AfterAccess: ICT access and use in Asia and the Global South (Version 3.0) 
AfterAccess: ICT access and use in Asia and the Global South (Version 3.0)
I write with some sadness. After 13 consecutive academies and conferences, we are compelled to take a year’s break. There is no money for CPRsouth in 2019. IDRC continues to value our work; but changed priorities (no longer is “future leaders” a thing) means that they did not allocate funding for us this year. Given my time constraints, I could only try for a single funder who would pick up the core funding including travel.
The biggest barrier to policing social media is language. Based on a draft LIRNEasia white paper on neural language processing. Published in Foreign Policy.
LIRNEasia proposed simple, immediately actionable ways to promote independent living by persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Nepal.
Uncertain of the answer, I thought I’d write about it. Since Cable published their latest pricing league tables earlier this year my inbox seems to have a magnetic effect attracting ‘news’ from joyous announcements by the providers of the cheapest data in the world to harsh commentaries on the inaccuracy of the data being published. Following Cable’s release was A4Ai with its league tables published in March 2019 with prices for 100 MB, 200 MB, 1 GB, 2GB, 5GB and 10GB as a percentage of average income (GNI per capita reported by the World Bank). Both pricing leagues are relatively recent albeit more nuanced in some ways in comparison to the more seasoned data annually released by the OECD (with the limitation that this is only for the OECD countries) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Do we need this many pricing league tables for what appears to be the same thing?
Method. Method. Method. But it seems that rankings and the publicity that ensues takes precedence. Any methodology, for it to be meaningful, needs to be transparent and to the extent possible ensure comparability.
The World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) invited LIRNEasia for its Digital inclusion roundtable, held in Mumbai on the 7th of March 2019. The objective of the meeting was to assist the WBA in defining indicators and methodologies (that will be published by the end of 2019) for (1) Digital Inclusion, (2) Food and Agriculture, and (3) Gender Equality and Empowerment, by which private sector will be benchmarked against. The event hosted by the consulate to the Kingdom of Netherlands in Mumbai, started off with an address by the Consulate General and the Executive Director of the WBA. The criticality of the WBA’s work towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and progress made was reflected upon. After two key notes that followed, the gathering was divided into 3 groups, one for each of the benchmarks that delved deeper in to the subject matter.
GSMA recently published its 2019 Gender Gap study . In addition to measuring the gender gap in 18 countries based on its own country-level surveys, GSMA goes on further to extrapolate the gender gap to 10 more countries using ‘third-party and publicly available survey data we considered robust,’ including AfterAccess data for four countries: Cambodia,Paraguay,Peru,Rwanda . These gender gaps are further used to quantify how much of a business opportunity exists if as many women (as men) are connected, but also if all women were to spend as much on mobile and internet services as men. The estimated opportunity in total is as high as USD840b over five years. Huge.
Presented by Rohan Samarajiva at Data Governance event at Royal School of Public Administration, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March 4, 2019.
Presented by Dr. Sujata Gamage at Forum for business Innovations, NIBM National Innovation Center on March 01, 2019
Presented by Prof. Rohan Samarajiva at the Asia Liberty Forum in Colombo on 28th February 2019.
It is the same ‘internet’ that we all hope for and are working toward: one which is accessible to all, safe, secure and open, and provides equal opportunities for all groups, minorities, etc. Perhaps with some degree of nuance added.
Presented at "Imagine a Feminist Internet: South Asia" on 21 February 2019 in Negombo, Sri Lanka
A 4-day residential course on ‘How to Engage in Broadband Policy and Regulatory Processes’ was held at Hotel Jal Mahal, Pokhara Nepal (16th- 19th February 2019). This is the ninth of a series of short courses funded by Ford Foundation. The first two courses of this series mainly focused on producing knowledgeable consumers of research who are able to engage in broadband policy and regulatory processes, whereas this course along with the previous courses in New Delhi, India, Nagarkot, Nepal and Marawila, Sri Lanka incorporate how to produce policy-relevant research into the syllabus. Call for applications: English Syllabus of the course can be accessed here. Photos of the Event Course Report The presentations of the course are below Day 1 Session 1 – Introduction to workshop Session 2 – Communicating to Policy Makers Session 3 – Comparative Data and Introduction to Web Resources Assignment 1 – Fine-tuning and Framing a Policy Proposal Session 4 – Introduction policy/legal research, including case study on ICT policy & regulation in federal states Day 2 Session 5 –National Broadband Networks of India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia: Comparative study Session 6 – Broadband laws and Policy regime in Nepal (Electronic Transaction Act, Telecommunication Act, Draft IT law and other relevant policies Session […]
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There has been a lot of hype and buzz surrounding the gig economy over recent years. Researchers and policymakers alike have been grappling with many questions around the future of work debate, with the rise of digital platforms: How will these work platforms impact the labor market? How can workers rights be protected? How can consumer rights be protected? What will the gig economy do for (or to harm) inclusion?