:: DEF : Newsletter September 2012 ::

Vol 1 Issue 9 | September 2012

Quest for Innovations in September

Dates extended for Manthan Award South Asia & Asia Pacific submissions to 15th Sep '2012

We are glad to see the response of Applicants to Manthan Award 2012. We would like to inform all the ICT Innovators & entrepreneurs that the dates for accepting the Nomination has been extended to 15th September. Nomination form are accepted both online & offline. Online nomination form can be find on www.manthanaward.org. However, offline nomination form can be downloaded from the website & can be sent to manthanaward@defindia.net along with supported documents . Do not miss to be a part of biggest ICT fraternity celebration on December 1st in New Delhi, INDIA. Read more

The eNGO Challenge 2012

Are you an NGO registered with eNGO network? If yes apply for 'The eNGO Challenge 2012'. If you are not registered with eNGO network yet, click here (http://pirengo.org/register-for-engo) to register and get a chance to apply for 'The eNGO Challenge 2012'. Read more

Recent Activities

Digital Literacy in India in focus at HT Conclave

Digital Empowerment Foundation’s Founder & Director, Osama Manzar was invited recently in a Digital Literacy Conclave organized by major newspaper Hindustan Times along with Indian MoS Sachin Pilot among others . The Conclave duly found mention in the paper’s pages for 2 days. Here they are as beneath. The government is dismantling barriers by creating the right ecosystem to help increase digital literacy in India, minister of state for IT and communications Sachin Pilot said in a panel discussion at the Digital Literacy Conclave organised by Hindustan Times on Wednesday. Know more

Digital Empowerment Foundation helps a Dalit scribe of Jharkhand

Amidst all the tall talks of a possible Constitutional amendment to facilitate reservations for Dalits in getting ahead in life, a New Delhi based NGO, Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), has recently found out a unique journalist. He is now a 70-year-old dalit man. His name is Mr. Gouri Shankar Rajak (washerman by caste) who has been carrying out a handwritten weekly newspaper in his native Dumka, Jharkhand, India for the last 24 years. All the activities associated with the bringing out of the newspaper was carried out by this man alone, such was his passion for work. Now he has leprosy and hence can’t work. Know more

Digital empowerment through wireless connectivity

Three Volunteers from Norway, Sjur Eivind Usken, Karen Elisabeth Ohm Heskja and Lasse Andre Lyngaas visited Wireless for Communities project sites, Chanderi & Guna in Madhya Pradesh and Baran in Rajasthan to help DEF in expanding and improving the wireless connectivity in numerous outlying villages. They have shared their experiences in forms of blog and report. Know more

Digital Empowerment: Connecting the last miles

A Success story of a passionate entrepreneur, who learned the rules of games and then played better than anyone else with the help of technology to empower the millions of Indian. For us city dwellers, connectivity that makes our lives rather simple, is a given. Be it looking for information, getting our work done, social networking, shopping to even online activism to voicing our dissent. But a vast majority of population of our country is deprived of this convenience. Know more

500 Panchayat now has digital presence across 12 states

500 Panchayats made Online with National Internet Exchange of India (nixi) support, 15 Digital Panchayat Centres established across 12 states targeted at about 5000 Pachayat officials.
For more details, visit www.epanchayat.in
or call Devendra Singh Bhadauria on - (0) 9044904904

Chairman's Interview

Interview with Osama Manzar from the Digital Empowerment Foundation
In July 2012, 3 Norway volunteers, travelled around India in cooperation with the Indian NGO Digital Empowerment Foundation to help expand and improve the wireless connectivity in numerous outlying villages. Karen Elisabeth Ohm Heskja interviewed Osama Manzar, Founder & Director of DEF, on how the DEF came about, what they do in the villages where they are present, their need for volunteers and what they can offer their volunteers in return.
Watch the Interview

