Category Archives: Telecenters

MobiStation in Uganda – Appropriate Technology destined to fail

28 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by in Appropriate ICT, ICT4D, ICT4Edu, Telecenters

≈ 15 Comments

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I just came across some news on MobiStation in Uganda and the first thought I had was that is a good example of another good appropriate technology initiative destined to fail.

Every year, UNICEF sends out millions of School-in-a-Box kits for children affected by emergencies. Exercise books, slates, pencils, rulers, and other learning materials enable a teacher and up to 80 students, taught in double shifts of 40, to create an instant classroom – no matter where they are. Originally designed for refugees following the Rwanda crisis of 1994, School-in-a-Box has become the hallmark of UNICEF response in disasters. Twenty years later, in the era of Information Technology, UNICEF is pioneering a new type of digital School-in-a-Box.

Mobistation UG

MobiStation, developed by UNICEF Uganda, is a solar-powered multimedia kit complete with a laptop, projector, scanner, and speakers, all contained in a portable suitcase. Detailed content in this article. It works by projecting e-books, teaching videos, and other multimedia content in rural schools and health centers, bringing quality learning to marginalized groups. The educational content for MobiStation is developed and recorded by the country’s top teachers in subjects like English, math, social studies and science.

Although a great tool – a 21st century answer to the School-in-the-Box – has been developed, implementation will head for failure in Uganda. According to the information in the news flash MobiStation will address “…some of the biggest challenges of the education system: teacher absenteeism, poor-quality instruction, and lack of textbooks.”

A classical mistake!

Technology is not going to solve political and social problems. Teacher absenteeism will not disappear with the MobiStation. Instruction will not be …………….. better! Alright? (all people in Uganda know what I mean here). Lack of textbooks?  How is MobiStation going to provide textbooks for classes of 100 students that have hardly pen and paper?

The educational system in Uganda – like many African countries – is sick to the bone. Teachers stay home because they are not being paid in spite of all promises. Schools are run like prisons, corporal punishment and humiliation are rampant and a situation is created where neither staff nor students are motivated. There is no drive to innovate teaching methods in this environment. Government is looking away when it comes to individual schools. They rather like to impress donors with hollow phrases like “to provide for, support, guide, coordinate, regulate and promote quality education and sports to all persons in Uganda for national integration, individual and national development”.

If these basic conditions are not improved, MobiStation is not going to change anything in Uganda. The MobiStation is just going to end up as the private home cinema center for the headmaster.

Technologists are sometimes remarkably poor thinkers when it comes to social change. They forget that technology may support change but it will never bring about change. Change comes from individuals, social systems, governments, not from technology. So if they believe that MobiStation will change Uganda, I am certain that this will become a great story for the next ICT4D Failures conference.

Is MobiStation a good tool? YES, it is marvelous tool but to be used in emergency situations where schools have collapsed, libraries burned, but motivated teachers are on the ground. MobiStation will support these teachers to keep their students in ‘school’, to assure that the lives of the young school kids remains a bit ‘normal’ and it will bridge the gap until schools are being rebuilt. So, let’s forget about Uganda and see what the MobiStation can do in Gaza, the Central African Republic, Syria etc.

Cape Verde: Free WiFi as enabler for development

16 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in ICT4D, Telecenters

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Cape Verde’s name is belonging to  the “least developed nation” category. When our colleague Arjan de Jager visited Cape Verde some months ago he stumbled from surprise to surprise. It is a well-functioning democracy where economic growth has been strong, where literacy is almost universal and 80% of the population has access to (mobile) phones. Evan Davis of the BBC calls Cape Verde the African Good New Story. 

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The first day he went to a square in Praia, the big city of the island Santiago. Dozens of young people were working on their assignments for school or university using their laptops and taking advantage of the free WiFi available in the square. Dozens of travel agencies, restaurants and small start-ups were working on their business plans, their marketing via Facebook and other social media and Web2.0 tools.

No all the squares in Cape Verde were checked, but in every town on the three islands he visited the government provides free WiFi at each square. Not only the big cities of Cape Verde but also the tiny villages. The squares have become lively places again where people get together, study, discuss, make plans. In other words: the squares become literally the centre of the world in Cape Verde.

Free WiFi in Cape Verde is a good example of ICT as an enabler of development that supports education, trade and even personal growth. It also contains a strong message for development initiatives: facilitate development without determining how people should develop. Provide access to the tools and people will find ways to use it.

Death of an Appropriate ICT4D Initiative

27 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by in Appropriate ICT, ICT4D, Telecenters

≈ 8 Comments

NICE Center

NICE Center

NICE was offering telecenters with sustainable solar energy – so called NICECentres –  to unleash the potential of people in developing countries. The sentence is stated in the past tense, because NICE International has closed its doors. An interesting appropriate ICT project that failed to become sustainable.

The social enterprise NICE was initiated by Energy4All Foundation and Econcern (bankrupt in 2009) a Dutch company dealing in renewable energy and carbon credits. The first pilot started in 2006 in Gambia. The goal of NICE was to deploy 250 NICE Centers in 10 countries in Africa based on a franchise concept that allowed local communities to own and maintain a centre.

See the Youtube clip in order to get an understanding of the NICE Centres in operation in Gambia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1LBo3EajAY

As explained by NICE, the core of the centres is a solar energy system. The batteries provide a back-up in case of low energy production and a stabilizer guarantees a stable output to the equipment in the centres. The solar system allows NICE Centres to operate where there is no grid.

