[wsfii-discuss] May 19 DC Community Wireless Panel on Economics of Community Wireless Networks in Developing Countries

Wed May 16 18:57:48 UTC 2007

Dear Ramon, All,

Thanks for responding. 

Would it be possible for you to update the core group about some of the
things we have been talking on wsfii discuss of late and also about the
Summit on the "economics of community wireless networks in emerging
markets" that we are going to have at the Community Wireless Summit?

My thought is that the next few days is an opportunity for us to share
some concrete examples of wireless networks and/or telecenters that can
be seen as models and this can help us prepare for the panel discussion
on Saturday in Columbia MD.

Look forward to meeting you.

Jeff 

-----Original Message-----
From: Ramon Roca [mailto:ramon.roca at guifi.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 5:11 PM
To: jeff at onevillagefoundation.org; Discuss list on the World Summit on
Free Information Infrastructure
Subject: Re: [wsfii-discuss] May 19 DC Community Wireless Panel on
Economics of Community Wireless Networks in Developing Countries

Hi Jeff, regarding the event at guifi.net, the link is this one: 
http://guifi.net/node/7698, but still not in English and just at a draft

stage.
I'm not in the core group who is organizing the meeting, but I know that

there is a lot of stuff to do. As soon as we have more concrete 
information we'll forward this.

Regarding event in Columbia, I'll be there, so I hope to have a chance 
to meet all of you and if you like, share with all of you regarding our 
approach to the subject. I think I can also talk a little bit on the 
Athens experience (awmn.net) which I find also quite interesting and I 
know a little bit, although no one from there will be in Columbia.

Ramon Roca.

En/na Jeff Buderer ha escrit:

> Dear All,
>
> Following up on the Economics of Community Wireless Discussion that 
> started in March from the Discussion by Lindsey Annison 
>
<http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/wsfii-discuss/2007-March/001260.html>, 
> Ashish Saboo 
>
<http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/wsfii-discuss/2007-April/001292.html>, 
> Ian Howard 
>
<http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/wsfii-discuss/2007-March/001271.html>, 
> me Tracy Lauriault 
> <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/wsfii-discuss/2007-March/001273.html>

> and others, we were able to organize a panel discussion on this issues

> at the Community Wireless Summit on May 19 in DC (Columbia Maryland 
> Loyola U). The title of the panel is the "Economics of Community 
> Wireless Networks in Developing Countries."
>
> *Overview: *The Economic Sustainability of Community Wireless Networks

> in Emerging Markets will be a major theme at the WSFII Africa 2007 
> Summit _www.wirelessafrica2007.org 
> <http://www.wirelessafrica2007.org/>_ in August. As a precursor to 
> this event, _oneVillage Foundation 
> <http://www.onevillagefoundation.org/>_ and several other 
> distinguished ICT leaders will hold a panel on this topic at the 
> upcoming "International Summit for Community Wireless Networks" on May

> 18-20 in Washington DC _http://www.cuwin.net/summit_.
>
> Participants (More about them in the attached document: 
> *econ_of_comm_wireless_nets_051407.doc*): Panel will feature several 
> well known leaders in the ICT field, including Ian Howard former 
> GeekCorps Mali Director and author of _Wireless Networking for the 
> Developing World 
> <http://www.geekcorps.org/2006/01/learn-wireless-networking/>_, Jeff 
> Buderer Program Development Manager of _oneVillage Foundation 
> <http://www.onevillagefoundation.org/>_; Toby Morning of _Accton 
> Technology Group <http://www.accton.com/>_; Peter Baldwin of the 
> _Digital Opportunity Trust <http://www.dotrust.org/>_ an ex-GeekCorps 
> Mali Volunteer Economics Advisor.
>
>
> To further explain this are two documents that I have attached:
>
>    1. Overview for the Panel in terms of what it is going to discuss (
>       *econ_of_comm_wireless_nets_051407.doc*)
>    2. Some of my thoughts on what I would like to discuss (*Panel Prep
>       Discussion.doc*).
>
> *Repesentation From Emerging Markets is Important *I would have liked 
> it if we could have gotten someone from a emerging market to 
> participate in the panel. However since that is not the case I want to

> be sure that in our discussions on the panel that we represent some of

> the ideas by those who are in emerging markets of which I believe 
> Ashish Saboo's comments are particularly valuable in this process.
>
> Ugo Vallauri of Computer Aid has been very  helpful in forwarding this

> discussion and linking me to key people to move this discussion 
> forward. He introduced me to LinkNet 
> <http://drupal.vanstam.net/?qnode/712> which is aimed at promoting 
> holistic rural development in Rural Zambia. I have included Adrian and

