Quest for Innovations in July
INR 4 Million Grant for ‘Mobiles for Good’ under mBillionth Award & International Mobile & Telecom Congress 2012

Vodafone Foundation in association with Digital Empowerment Foundation will be distributing INR 4 million under Vodafone Mobiles for Good Programme - 2012. For this grant, 64 applications were screened as eligible and 15 applications have been shortlisted. Vodafone Mobiles for Good Programme operates under the framework of mBillionth Award to find the most promising mobile projects implemented by the NGOs in India.

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3rd mBillionth Award & International Mobile & Telecom Congress 2012

The mBillionth International Mobile & Telecom Congress is going to announce best 50 practices in this year 2012 in the Mobile & Telecom domain at mBillionth Award Gala Night. Best mobile and telecom players, innovators and practitioners will be joining in 10 parallel sessions. It is one of the pioneering platform that recognizes and facilitates mobile innovations, applications and content services in 8 South Asian countries.

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Nomination Open for 3rd eNorth East Award 2012

The nomination process for 3rd eNorth East Award 2012 is now open. Nominations are invited from ICT for development practitioners including government practices in e-governance from all over North East India Region. Nominations are open in 12 categories. Last date to file nominations - July 31, 2012.

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Recent Activities
DEF’s Petition to forego the spectrum fee altogether for running community radio stations
Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) has urged the National Advisory Council, Govt. to forgo the spectrum license fee altogether for community radio stations, run by non-profit organisations. In its petition, DEF has requested the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications & IT to forego the five-fold increase (from Rs 19,700 to Rs 91,000) in license fee for community radio.

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Masters’ Training Programme on 28-29 June oragnsied by DEF & Intel
DEF organized two-day Masters’ training on programme on Intel Easy Steps on 28-29 June, 2012 with a support from Intel. 10 staff members from DEF have been trained on Intel Easy Step. The Intel Easy Steps program gives adult learners the opportunity to improve their social and economic self-sufficiency through digital literacy.

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Chairman's Column
Phones help empower women
In India, if true development has to be designed and pursued, it requires multi-stakeholder integration of issues and solutions.
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Volunteers from Norway supporting DEF’s projects
Volunteers from Norway will be soon joining DEF to support its various projects. Volunteers who will be joining not only help in implementing and deploying various projects but also help DEF in its ground research-oriented work.
DEF Inaugurates Digital Panchayat centre at Theni, Tamil Nadu
The Inauguration of the Digital Panchayat Centre was held at the Office Premises of Mahalir Munnetra Sangam (MMS) at Chinnamanur on 28th June 2012. Mr. Osama Manzar, Founder and Director, DEF; Dr .LN Rajaram, Founder and Managing Trustee, Local Community Exchange Empowerment Trust (LOKALEX), Chennai, 11 Panchayat Presidents, 2 Vice presidents and 2 spouses of the Panchayat presidents participated and took active part in the discussions. Ms. K. Parvathi, Secretary, Mahalir Munnetra Sangam, presided over the function and Dr. LN Rajaram gave the special address.

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eNGO.in offering free websites to 100 grassroot NGOs
eNGO.in, an initiative of DEF & NIXI has started a group of all grassroots NGOs/CBOs/SHGS/VOs and Funding agencies/Volunteers for empowering NGOs community with latest opportunities. The group will provide latest opportunities in social enterprises domain & get networking with all members by posting the success stories & issues on the groups. Interested ones can join us here...
DEF & Ford Foundation to Organise 3-Day Wireless Access Workshop in Delhi
Digital Empowerment Foundation is in a process to organize three-day workshop on, ‘Wi-Fi Mesh Networking Technologies & Prospects’ on 6-8 August, 2012 in New Delhi, India. The objective of the three-day workshop is to understand theoretical and practical understanding of wireless environment in India especially driven through the unlicensed band facilities as provisioned by the government.

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Meet the technology Innovators
A mobile social network to share multimedia
New Delhi: India has primarily been a voice-based market for the telecom operators. But one company is seeking to change that trend. How about sending free videos, voice and photo messages over a phone data connection at a minimal cost? Well, that is exactly what RockeTalk is doing.

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Text messages to aid maternity healthcare
Gandhinagar: Veenaben Solanki, mother of a one-and-half year-old boy, recalls the first text message she received from the state government when she was pregnant. The message, in Gujarati, suggested that she reach a nearby public health clinic for various antenatal care services.

