From: Frederick Noronha <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 13 September 2000 11:41
Subject: bYtES For aLL: SEPTEMBER 2000 EZINE
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>_/ B y t e s F o r A l l --- http://www.bytesforall.org
>_/ Making Computing Relevant to the People of South Asia
>_/
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> SEPTEMBER 2000 ISSUE * FOCUS: SHARING INFORMATION
>----------------------------------------------------------------
> IN THIS ISSUE:
> * Development library on every PC
> * Digitising development information
> * Reaching out to 50 m key individuals
> * A workable plan
> * Replicating of CD-Roms
> * Content can be cloned
> * Battling the high costs of telecentres
> * Just $2 per doctor!
> * In local languages too
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>
> From: Dr Michel Loots <[log in to unmask]>
>
> According to the UNDP website, an hour Internet in Chad costs
> an average of 10 US$. Recently, high-level UN experts on
> information technology pointed to the fact that only a
> fraction of eligible high-school students in developing
> countries can attend University.
>
> To tackle these two problems, we believe that every PC in the
> developing world should get a complete development library on
> CD-ROM with 1000 or more publications (of which part could be
> delivered in their local language - see further). The
> exposure of tens of millions of people to such better
> practice information and knowledge would create unprecedented
> participatory effects.
>
> 1) Our best practice project Humanity Libraries Project
> demonstrates by extrapolation that it would be possible to
> digitise most of this essential development information of
> the world and to provide this information to 50 million key
> individuals. We achieved 0.1% of that with no real funding.
> We invite others to join and copy us to fill the 99%
> remaining needs.
>
> The idea is to give to each PC in developing countries, this
> means about 50 million PC's, a set of a few adapted CD-ROM
> libraries containing 1000 to 2000 of a selection of the most
> useful UN and NGO publications pertaining to poverty or
> education solutions for that particular situation/ target
> group. It is possible to do this probably at a cost of 2 to 4
> US$ per PC.
>
> 2) The present costs of replication and distribution of our
> humanitarian Humanity Libraries CD-ROM collections is in the
> order of 3 to 6 US$ per CD-ROM (irrespective if 200 or 1200
> full-text publications are included per CD-ROM - see online
> versions at http://www.humanitylibraries.net).
>
> This is the cost at our actual distribution level of 50.000
> CD-ROM libraries per year to the South (of which about 60%
> are already distributed free of cost). This is not entirely
> self-sustainable, but the alternative is to raise prices and
> then the distribution would fall well under 5000 copies per year.
>
> The cost of replicating CD-ROMs in bigger quantities is only
> about 1 to 2 US$ per CD-ROM. So if scanning and editing
> costs can be sponsored and wide distribution guaranteed (for
> example a CD with every PC shipped or used etc..), every PC
> in developing countries could get one or more adapted digital
> libraries of 1200 publications at only 1 to 2 US$ per CD-ROM.
>
> 3) We have recent successful experiences with local
> replication of CD-ROMS in Columbia (saving 60% of transport
> and customs costs on 2000 cd-roms distributed locally) and
> Pakistan (where SNDP people could burn hundreds of copies via
> CD-Writer)
>
> Local reproduction of CD-ROMS offers the advantage of
> technology transfer and the creation of modular CD-ROM
> collections by combining local information with international
> information modules (for example all international and local
> AIDS related info, International publications about
> Agriculture combined with local agricultural publications
> etc..). The modular concept brings down editorial costs,
> needed software expertise and collection building time with 80%.
>
> 4) With the advanced Greenstone software developed with our
> NZDL partner (http://www.nzdl.org), every Humanity Libraries
> CD-ROM can become an Internet server
> (http://www.humanitylibraries.net) or can be copied on hard-
> disks locally without further permission.
>
> Thus, depending on the economics of hard-disk space in the
> near future; content of one of such CD-ROM of 1-2 US$ could
> be cloned on any number of hard-disks, hand-held devices,
> local networks or servers, satellite broadcasting and other
> low cost information carriers, bringing distribution costs
> per collection further down the 1 US$.
>
> More-over we are striving to bring the Greenstone software
> into public domain, so that every university or government
> department can create their own collections.
>
> 5) Empowering 200.000 African PC's to become local info
> centers at the cost of 2 Telecenters
>
> Even if Telecenters prove very useful, it has also been noted
> the unit cost is very high, in the order of 200.000 US$.
> Therefore we would like to promote a complementary
> participatory approach that takes care of empowering and
> trusting millions of social and economic entrepreneurs in the
> developing world.
>
> For the cost equivalent of only a few Telecenters, it would
> be possible to provide to almost EVERY PC in AFRICA the
> equivalent of 2000 books and other information to help
> promote local economy, health, education and technology
> transfer. Even if only 5% of these PC's would become
> effective informal local or familial infonodes, this would
> mean that more than 10.000 small informal infocenters would
> emerge out of this action, or a 2.000 fold increase in number
> of info-nodes.
