Interview with Dr. Roger Harris
Bimal Shah
Absolutely. Asia's most pressing problem is poverty, which is primarily a rural problem. In terms of using ICTs for poverty alleviation, Asia's experiences with rural telecentres are readily transferable from country to country, suitably contextualised where necessary. I have formulated the concept of Telecentre 2.0 in order to depict the notion of what a mature development telecentre and the eco-system within which it operates looks like.
Telecentre 2.0 means that it is no longer necessary to pilot telecentres, even in countries where they hardly exist. Telecentre 2.0 gives a clear picture of what the lagging countries should be targeting to achieve e-inclusion. Telecentre 2.0 also signals the sceptics that telecentres are here to stay. Despite the problems that are sometimes experienced with telecentres, Telecentre 2.0 indicates that these are not fatal; that solutions are available and that they are worth pursuing in order to realise the benefits that telecentres bring.
Telecentre programmes can now be initiated with confidence, knowing where they are headed. This can accelerate their development by doing away with the slow experimental phases, so long as countries are willing to learn from the experiences of others. As the more advanced countries make progress with their telecentre scaling operations, so more learning becomes available for those who are behind. Moreover, there are now sufficient and adequate international forums for the new starters to learn from those with more experience, for example, the Asia Telecentre Forum. There are also highly experienced international agencies such as UNDP, IDRC, UNESCO, Telecentre.org and the Global Telecentre Alliance that can provide assistance. So Telecentre 2.0 removes uncertainty for those lagging countries by outlining a target for their telecentre programmes. It therefore has the potential for accelerating global progress towards e-inclusion and achieving the international development goals.