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A single number to access all m-governance services
Mumbai: Getting information from the government could be just a phone call or text message away. In the near future, all that one will have to do is dial 166 to avail of services or information from various government departments, including the Election Commission, health and social welfare departments.

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A mobile app helps doctors track patients' health
Bangalore: V.V. Ravindra was spurred into his third entrepreneurial venture by two sets of data bearing lofty ambitions for healthcare. The first was that the government aimed to boost its annual expenditure on healthcare to 2.5% of the gross domestic product (GDP) over the next five years from 1.4%.

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Helping you reach your destination
New Delhi: Tired of asking directions from strangers, taking detours and hitting dead ends? Technology comes to your rescue with a mapping application. MapMyIndia, a provider of digital maps and location-based services, has developed a mapping application called Aura that helps you navigate through cities. Aura provides turn-by-turn voice guidance and panoramic 3D maps and landscapes as you drive.

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DEF's field visit
DEF Visited Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, Kutch

Mr. Osama Manzar, DEF member visited around Bhuj and Nakhatrana areas of Kutch, where he interacted with no fewer than 100 women of various slums, villages and village councils. They all had one thing common: they are in some way or the other associated with KMVS—Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, which is actively working in the district since 1989.

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DEF Visited Dharmshala to understand Internet culture

DEF member, Osama Manzar visited Dharamshala to understand how internet has been proliferated the lives of people. Using mesh networking technology provided by AirJaldi Networks, a broadband service of Rural Broadband Pvt. Ltd, the network is catering to more than 10,000 people in the hills of Dharamshala.

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Current openings
Android developer

DEF is looking for mobile app developers who have up to 2 years of experience on Android platforms.

Target device: Smartphones; Tablets
Last date to apply: 10 August, 2012

Send CV at defindia@gmail.com

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News to know
An effort to connect villages
BBNL should function like an Internet service provider so that everyone at the village level would be able to avail of the connectivity for a payment and demand quality service. Read more
A digital thrust for youth policy
How old is India? How youthful is this country and what is in store for the next generation? How youth-focused are our policies? These thoughts emerged in light of the draft National Youth Policy, 2012, that has been opened for public consultation. The last time India had such a policy was in 2003. Read more
Ideas that can change India
India is a country of extremes and always figures among the top few in all kinds of statistics, and yet falls behind on all developmental indices. It is the world’s second biggest country but one with high levels of poverty. It is the third-largest in terms of Internet connectivity, yet these constitute less than 10% of the population. Read more
Gaps and promises in govt’s e-agenda
I have not gone as deep into finding how much of the total outlay in the 12th Five-Year Plan each ministry and department has proposed as how they are going to use ICT (information and communications technology) for efficiency and the larger good of the masses and good governance. Read more
'Set up computerised back-office for PDS by April'
The government plans to set up a nation-wide technology back office for the Public Distribution System (PDS) system by April 2012. Ultimately, this would link 4.62 lakh fair price shops which distribute commodities worth over Rs. 30,000 crore every year to 18 crore families through an end-to-end computerised system. Read more
UN's World Food Programme to help computerise Public Distribution System
The food and public distribution department has signed an agreement with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to scale up computerisation of the targeted public distribution system (TPDS) in the country. Read more
e-IPO guidelines to be out within a month: SEBI
Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India will come out with guidelines for electronic initial public offer or e-IPOs within a month, said a top official on Friday. Read more
National Urban Health Mission to take off soon
Urban poor may soon look forward for a dedicated health delivery system. In keeping with its Budget promise, the Central government is all set to launch the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) in the next few months. Read more
Govt needs to have policy for cloud computing: CII
The Indian Government can leverage Cloud-based services to launch new e-Governance initiatives quicker for better citizen services, without the need to install significant IT infrastructure, a Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) report says. Read more
Tamil Nadu: Police to Begin Digitisation of Cases
The State police department would go in for digitisation of cases handled and disposed as well as those pending, in the last ten years, a top official has said. Read more
Govt., Bihar & WB sign US$100mn loan pact for Rural Livelihoods Project
The Government of India, the Government of Bihar and the World Bank signed here an agreement for US$ 100 million additional credit to scale-up the ongoing Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project, named Jeevika (or `livelihood’ in Hindi). The Project is aimed at enhancing the social and economic empowerment of the rural poor in Bihar. Read more
Contact Us
Digital Empowerment Foundation
House No. 44, 3rd Floor Kalu Sarai, (Near IIT Flyover) New Delhi – 110016
Tel: +91-11-26532786 / Fax: +91-11-26532787
info@defindia.net, www.defindia.net

 
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