> Gerthan in this email. This is along similar lines that we have 
> outlined with our Open Digital Village concept that we are now trying 
> to implement in Winneba Ghana.
>
> Xigi.net Gary Bolles <http://www.gbolles.com/gbbio.htm>of Xigi.net 
> <http://xigi.net/>  was unable to resolve his scheduling conflict with

> the other conference he was participating but we had some good 
> telephone conversations last week and he is very interested in what is

> developing. Gary points out the need to breaks thing down into layers 
> such as the policy layer etc. his organization www.xigi.net 
> <http://www.xigi.net/> helps to explore power relationships that lead 
> to the development of emergent economic sectors (such as for example 
> wireless) and make them transparent, putting capital to work to 
> promote social good. Xigi.net is a collective intelligence tool that 
> can be used to help document the power relationships involved in the 
> development emergent economic sectors (like wireless) and make them 
> more transparent. He sees Muni-Wireless <http://www.muniwireless.com/>

> (which he is also involved in) as helping to adapt this process to the

> development public broadband wireless market in the US. Gary has been 
> involved in developing a framework for the development of a Digital 
> Village Fund <http://www.xigi.net/index.php?en=585>, seeing that as a 
> platform to promote entreprenuerialism in the social enterprise sector

> and focused on the convergence of the wireless and digital 
> village/telecenter sectors. My understanding from the calls was that 
> right now he feels that these events and dialogues are important 
> because they pave the way for developing that fund on a firm 
> foundation. Finally Good Capital <http://www.goodcap.net/> is an 
> investment firm that he is involved with that is designed accelerate 
> "the flow of capital to innovative ventures and initiatives that 
> harness the power of the market to create sustainable solutions to 
> some of society's most challenging problems. Our initiatives and funds

> address a wide range of social issues ranging from social enterprise 
> financing, community and economic development, brownfield development,

> and healthcare financing."
>
> *Grassroots Wireless in India *Ashish Saboo of the Association of 
> Public ICT Access Provider (ApiAp) <http://apiap.org/> - I am reading 
> and particularly interested with some of Ashish's comments. He says 
> the telecenter model needs to be flexible to the needs of each 
> neighborhood/community. So then possibility organizations taking rigid

> of a template approach were not able to see the expected success 
> because of that rigidity which may have stifled things so that the 
> local early adopters of ICT did not take ownership of these projects 
> leading eventually to their failure? So its very important to have 
> local stakeholders involved and understand the local culture in 
> developing these programs.
>
> We need better tools to measure and connect economic value with social

> value. Ashish feels that we need to come up with better matrix linking

> tools - tools helping to link and model outcomes of programs with 
> consideration to social as well as economic factors - to measure the 
> social benefits of these project and also to how that often translates

> into added economic value for the community as well as the center
itself.
>
> There are many publications on the launch of telecenters but few offer

> honest reporting of the challenges so accountability and transparency 
> is an issue that needs to be improved. He suggests there is a need to 
> develop an online resource that could serve as center for such
resources.
>
> Tools for ensuring Accountability I wanted to add Kris Dev to this 
> (Chennai India) has been working on how to develop ICT tools 
> <http://blog.onevillage.tv/wp/?p=339> to improve accountability and 
> transparency
>
> Ashish I am reading your email about how you see the need to address 
> the unsophisticated ICT consumer in emerging markets and where you 
> give Dharamsala as one example of a dysfunctional pattern emerging in 
> emerging markets where by some of the poorest regions of the world now

> spend extremely disproportionate amounts of their very meager funds on

> ICT. So this makes me think that this panel should also discuss more 
> fundamental problems with the launch of ICT in emerging markets and 
> how community wireless networks can be effectively positioned to 
> address this problem. I would to see more about this that is more 
> refined that we could discuss and feature in the panel discussion.
>
> Juergen Neumann Founder of Friefunk 
> <https://snr.freifunk.net/trac/wcw> suggested that this Barcelona 
> event (could not find weblink on this so if anyone could send it that 
> would be great) being organized by Ramon Roca of guifi.net 
> <http://guifi.net/en> would be a good venue to continue our work about

> community compatible economics. I look forward to hear more from him 
> about this although most likely I will not be able to attend. Possibly

> some of you can make and keep us updated.
>
> I look forward to further discussion on this and thanks all for the 
> contributions made so far.
>
> Jeff
>
>
>
> Jeff Buderer
> oneVillage Foundation
> www.onevillagefoundation.org
>
>
>
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