BytesForAll

Petersberg Prize

Three Indian entries were among the eight finalists chosen from a field of over 220 nominees for the Petersberg Prize. They “demonstrated the impact [that] new technologies can have on development in various fields of endeavour”.

According to the prize’s sponsors, the finalists were responsible for “Innovative use of information technology [that] helped improve the livelihoods of poor farmers in Mali and India, dramatically expanded access to communication and information in rural areas of Bangladesh and Hungary, and created a whole new economic sector in India.”

The Indian finalists were:

Dr Vijay P Bhatkar, ETH Research Lab, India: For his contribution to help millions of Indians who don‘t read English — or don’t read at all — to use computers in their own language or through icons. Dr Bhatkar has spearheaded the development and promotion of ICT in India’s 16 official languages, potentially bringing the benefits of ICT to the 93 percent of the population that does not use English.

ITC: For improving the livelihoods of poor farmers by providing access to market information. ITC is an agribusiness that has increased the income of farmers in Indian villages through a network of local kiosks called e-choupals, where farmers can access information on pricing, soil-testing techniques and other means to improve their returns. There are 3,500 e-choupals serving 20,000 villages and 1.8 million farmers in India, accounting for $100 million in transactions in the first year of operations.

National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom): For stimulating a whole new economic sector in India. A coordinating body for India’s software and services industry, Nasscom facilitates business and trade in software and services and promotes research in software technology.

It has helped propel the software sector in India from an unknown industry into one of the major drivers of the country’s economy.

Yet another finalist came from neighbouring Bangladesh:

Grameen Bank / Village Phone found a place in the listing for what the prize evaluators saw as creating a class of local women entrepreneurs using Village Phones to connect isolated communities to the rest of the country and the world. Grameen Bank, which provides microcredit to poor people, established a programme called Village Phone, through which women entrepreneurs can start up a business providing wireless payphone services in rural areas. More than 55,000 phones are currently in operation, with over 80 million people benefiting from access to market information, news from relatives, and more.

Agri research

AGORA (Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture) provides access to over 400 journals from major scientific publishers in the fields of food, agriculture, environmental science and related social sciences. AGORA is available to students and researchers in qualifying not-for-profit institutions in eligible “developing” countries. http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2003/23019-en.html

Email solution from India

Netcore (netcore.co.in) has introduced Emergic CleanMail which gives you the power to monitor and filter e-mail traffic and protect your organisation from virus attacks, spam mails and wasted bandwidth right at the Internet level. It provides virus-free and spam-free mail. All the unwanted emails (containing spam and virus) are filtered on an Internet server before they reach the mail server and intended recipients.

eRiders initiative

The Global eRider Community [www.eriders.net] shares resources, ideas, stories and skills through an online community on technical and non-technical resources and skills, check http://www.eriders.net/community/discussion/

Agri-Usenet groups

Check out the discussion going on over some Usenet newsgroups devoted to agriculture:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF- 8&group=sci.agriculture Groups covered here are sci.agriculture.beekeeping sci.agriculture.poultry

sci.agriculture.fruit

sci.agriculture.ratites

Fighting mosquitoes

Mosquitoes can be quite a serious nuisance in our part of the globe, apart from being a health hazard. Now a Thai computer programmer has devised a software, called Anti-Mal, that is claimed to drive the bugs away with a high-pitched sound from your PC’s speakers.

The jury’s out on its effectiveness, but it’s free to download at http://www.thaiware.com

Promoting radio... via cyberspace

VOICES <voices1@vsnl.net>, a Bangalore-based NGO has announced the launch of its website on community radio. This website covers issues such as advocacy initiatives for community radio, the how-to of setting up a community radio station (including the Indian government guidelines, equipment and costs) and the various community radio projects in India. http://www.communityradionetwork.org

Simputer and education?

Hilaire Fernandes, president of the software-in-education network called OFSET, wrote in to ask: “I was wondering if the Simputer could be used as a computer tool for students. At OFSET (http://www.ofset.org) we are developing free software for education and interested in a cheap computer device students could use. Notebooks are nice but they are expensive and heavy. A device like the Simputer could fit our requirements.”

India Computes! is presented by Frederick Noronha, a freelance journalist based in Goa. He is the co-founder of BytesForAll, a voluntary unfunded venture focusing on how IT and the Internet can benefit the common man, particularly in South Asia. To join the Bytesforall mailing list send a blank e-mail to bytesforall_readers subscribe@yahoogroups.com Website: www.bytesforall.org