The centres have an energy-efficient and low cost IT-infrastructure with a server a number of thin clients. This includes a multifunctional printer for document services. The server and the clients run Ubuntu-Linux. NICE Centers are connected to the Internet through an available local Internet Service Provider.

Problems started immediately when the first two pilot centres went live in Gambia. Problems with the hardware, bugs in the software and the solar panel did not provide enough energy for the installed equipment. However most problematic proved the franchise concept; local entrepreneurs or communities were not willing or able to invest 30.000 Euro. A lease model was therefore introduced.

Although the centres started to make a small profit, finances became a problem. More funding needed to be found to finance the head-office in the Netherlands. EU funding was found, but with this type of donor strict rules, regulations and control come along. This was not foreseen and difficult to manage. 

In spite of the new funding things went downhill quickly. The next NICE country program (Tanzania) never materialised, the profit of the Gambian centres dropped and local owners of the NICE Centers did not behave as a entrepreneurs but more like employees of NICE. Combined with the rise and maturation of the mobile market, telecentres quickly became obsolete and NICE international had to close its doors.

It is always sad to see ICT4D projects go down especially when it are social enterprises working with appropriate ICT. However, it is important to reflect on whether the project was viable from the start and how we can learn from what has happened to NICE International.

  • Already at the start of the project discussions were questioning the sustainability of the telecentre concept and organisations like APDIP were looking for new business models. The so-called Telecentre 2.0 operates within a ‘national alliance’ that includes government, the private sector and civil society representatives. Was this the case with the NICE Centres?
  • Flexibility is key in successful ICT4D projects according to Heeks. We need to learn from the project experiences early on and constantly adapt what we are doing. Did the project have this necessary adaptive power and flexibility? Was rigidity the reason that they were overtaken by the mobile revolution?
  • Dealing with large donors like the European Union is often underestimated. The money looks good, but the procedures are killing when you do not have experience with them. The NICE project is a clear indication of this. Was there expertise to deal with these types of donors?
  • The usual suspects: Gambia, Tanzania, the Anglophone countries in general are target areas of small projects. At the same time, this market is already saturated and only innovative concepts have a chance. In the other parts Africa, especially the Francophone countries there is still a lot of room for new projects and expertise in the area of ICT is highly needed. Did the NICE initiators do a proper market research, or were just going with the flow?
  • Doing business in Africa is full of challenges and requires a thorough understanding of African business values and ethics. Business Schools do not prepare you for this. Ties Kroezen – one of the initiators of the project – states in an article in One World that his biggest disappointment was the behaviour of the local ‘owners’ of the NICE Centres. He saw no maintenance and no development of the centres. Is this not normal practice? This raises the question, did the initiators of NICE International had a good enough understanding and experience of what doing business in Africa entails? Did they seek support or coaching with experienced ICT4D professionals?

The NICE case is interesting and it is admirable that the initiators have been open and transparent in their failure to create a successful project. Practitioners in the field need to learn from these types of cases and hopefully it will help to make their next Appropriate ICT4D project successful.

This post borrows from the article “Hoe een prachtig businessplan in Afrika mislukte” in One World magazine – in Dutch.

Small-scale Appropriate ICT Initiatives – 1

31 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by in Appropriate ICT, Telecenters

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Yesterday I stumbled again upon one of these small scale appropriate ICT initiatives that are put forward by another young entrepreneur. These, mostly young people from developed countries, have good intentions and good ideas and a personal drive to bring alternative ICT solutions to Africa. Nice International is one of these initiatives.

As stated on their website, NICE has the mission to unleash the potential of people in developing countries through powering ICT with sustainable energy. To do this, they have developed a concept that is based on three components: sustainable energy, an ICT infrastructure, and value added services. The solar panel forms the foundation for a computer center with an ICT-infrastructure consisting of a number of linux based thin clients, connected to a central server. In the larger centers they also install a flatscreen TV with a home cinema and dvd system. Value added services like computer courses, the ‘cinema’ and small website building need to make the technology investment sustainable.

The combination of the ICT component with the solar power makes the project interesting. Most of the ICT initiatives, especially in the rural areas and slums of the larger town, suffer from the frequent power outages. This easily drives the potential users away, especially with disappears during one of the Africa Cup or Premier League matches.

Except from the solar component, the NICE International solution stays close the traditional telecenter approach. This approach has been challenged a lot over the past couple of years because few of the telecenters survive after the donor stops the funding. The NICE initiative is prone to the same problem.

In order to survive, telecenter-like projects will have innovate or offer services in areas where ICT penetration and internet access is very rare. The focus countries as mentioned on their website are all countries that have relatively good IT and internet penetration. The challenging countries like DR Congo, Central African Republic, Cameroon etc are left aside. The director Ties Kroezen stated that he has no intention targeting these really challenging countries.

Then only innovation can help the project survive!

In a time where it is expected that soon the majority of people in Africa will have smartphones (see this interesting article in TechCrunch), traditional telecenters will even have a more difficult task to survive. Potential clients stay away because they now respond to their Facebook friends on their smart phones. At the same time this new situation also holds the key to innovation. Smartphones will have to integrated in the concept. Electric charging alone – as stated in the website – is not enough. More innovative ideas like using the center’s wireless connection for mobile gaming or supporting low cost international calls will determine the success.

Entrepreneurial drive alone is not enough for appropriate ICT innovations in Africa. In-depth knowledge about success and failure factors of ICT in the African context and the willingness to learn from the experiences of others will determine success of these projects. In this way the impact of the projects will be as high as they deserve to be and the people at base of the pyramid will benefit.

UPDATE: Solar-Computer-Lab-in-a-Box is another solar-powered initiative worth looking at