Follow him @ Facebook | Twitter

Recent Publications

1. APC has recently published a variety of checklists and guides for tech users on sustainable IT
Download the guide, or individual units for free: Click here to see all downloads
Sustainable IT check lists, quick reference sheets based on the guide : http://www.apc.org/en/node/14573/
Green-my-tech tips, written by GreenNet: https://www.apc.org/en/pubs/green-my-tech-tip-sheets
More on APC's work on environmental sustainability: greeningit.apc.org

2. UNESCO is developing a set of policy guidelines for mobile learning, for which it is inviting public review and input

The unprecedented uptake of mobile devices, in particular mobile phones, in both developed and developing countries opens up new possibilities for increasing education access, equity and quality. Mobile learning, a growing field of ICT in education, has the potential to significantly impact the delivery of education. However, an enabling policy environment is needed to fully realise this potential. UNESCO's research has revealed a dearth of policies related to mobile learning.
Click here to download draft of the Policy

3rd eNorth East Award Summit 2012

Gangtok, the queen of the city of hills in the Himalayas, in the State of Sikkim (the host State) is all set to host the 3rd eNorth East Award Summit 2012. The dates for the prestigious event are November 22 - 23. The two days eventful programme includes - inaugural power plenary, 12 parallel tracks, the 3rd eNorth East Award Gala & 2 full day Sikitex 2012 North East Digital Festival. The 3rd eNorth East Award Summit & Sikitex 2012 is organised by North East Development Foundation & Dept of IT (Govt. of Sikkim). Know more

EXPERT VIEWS

There are views of ICT & mobile domain experts who have written for the annual Manthan Award & mBillionth Award publications down the years. Here under we are publishing just two of the Experts' views (of Rajnesh Singh of ISOC & Madanmohan Rao of Mobile Monday). More expert views will be published in the subsequent volumes of the monthly DEF’s newsletters. Happy reading. Feedback awaited.

“1991, 2012 and 2030: Mobile phones and communications: then, now and in the future” by Rajnesh Singh

The second dimension – and the one that concerns me more – is whether I will still be able to communicate as openly as I do today. Will I still be able to connect the device of my choice to the network of my choice? There is no denying the mobile phone has had a profound impact on society. This impact has been across all social tiers – from the top of the pyramid to the bottom. Today, in most locations around the world, a mobile phone of some sort is generally affordable and, for most, a necessity.

Know more

"A world gone mobile" by Madanmohan Rao

The proliferation of mobile devices can also spark new forms of “cultural reclamation” as more and more people become equipped and motivated to chronicle and influence events. Mobile phones are useful tools for social change agents and activists during the phases of research, engagement and participation. From dramatically changing business and political climates across the world to grammatically changing spelling and sentence structures via SMS, mobile phones are transforming countries and cultures in unprecedented ways.

Know more

Meet the technology Innovators

Dhaka iAtm Explorer

iATM Explorer is an elegant application developed by Databiz Software Ltd of Dhaka, Bangladesh. It enables a user to find an ATM of any bank in the city. This application comprises important, basic features: how to find the nearest Bank/Branch, locating an ATM via a convenient, categorized search and the route to desired location. By writing the location name in the location search box, a user can view all the bank and ATM locations in that area.

Know more

M-God

Bombil Media helps you customize and create your own mobile application in 10 minutes flat with a platform called M-God. Many have already used it to customize mobile applications on their smartphones. M-God has made it easy for the end-user to create a mobile application according to her requirement. For, a mobile application usually takes 6- 12 months of effort to develop. M-God was created keeping in mind sales force automation (SSA). For example, if a company installs this application in the smartphones of all their sales executives, the latter can place orders with their back office in real time.

Know more

txtWeb

While information on the internet is available to smartphone users, there are millions of subscribers who use basic phones and so cannot access worldwide web. txtWeb, an SMS-based browser platform, addresses precisely this need: it allows ALL mobile phone users to access information on the internet via SMS. 'txtWeb' is a global platform where anyone with any mobile phone can create, discover and consume Internet and txtWeb-only content and services just by texting keywords to one national number, 92433 42000 for India and 898-932 for the US.

Know more

Big Focus of the Month

Why is the Indian media pro-internet censorship?

