The telecentre.org village at GK3

Created By: Esther on 10-Dec-2007 6:27 PM

Imagine a place with brightly couloured maps, pictures, publications and where people and organisations involved in telecentre work can meet to share and learn. For me such a place would be the telecentre.org village at the GK3.

The telecentre leaders forum, a side event to the GK3 officially ended yesterday but with the GK3 kick-starting this morning, the place to be is the telecentre village. It is a lively place for everyone at GK3 who cares about telecentres and public access computing.

While here, different telecentre models will be exhibited. The village has a telecentre.org hub which is an informal hub where visitors can surf the net, watch videos, browse materials and meet grassroots telecentre leaders and activisits. You can picture this hub as a high tech telecentre of sorts.

But in this village is also the UNESCO Community Multimedia Centre demonstration site. It features a working radio station using radio in a box technology to broadcast the proceedings of the GK3.

There is also a demonstration stage and several presentation areas feature workshops, case studies, and demos of new telecentre technologies. I will tell you more about this as it happens.

There will also be a demonstration of different telecentre models. From multi stakeholder to government and private sector to grassroots telecentres. Here participants include Alcatel, OneRoof, Mission 2007, IDRC, Grameen Phone, Intel and Microsoft.

From this village, visiots can get to understand the pivotal role telecentres play in fostering social and economic development. Telecentre practitioners will learn about different approaches, programs and technology and also connect with like minded people.

For me, it seems I will have a lot to write home by the end of this event. I will keep you posted….

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