LIRNEasia’s Director of Organizational Development has been awarded a competitive scholarship for the International Program for Development Evaluation Training offered every Summer by Carleton University (Canada) and the World Bank. This signifies LIRNEasia’s continued commitment to the values of a learning organization. Last year, LIRNEasia’s Lead Economist Dr Harsha de Silva was awarded a scholarship at the MIT Poverty Research Lab.
LIRNEasia’s Executive Director and Lead Economist participated at the 10th annual telecom conference and exhibition organized by Informa Telecoms and Media, GSM>3G, held in Mumbai, India on 22-23 January. LIRNEasia’s Lead Economist, Harsha de Silva presented the Indian findings of LIRNEasia’s five-country teleuse study, ‘Teleuse on a Shoestring:2,’ during the session entitled ‘Connecting the Next Billion.’ | View presentation slides Executive Director, Rohan Samarajiva was also invited as a panel discussant on ‘Widening Access for Rural Communities,’ along side top administrator of India’s universal service obligation fund as well as President of New Projects of Indian operator, Spice Telecom. The conference brought together key players in the GSM community from around the world as well as India to discuss key issues affecting the mobile industry, including 3G, regulation, international investment, Next Generation Networks, coverage, penetration, IMS and MMS. It was organized by Informa Telecoms and Media, as a part of a world series of annual conferences, located in regional hubs within fast growing markets.
Harsha de Silva, LIRNEasia’s Lead Economist presented a few of the preliminary findings of the Teleuse@BOP (Shoestrings:2) study at CEPA’s (Centre for Poverty Analysis) Annual Symposium on Poverty Research in Sri Lanka at the JAIC Hilton on December 6 2007. The presentation turned around much of the discussion at the Forum, in line with Prahalad’s thinking, taikng a stand that the ‘poor’ should not be seen as a burden to the private sector, but more of a gold mine. The presentation was based on a paper, co-authored with Ayesha Zainudeen, which will be published by CEPA in the coming months. View presentation slides Download paper: Poverty reduction through telecom access at the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ – Harsha de Silva & Ayesha Zainudeen