Hundreds of web pages now stand blocked in India, the government has openly been appealing to internet companies to pre- or post-screen content and remove what the government wants it to remove. One Google Transparency Report after another has been revealing how the number one target of the government is criticism of politicians and government. Read more

Full text: The Indian government’s recent orders to Internet Service Providers to block websites, webpages and Twitter accounts

Joji Thomas Philip has put out these documents in The Economic Times. Read more

An Analysis of the Latest Round of Internet Censorship in India (Communalism and Rioting Edition): Pranesh Prakash

There are a total of 309 specific items (those being URLs, Twitter accounts, img tags, blog posts, blogs, and a handful of websites) that have been blocked. This number is meaningless at one level, given that it doesn’t differentiate between the blocking of an entire website (with dozens or hundreds of web pages) from the blocking of a single webpage. Read more

Hanging the hashtag

Together, the government and the journalists have blamed rumour-mongering on social media for spread of violence in the country over the Northeast riots. They cited it to call for what they termed "limited censorship" on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites. Read more

Tangled Web

After all the commotion about social media censorship last week, it is worth stepping back and getting some perspective on how India compares with other nations. The reality is that we rank about average on internet freedom. Read more

Borderline madness: Sajan Venniyoor

Now that government agencies in India — some half a dozen of them working with the exceptional coordination we have come to expect from government agencies — have blocked Facebook accounts, Twitter feeds and YouTube videos supposedly originating in Pakistan, perhaps we could contemplate other trans-border electronic transgressions committed by our neighbours. Read more

Social media - Liberty of man at what price?

In the real world there is no such thing as complete unfettered freedom of speech. My liberty is restricted by the other man’s liberty and sensitivities. Read more

No, this is not the emergency

On the micro-blogging site Twitter and on the social network Facebook, it has become trendy to compare the government’s spectacularly misdirected crackdown on the Internet last week with what happened in 1975. Read more

Save social media from itself, put an end to anonymity

Like many of you, who have views on major issues — economic or political, domestic or global, governance or corruption, faith or reason — I too am a victim of a hate-spewing, label-mongering, obscenity-chewing, defamation-laced group of people, loud in their rants, and with perhaps nothing better to do. This, please note, is different from presenting a cogent argument that is backed by reason, facts, numbers, logic — a discourse I enjoy indulging in. Read more

News to know

The number of users in rural India who have accessed the Internet at least once in their lifetime is expected to grow to 45 million by the end of 2012.

As per IAMAI, at the end of June , there were 3.6 million rural mobile internet users.

This report analyzes the worldwide markets for Internet Protocol Address Management (IPAM) in US$ Million. The report provides separate comprehensive analytics for the US, Canada, Japan, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of World.

Servers have improved exponentially since the eighties and this coupled with rising speed of the Internet has given rise to various business and home based applications which have in turn revolutionized human society all over the world.

The government on Thursday withdrew the restrictions on bulk SMSs and MMSs, which were imposed two weeks ago to check spread of rumours relating to lowerAssam violence that led to exodus of people from the northeast from Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune.

New media and the use of the Internet will make banking easier, cheaper and create new opportunities to tap the already saturated urban market, panellists at Mint’s “IT in Banking Conclave” said. Despite security issues and user reluctance to adopt new media, this form of banking is here to stay.

The growing number of tablets, smartphones and connected devices will push demand for mobile data to over 10.8 exabytes per month by 2016, an 18-fold increase over 2011 according to Cisco. That’s a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 78 percent from 2011 to 2016.

Perhaps it is time to talk S-governance, which, as an extension of e-governance (electronic governance) can use social media to both listen to the social buzz and respond quickly to emerging situations.

An upgraded version of Aakash – the low cost tablet billed as the cheapest computer in the world for students and the teaching community, is set to be launched "very soon", HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said today. The improved version is fitted with a faster processor and enhanced battery life among other features.

While Indians can watch the London Olympics live on television through several hours of daily programming, many are getting their dose of the sporting action online through YouTube and other websites related to the Games such as London2012.com.

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