ITU-ALCATEL YOUTH INITIATIVE

Reduit Village Internet Project 

Providing Internet access to people in Mauritius through their television sets, regardless of age, social status, geographical location and at an affordable price, is at the core of Gyanee Dewnarain’s winning proposal on “Reduit Village Internet Project”.  

Her proposition is based on the fact that Mauritius not only has the second-highest teledensity in the African continent, but also that each household possesses a television set. Taking into account these facts, people would only require an additional Set top Box in order to enable access to the Internet using their analogue television set. This system bypasses the use of a PC, which is much more expensive than the Set top Box. 

The major benefits of this scheme are described as: 

• greater opportunities for students through distance education, through participation in on-line debates and access to a database information at any moment;

• improved conditions in the agricultural sector as farmers get access to information on the times for sowing, harvesting and also to market their products and 

• savings for the small business sector, since sellers can place their order to distributors via the web, thus minimizing travel costs.

Support for the proposal has come from various official quarters. The Government of Mauritius is adopting a number of policies to encourage development in the ICT sector, thus maximizing access to the Internet. The University of Mauritius is taking a prominent role in the project, providing human resources required for training of potential beneficiaries. MCML (Multi Carrier Mauritius Limited), the national broadcaster, is also willing to provide assistance in terms of infrastructure. Last but not least, MICC (Mechatronics, Instrumentation, Control and Communication Group) will provide research assistance to the project.  

The pilot project, according to Dewnarain, is aiming to transform the Mauritian Society into an Information Society by bridging the existing Digital Divide.  

Gyanee Dewnarain is a 24 year old recent graduate of Electronic and Communication Engineering in the University of Mauritius who is now beginning her M.Sc. at University College London. 

Keur Matar Internet Project

Mame Penda Laye  Gueye’s proposal entitled “Internet Project for Keur Matar,” targets the rural communities outside Dakar. The village of Keur Matar, 70 kilometers from Dakar, was selected as a pilot zone due to the importance of its market gardening, the products of which are sold to the rest of the country. 

If this village was connected to the Internet, these market gardeners could: 

• have direct contact with technical partners to improve agricultural techniques 

• contact financial partners with a view to modernizing their tools 

• teach themselves about modern agricultural and ecological techniques to protect their fields 

• reduce their costs of production and improve their agricultural outputs 

• keep young people in the country and fight against the rural exodus 

• create a website that would allow for the promotion of their products. 

This project anticipates management training for two managers, as well as two web translators, the construction of premises, the installation of equipment necessary for connection to a network, encouraging awareness of the Internet amongst the population, introducing young people to word processing applications and the Internet, youth volunteers from the sporting and cultural Association of the village and finally, the production of a Manual to replicate this model elsewhere. 

Several companies and associations have expressed support for the project. They include: SONATEL for the implementation and connection of computers, the Département de Génie Informatique for the technical support, the NGO CRESP would take in charge the training of the managers and web translators, the local cultural and sport association would encourage market gardeners to use the Internet, the wider rural community of Djender Guèdj would offer its official support and INFORMATIS, the technical support and maintenance of the computer equipment while Alcatel would contribute to the financing of the experimental phase.  

23-year old Mame Penda GUEYE is in her 3rd year of Computer Science at the Polytechnic High School of Dakar.

Nazigo Cybercentre pilot project 

The establishment of the “Nazigo cybercentre pilot project,” proposed by Moses Mangwebe, will improve education, agriculture, health, business and personal communications through access to relevant information and messaging in Nazigo, one of the many disadvantaged rural areas in Uganda.  

The penetration of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) in Nazigo is very low, reports Mangwebe. On the health front, Nazigo possess only two health centers in town, thus most of the complex medical cases are referred to Kampala’s hospital. The cybercentre shall enable Nazigo health workers to benefit from other experts in Kampala hospital through email and real-time chat, thus reducing distance and costs involved. 

On the agricultural front, the major source of income is vanilla, coffee and pineapple growing. The lack of access to Internet negatively affects access to technical information on farming, post-harvest handling, market prices, etc. The cybercentre shall provide “cyber-agricultural extension services”, together with demand and transparency on price information to the farmers.  

In Nazigo there are only 24 primary schools and 6 secondary schools with almost 90% of the computers not connected to the Internet. This fact adversely affects the quality of education and skills acquired by rural students as compared to their urban counterparts. The cybercentre shall provide students and teachers with the needed information to supplement the library services. The teachers shall also be able to exploit e-learning opportunities for self-improvement and compete in the job market.  

The Nazigo cybercentre proyect seeks to promote universal access to the Internet, based on a model that is potentially sustainable both financially and technically, thus “Bridging the Digital Divide”. 

Moses Mangwebe is 27 years old. He holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Makerere University Kampala, Uganda.  

Giving Internet Access to Rural Farming Communities 

The role of the telecommunication services, the Internet and a suitable education campaign to peasant farmers in order to turn agriculture into the key to sustainable development in Zambia is at the heart of  Mwenifumbo Swithurn’s essay on “Giving Internet Access to Zambian Farmers”. 

His proposal is based on improving agriculture in a country where the lack of proper forecasts of poor rainfall, low awareness of appropriate techniques and on the prices of information inputs are making it more and more difficult to produce enough to feed the whole nation. 

The solution is not only to provide marketing information to farmers scattered across the country through Internet access, but also to set up a campaign in order to educate and train the beneficiaries on how to use the equipment, farming techniques and weather patterns, so as to increase their productivity and livelihood of the community. 

Zambia National Farmer Union (ZNFU), a non-governmental body overlooking farmers’ welfare nationwide, will take part in supporting the Training Workshops for the representatives and members who are the main beneficiaries. The latter will not only be the farming community but are also expected to consist of teachers and nurses who will have a better means of communication with their supporting organizations and thereby offer better services to the whole community. 

According to Swithurn, this is a win-win project as it costs approximately $50 to give access to each rural farmer. However, the immediate benefits would be a profit of about $40 for each farmer.  At least 100 farmers and their community stand to benefit.

Mwenifumbo Swithurn is a 24 year old student of Engineering at the University of Zambia.