Microsoft and Telecentre.org Providing Free Internet Access and ICTs To One Billion People By 2015

Incubated by Microsoft, Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) for the past five years as Telecentre.org, the new Telecentre.org Foundation will be launched on March 3 as an independent NGO. “With 200 organizational partners in 70 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, we are facilitating the telecommunications movement in remote rural communities around the world,” according to Basheerhamad Shadrach, Ph.D. in a private interview with me yesterday. Shadrach, Senior Program Officer at the organization, will become the CEO of the new Telecentre.org Foundation on Wednesday.

Here’s the model: Telecentres are set up in remote rural areas, where people from the community come to be trained by telecentre managers to use information and communication technologies (ICTs)—computers, for the most part—to gain valuable information, such as new and better practices for farming and agriculture, thereby increasing their incomes. Additionally, people use the internet to communicate with doctors

See continuation here....bit.ly/cNYIr7

KORNGOLD5227