The New Digital South website, under its New School of Thought series, features an interview with LIRNEasia’s Director, Strategic Development, Helani Galpaya. Helani talks about the challenges of e-Gov in developing countries. See full interview here.
Please find the concept note added : sustainability-first-concept-note-for-research-version-1.pdf Please note that this Colloquium is being Skypecast at https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/skypecast/search.html?
In CBS Test, Mobile Ads Find Users – New York Times Pssst, hey you! There’s a cheap latte waiting at the coffee shop on the corner! CBS plans to announce on Wednesday that it is trying one of the first serious experiments with cellphone advertising that is customized for a person’s location. Its CBS Mobile unit is teaming up with the social networking service Loopt, which allows its subscribers to track participating friends and family on their mobile phones. The ads will appear on two Web sites that are tailored for mobile devices, CBS Mobile News and CBS Mobile Sports.
The Colloquium started off with Helani Galpaya giving a brief over view of the agriculture project. Harsha de Silva then went on to give a brief overview of the agriculture market as it is… today. The relevant market is limited to 2.3 million farmers. But even this is not the entire focud group as they have to be entreprenial farmers.
It is well known that China polices the Internet content that its citizens can access. The story below talks about a growing movement within China that seeks to challenge these arbitrary restrictions on simple information retrieval and publishing actions. A 17-year old girl’s comment “I don’t know if it’s better to speak out or keep silent, but if everyone keeps silent, the truth will be buried,” seems particularly powerful to me and motivated me to write this post. Several months ago, the government of Sri Lanka blocked access to Tamil Net, a website used by many, including almost all the important journalists, to find out the other side of our one-sided news stories on the war. Of course, this was easily circumvented by those who wanted to.
Campaign tools | A-twitter | Economist.com Twitter imposes a 140-character-limit on all tweets. The choice is technical, not aesthetic; most mobile-service providers won’t carry text messages longer than 160 characters. This limit, as with any restricted poetic form, is a strength. Foreign correspondents in the first half of the 20th century learned to write in cablese, a series of abbreviations demanded by news organisations that had to pay by the word.
Telex | A faint ping | Economist.com In March Britain’s BT will be the latest big company to cease offering telex services. “All good things come to an end,” says a spokesman. Britain will then join around 30 countries including Austria, Germany and Russia that no longer provide telex through their national telecoms operators.But that clears the way for nimble, low-cost competitors.
21 – 23 February 2008 at Kandalama Hotel, Kandalama, Sri Lanka LIRNEasia hosted a Workshop to discuss the policy level implications and business level possibilities of using ICTs to reduce transaction costs in the agricultural value chain as well as to improve traceability and enhance quality of products sold. The Workshop brought together key stakeholders consisting of policy makers, private and public sector participants and researchers, both in agriculture and ICT. It was based on the pilot projects conducted by LIRNEasia in 2007, which was discussed in detail at the Workshop. All presentations made at the Workshop can be found below: Traceability: International Perspective – Visoot Phongsathorn Linking Sri Lankan farmers to global markets – Dr. Harsha de Silva Traceability in agricultural markets – Shamistra Soysa Benefits of ICT applications to farmers with emphasis on transaction costs: experiences from India – Prof.
transaction-costs.pdf traceabilityv3.pdf Please note that a Colloquium will be held on Tuesday the 5th of February to review the presentations that will be delivered at the Agriculture Workshop from the 21st – 23rd of Feb The Colloquium will be conducted by Shamistra Soysa, Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara and Harsha de Silva. The Colloquium will be blogged in live time and I urge those who cannot attend to participate virtually. The Colloquium will commence at 4 p.
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Indian outsourcing sector hit by Internet disruption – LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE India’s vital outsourcing industry, which relies heavily on the Internet, was grappling with a major communications disruption Thursday after damage to undersea cables thousands of kilometres away in the Mediterranean. Internet connections may take up to 15 days to return to normal, businesses said, adding that telecommunications in neighbouring Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were also affected. Powered by ScribeFire.
In what can only be described as a surprise announcement, Egypt’s Orascom Telecom Holding (OTH) says that it has been granted a 3G phone license in North Korea. Orascom says that it intends to invest up to US$400 million in network infrastructure and license fee over the first three years. OTH intends to cover Pyongyang and most of the major cities during the first 12 months of operations. Read more.
The Grameen village phone ladies are slowly going out of business but Davos discussion still refers on the same model. Many Are Already at Work on Fulfilling Gatess Vision – Bits – Technology – New York Times Blog Last week Mr. Gates called on the executives of the largest corporations to add social entrepreneurship to their agenda, a leopard-spot-altering exercise at best. However, in challenging his compatriots, one of the experiments he overlooked was Mr. Yunus’s stunning success at Grameen Phone in Bangladesh, an effort he has pioneered during the past decade in partnership with Telenor, a Norwegian wireless carrier.
Monday 31 March 09:00 – 11:00 Opening session – Information society policies Information society policies have been on the policy agenda in all countries and regions of the world since the beginning of the 1990s. The opening session of EuroCPR 2008 will explore important outcomes of policy initiatives and the similarities and differences between different regions of the world. For this purpose, speakers from Europe, Asia and the US have been invited to give their critical assessment of policy aims and results. Speakers: • Eli Noam, CITI, Columbia University • Andrea Renda, CEPS • Rohan Samarajiva, LIRNEasia Discussant: • Frans De Bruïne, ISC, formerly INFSO EC Powered by ScribeFire.
Frost & Sullivan finds Africa’s demand for mobile internet access is growing quickly, with operators anticipating growth of between 40 per cent and 50 per cent between 2006 and 2009. “The poor state of fixed line infrastructure is creating the potential for the African mobile internet market to boom,” states Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Spiwe Chireka. “Mobile internet has emerged as the solution to the continent’s last mile connectivity problem.” Mobile internet is significantly more cost-effective to deploy than fixed line services, is much cheaper and easier for users to acquire, covers a larger area and allows users access while they on the move. However, the high cost of mobile internet-compatible handsets coupled with the pricing structure remains a significant challenge.
Agriculture or services for Sri Lanka’s future? – LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE The aspirations of young people constitute good evidence of cultural attachment. A recent study done by Chanuka Wattegama and Nandasiri Wanninayake in Mahavilachchiya, a village on the borders of Wilpattu, 40 km west of Anuradhapura, provides evidence. (Link to document) Fifty four per cent of those in Mahavilachchiya wanted IT related jobs, compared to the 38 per cent who wanted jobs in the army in the control group. But the real news was the no one, absolutely no one, in either village wanted to continue in agriculture like their parents.