems", i.e. all kind of problems (technical, pro-fessional, legal, financial, social etc.) that hamper good use of IT. (By good use one should primarily think of useful applications in industry and organizations, i.e. productive use. This implies, of course, other considerations such as job replacement by IT). I could imagine that some kind of SWOT (Strength, Weak-nesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis could be used for this. Once short-listed, the problems will constitute the base for a programme to address/solve them. University departments (Computer science etc.) should be involved here, partly to get them out from their ivory towers, partly because there are some good people in there with competence that must be utilized for the good of the country. When short-lists of problems are available from more countries, then the role of WG9.4 is to establish contacts between countries/groupings who would like to cooperate. Workshops or seminars in between can be appropriate to establish such contacts. Such workshops should preferably be between a small group of countries, having similar problems and the intention to cooperate. This means that participants are motivated as they are familiar with the problems. Key-note speakers / Experts can be invited to present their perspectives on the problem. As the number of local groupings increase, the matching role of WG9.4 will be even more pronounced. Typical tasks will be to arrange exchange of visiting professors within the IT area between universities in different countries (matching of availability and demand); it would be natural to run a database on availability and demand, updated regularly by the participating countries. After the critical volume is reached, the support from WG9.4 will be crucial and demanded. The database can of course be expanded to also include other categories of university teachers as well as students. Based on the problem areas identified in the various countries, WG9.4 may identify priority areas to be addressed in the form of "programmes" where e-mail based discussions may ultimately lead to a conference or seminar. Contacts with organizations such as ODA, Sida, World Bank, UNESCO etc. before the nomination of such programmes could mean that part financing of events (conference etc.) could be guaranteed. Summary: by being more "aggressive" and taking ini-tiatives, WG9.4 might be regarded as a driving force in the IT area rather than merely a discussion club. In the context of university-industry linkage in IT, which is a niche that deserves to be explored, an initiative is welcome. I agree fully with your approach about local / regional activities rather than the big international conferences that bring little and cost much. The bottom-up approach is probably more relevant here. The practical implementations of this in terms of workload, who does what etc. should be addressed in dialogue, preferably at a suitable meeting. |