Mar 25, 02:58 pm: UN-GAID Session: ICT Entrepreneurs

In front of the room:

Notes:


  • David Kirkpatrick: Bias toward entrepreneurship and that for-profit can be the leading driver for change all over the world.
  • Kirkpatrick: Idea that there is tremendous power in for-profit models in the most unlikely places.
  • Glenn Strachan: encourager of entrepreneurship. use schools to anchor wireless in Macedonia. price of Internet fell from $200 (US) to $20 (US) which lead 30% increase in service in homes. required UN $ and revamping Macedonia regulatory laws.
  • (My thought: libraries could be used to do the same thing)
  • Emdad Khan: computer represents 15% of the telephone penetration. Right now, neither of the two devices — computers or PDAs — can close the digital divide. So trying to use phone and voice to do that.
  • (My thought: works like 511 traffic if you’ve got that in area. Seems like it would be good for getting targeted info but would not allow you to get the benefits of serendipity and finding others or info that you don’t know you want. But maybe those two things are a luxury.)
  • Kristin Peterson: Inveneo is a nonprofit social enterprise — get ICT out to the people who need it most. Typically, people in remote and rural areas. They create solutions that are specific to those populations. In the area of education, health care and I’m just not typing fast enough. They create hardware and software. How do you create ICT in punishing environments — lack of power, novice administrators for example. ICT solutions are not enough. Also need to have human structure to that building up an ecosystem of local entrepreneurs in the communities in which they work. Those people do the installation and support for the organizations they serve. This brings the support closer to the end client and creates access cost-effective access to technology. Currently operate in 10 counties — all in Africa.
  • Amjad Umar: GEZA — Global Enterprise Zone for All. If you are going to change long range model, you must work with entrepreneurs. Access is not enough. They need to know how to start biz over the internet, how to run their biz, excel and compete in this ever changing global marketplace. Developed a yellow pages of resources and it is ranked. Consolidate existing content and make it available in an integrated fashion.
  • David Liu: represents a private internet company in China to provide financial information to investors in China. Put together news, data, prices and send to investors via email. Says they use web 1.0 – one way models. That’s how they started. Kept building to help this. Then opened their platform for anyone to contribute to to provide financial information. Has been a very successful strategy: they have 220K users. They have created an investor-centric community so that everyone can contribute their experiences. Key point is to learn to share with others.
  • Glenn Strachan: everything is different now because of using and spreading access. Build it and they will come. Really.

Signing off a little early to get ready for my session.

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Marnie Webb  |