Tag Archives: LIRNEasia
CPRafrica 2012/CPRsouth7: call for abstracts and young scholar applications. Click here for details.
LIRNEasia benefits from social media
At LIRNEasia, we have used social media to drive traffic. As people spend more time on social media, they have to spend less time on something else. We were beginning to see the drop in blog readership (could have been caused by other things too). When we started tweeting and using Facebook, traffic picked up [...]
What are the limits of scholarly advocacy?
LIRNEasia’s signature has been a focus, you could even say a single-minded fixation, on taking the results of its research to the policy process. There is a line between evidence-based advocacy and just plain advocacy that we have tried not to cross. The NYT article below, explores that line in the context of Amicus briefs [...]
Breached irrigation works:Not letting the crisis go to waste
In 2005, we were approached by citizens and professionals to help raise awareness about the dangers of “an inland tsunami,” dam breaches. With the help of committed professionals, a small grant of around LKR 700,000 (around USD 7000) from the local initiatives fund of CIDA, an extremely generous partner in Vanguard Management, and the active [...]
External evaluation recommends that LIRNEasia not be used as yardstick
An external evaluation of the Pan Asian Networking program under which LIRNEasia was funded since 2006 has just been published on the IDRC website. There are many references to LIRNEasia, one of the larger projects funded by PAN, but I found the para below the most intriguing: Influence on telecommunications policy reform has been one [...]
TRAI Chair visits LIRNEasia
TRAI Chair Dr J.S. Sarma, Principal Advisor Mr N. Parameswaran and Advisor (Convergence) Mr S.K. Gupta visited the LIRNEasia office today. Despite our many interactions with regulators, this was the first time a regulator had actually asked to visit our office. Dr Sarma was very interested in the research that the team members were doing [...]
LIRNEasia assists Mongolia ICTD researchers better reach policy makers
LIRNEasia was happy to accept the invitation of Mongolia’s DREAM IT project to conduct a training workshop on communicating for influence on policy for researchers in six sub-projects. The workshop was held on 16-17 October in rapidly changing Ulaan Baator in conditions of light snow and high enthusiasm. This was LIRNEasia’s first formal interaction with [...]
LIRNEasia research brought to bear on mobile number portability question
Pakistan did it, with supposed good results. The Maldives studied it and decided it was not worth it. Sri Lanka is supposed to be thinking about it. It is mobile number portability (MNP). None of them had the benefit of the teleuse@BOP results. Back in October 2008, 25 percent of mobile owners at the Pakistan [...]
LIRNEasia Chair and CEO awarded ICA 2009 “Communication Research as an Agent of Change Award”
Rohan Samarajiva, Chair and CEO of LIRNEasia was awarded the prestigious 2009 “Communication Research as an Agent of Change Award” by the International Communication Association (ICA) at the 59th Annual conference of the ICA on 23 May 2009, in Chicago, USA. The award honors one person each year whose work has had a demonstrable impact [...]
Sri Lanka: The vicious circle of mobile advertising
I may be wrong, not having conducted a systematic study of mobile advertising in Sri Lanka, but the impression I have is that while there is plenty of it, it’s all about calling to maintain relationships if not about price/quality aspects. In the short term this works, because this is where people’s heads are. But [...]
Market Prices on the Small Screen: Transforming Farmers’ Markets in Sri Lanka
At Sri Lanka’s largest agricultural market a large projection screen overlooks 12 acres of stalls brimming with produce. Traders at the Dambulla market consult the screen to receive up-to-the-minute pricing information on produce being sold in the market. This information helps them negotiate fair prices at any of the market’s 144 booths, says Harsha de [...]
Microsoft tries to understand BOP teleuse
In the end, Microsoft’s best intentions may not satisfy what locals want. The company surveyed 8,000 people in emerging markets and found their most pressing needs for technology often revolved around entertainment and surfing the Internet. “It reinforced for us that the emerging middle classes are sort of like the middle classes here except they [...]
Cloud Computing: Richard Stallman calls us STUPID! (With respect, we don’t agree RMS!)
He did not mean LIRNEasia specifically, but when the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) guru Richard M. Stallman (RMS) says CLOUD COMPUTING IS WORSE THAN STUPIDITY – certainly we are in. So just cannot let it pass without comments. Not that we are offended. Cloud computing is not our religion – it is just an [...]
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