January 12, 2006

GHAT - NEW TELECENTER MODEL FROM BANGLADESH

Some donor agencies in Bangladesh have come up with an innovative project called GHAT (Global House for Advance Technology) to promote ICT in rural Bangladesh. From Telecenter.org (Via Jean-Luc Raymond):
"This centers named GHAT (where people gather for transportation, mainly boat), and offering bundle of services. As the focus on business, we tried to concentrate to develop location & sector (business) specific contents in local language. At the same time some common services required by businesses. Also citizen services are being offered through the centers. The services are available both off-line and on-line. To ensure the commercial viability of the centers, training, desktop publications, internet and digital photo services. Rural people can ask for any new employment opportunity at local as well as national level or anyone can get the admission information for colleges & universities."
Seems an interesting idea to narrow the wide digital divide in the country, which lacks basic infrastructure in rural areas let alone IT. Hope this will not end like other hundreds of initiatives of aid organizations, which turns out to be non-realistic, rather academic exercises.

0 comments:

Post a Comment