The Hindu Business Line : Making IT work to alleviate poverty

OneWorld International is looking at using OKN along with SMS technology, so that a revenue model could be worked out, even as the network helps individuals and communities for development purposes.

New Delhi , March 12

THE agenda: To use information and communication technology (ICT) to bridge the digital divide. The goal: To help achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that the United Nations has mandated for a better world. And that's what OneWorld South Asia's two-day third regional meet in New Delhi is all about.

With the President of Nasscom, Mr Kiran Karnik, as the chairman, the meet brought together around 100 non-governmental organisations from the sub-continent committed to using ICT to alleviate poverty and focus on issues such as health, hunger, education, gender, environment and partnerships with the private sector.

One of the facilitators towards MDGs is the Open Knowledge Network (OKN) that allows communities to talk to each other, irrespective of the language in which they communicate. OKN has helped communities in developing countries to use technology to arm themselves with knowledge and share it with others in need.

OKN is an initiative of the Digital Opportunity Taskforce set up by the G8 heads of States. Since then it has been adopted by the UN ICT Task Force and used by different knowledge centres online as well as offline.

Mr Peter Armstrong, Director of OneWorld International Ltd, who was with the BBC for 20 years and is a well-known documentary filmmaker, believes that change must happen from the grassroots and the initiatives undertaken by the organisation are meant to give a voice to the voiceless. He demonstrated how OKN was being used in India, Kenya and Senegal as pilot projects to demonstrate its communication potential.

Mr Armstrong felt that a business model for OKN would have to be developed soon to make it self-sustaining.

He said that the organisation was looking at using OKN along with SMS technology, so that a revenue model could be worked out, even as the network helped individuals and communities for development purposes.

He felt that governments might also like to use the technology to inform and educate the population about health issues, weather situations, important notifications and so on. "The communication between the State and the people is not very efficient. OKN could be used by the authorities to provide information to the public for a fee," he suggested.

OneWorld specialises in the use of ICT and in working with partners to alleviate poverty. "No one can save the world alone. And no one can achieve MDGs alone. We hope this partnership meeting would help us forge strong partnerships in key thematic areas," said Mr Armstrong.

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Making IT work to alleviate poverty