>
> 6) For the cost equivalent of 2 US$ per doctor, every of the
> about 5 million medical doctors / health centers in
> developing countries could get access to a health library of
> the 2000 most essential books and training modules on health.
> This is a concrete project that we as a small NGO already
> have implemented partially for 2000 doctors with a library of
> 300 books (http://www.humanitylibraries.net - Medical and
> Health Library). I pointed to the needs of bringing all
> Health related publications of international organisations in
> public domain 2 years ago on this GKD list.
>
> 7) Local Languages: A Global Translation Project by
> University Students
>
> The United Nations agencies; NGO and universities have
> probably 30.000 to 50.000 publications covering information
> in essential needs. These are mostly available in English
> (70%) or French and Spanish.
>
> The idea is to set up a global humanitarian translation
> project for and with the United Nations and through national
> ministries of Education. Graduating University students in
> each country get assignment to translate those books in local
> languages, so that digital libraries can be created in local
> languages. These would not be official translations but
> working translations, checked by professors.
>
> As we have access to 2000 prefect electronic files, we
> already pre-investigated this concept and think this could be
> an avenue with potential of solving the local language
> problem.
>
> 8) Collaboration with UN agencies and information sharing :
> Positive Notes
>
> It is essential that all agencies, governments, NGO and
> individual authors continue to digitize their material in
> standard formats (of which FAO WAICENT RTF/WORD and HTML
> formats are the best, from indexed collection point of view
> PDF must be avoided), And also to agree that their
> information can be shared for free or low-cost redistribution
> in an humanitarian network setting without central copyright
> clearances.
>
> It must be pointed that many UN agencies and departments are
> digitising their material and are making this available
> through Internet. Other efforts are made to bring information
> to developing countries. We would also point to the very good
> collaboration the Humanity Libraries Project has with many
> United Nations agencies and UN departments.
>
> However: most of the time people in developing countries have
> no access to these Internet sites. Thus there is a real need
> of development and governmental agencies world over helping
> to create a low-cost library of their most essential
> publications and pool them in open humanitarian shareware
> settings. Copyright-free.
>
> ABOUT THE HUMANITY LIBRARIES PROJECT:
>
> -- We are now a separate NGO unit: Humanity Libraries
> Project, with our (soon multilingual ) website named
> http://www.humaninfo.org . Collections are free online at
> http://www.humanitylibraries.net
>
> -- Our project is an example of replicable and low cost
> information dissemination best practice
>
> -- Our goal is to help meet the needs of millions of people
> to access good information. Of course we cannot do this
> ourselves for the whole world. That is why we invite UN
> agencies, governments and NGO to copy us freely and build on
> our experience and software
>
> -- Thus we are willing to share our low-cost production
> capacity, software, resources and experiences, and are open
> to create collections for UN and Aid agencies, which we could
> then share in a network setting with developing countries.
>
>
> RECOMMENDATIONS AND LESSONS:
>
> -- Every UN and governmental ODA department should start
> identifying the hundreds of valuable publications which could
> be distributed digitally to developing countries
>
> -- All agencies, governments, NGO and individual authors
> should then start to digitize this material in standard
> formats (of which RTF or HTML as most important). We can help
> with this at low cost, please contact us.
>
> -- Copyrights should be cleared. This is a necessary
> condition for the free or low-cost global redistribution and
> translation.
>
> -- Decentralised collection building. Every UN agency or
> department should then create own collections in
> collaboration with a few selected partners, make sure quality
> is optimal through peer review, and try to saturate their
> user base at once. Usually, this would mean creating a first
> CD-ROM with about 200 publications (10.000 to 20.000 pages)
> and distributing this to 10.000 to 20.000 recipients and
> multipliers. Mostly this can be done at very low budget (
> 4US$ or less per CD).
>
> -- Merging with other collections. When the different
> collections are built, have been validated by experts and
> users, it is possible to combine different collections into
> one bigger CD-ROM library.
>
> -- Once these bigger collections are built, saturation of
> continents at once becomes possible. For example saturating
> every PC in Africa with a library of 2000 publications
> covering AIDS prevention, water, small enterprise, education;
> health etc/
>
> -- Again, our concept can be copied and we are open to help
> create collections for UN and Aid agencies,
>
>Dr Michel Loots, MD
>Humanity Libraries Project Director
>
>e-mail for additional info : [log in to unmask]
>and website : www.humaninfo.org
>Collections are free online at www.humanitylibraries.net
>
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>bYtES For aLL is a voluntary, unfunded venture that, for the
>purpose of spreading its ideals, seeks the involvement and
>support of all who agree with its goals. Contact us at
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>bYtES For aLL ezine volunteers team includes: Frederick in Goa,
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>in Dortmund, Zunaira in Karachi, Shivkumar in Mumbai, Rajib in
>Kathmandu, Daryl in Chicago and Sangeeta in Kathmandu.
>Partha Sarkar is webmaster of http://www.bytesforall.org
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