Name: Basheerhamad Shadrach
Publish Date: 01 September 2009
Designation & Organisation: International Development Research Centre, India
Location:

Basheerhamad Shadrach (popularly known as Shaddy) is the Senior Programme Officer at International Development Research Centre, India. He, as the Lead, telecentre.org Academy, has been credited to develop the ecosystem of telecentre.org. As an information professional, Shaddy has been actively working in the realm of information and communication technologies (ICT) for development with various organisations in India and Europe for more than two decades. He has also initiated and developed a grassroots-centric evaluation model for pro-poor ICT programmes. He is member of various professional groups, including the American Society of Information Science and Technology, and OECD e-governance task force. In his interview with Telecentre magazine, Shaddy shared his views and experience on the role of telecentre.org Academy in human resources and skills development for a sustainable telecentre movement across the world.

Greetings from the Telecentre Magazine! We would like to congratulate you for taking telecentre.org Academy to new heights. How does the Academy help to promote the telecentre movement across the world, particularly in the context of the knowledge society?

telecentre.org, as you know, is a programme that supports telecentre networks around the world in their pursuit to sustain the telecentre movement. Over the last four years, my colleagues and I, together with a number of telecentre leaders around the world, have been relentlessly attempting at helping telecentres to succeed. For this, a number of support networks should function in a symbiotic manner. These support networks are a part of the ecosystem that nurtures and sustains the telecentre movement, and helps the two billion poor living in Asia, Africa, Latin America and in other parts of the world to reap the benefits of the knowledge era. Telecentres around the world assist poor communities to convert knowledge into action, and this requires skills. The telecentre.org Academy being set up all over the world, with its Secretariat hosted at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi, India is, therefore, mandated to develop

The ecosystem I have developed for telecentre.org Academy is an outcome of a two-year long consultative process, especially with the rural poor and the grassroots knowledge workers. The ecosystem is a win-win opportunity for the learner, who constantly needs incentives to be in the learning curve and for the academia that is often criticized for its inability to penetrate more than two per cent of the learning force. It is envisaged that the academia, with support from curriculum development specialists, can take advantage of eLearning and joyful learning methods to reach-out to an audience that has abilities to learn only in vernacular languages and at a relaxed pace. The Academy ecosystem also promotes peer-assisted learning, mainly from well experienced telecentre operators, who are identified as mentors. Thus, the mentors make the learning more blended and joyful as well as meaningful for they bring along real life experience rather than theoretical knowledge. Moreover, through a consortium of universities that strengthens the ecosystem of the Academy, the learners will be able to obtain credible university certificates and learning credits; and pursue their academic interests further, even to the extent of obtaining a doctoral degree.

Does the Academy provide the much needed institutional framework to the telecentre movement?
The Academy is often seen as the 'real' purpose of the telecentre movement. As of now, as you know, the telecentre movement is embarking upon the following four functions: a) networking for advocacy; b) knowledge sharing; c) skills development for efficient delivery of goods and services; and d) innovative practices for developing locale specific and demand driven content and services. All the above four functions can easily be carried out by the Academy for each of those functions are part of a learning process. The Academy will enable the telecentre networks in 45 nations to facilitate skills development among their grassroots knowledge workers, thus moving beyond mere convening of meetings year after year. The Academy will open up the vista of continuous learning and professional development opportunity for the members of national telecentre networks, thus institutionalising a learning cycle within the movement with a view to excelling in work. 
Capacity building and skills development of telecentre operators and managers are very crucial for the sustainability of telecentres. Do you see any specific role of the Academy in the realm of capacity building?
The main purpose of the Academy is skills development and capacity building. We need to build skills so that they become knowledge gatekeepers and grassroots champions and entrepreneurs. Once the grassroots champions are skilled to become social entrepreneurs, they will automatically become a part and parcel of the capacity building movement. They would be able to impart training to community members, offering customised services and capacity building to each section of the community. The Academy will also help to build capacity among telecentre network leaders as well as policy makers through collaboration with various other actors, such as

How does the telecentre.org Academy plan to coordinate with other national telecentre academies around the world?
The Global Secretariat of the telecentre.org Academy will be responsible for coordinating the development of curriculum, customising and sustaining the learning engine globally, and for equipping the national academies to deliver course-ware in their respective nations. The Global Secretariat will also liaise with a consortium of universities for accreditation and credit transfer and recognition.  The role of the national academies is very simple and straight forward. By collaborating with the telecentre.org Academy, they will be in a position to deliver curriculum to mentors and learners within their nations. The national telecentre.org academies will also assume responsibilities for placement services as well as for lobbying with their governments for incentivising skills development, especially in under-served and un-served areas.

What are the main challenges and prospects of the telecentre.org Academy?
There are a number of challenges facing the Academy. Although it is an exciting programme, it is also unique in its approach, and quite ambitious in its outlook. For the Academy to achieve its target of supporting learning among one million grassroots knowledge workers by 2015, it is important that all the components of the ecosystem work well; the most critical in this being the role of the mentors. Also, for the Academy to flourish, it is important that within the concept of the ecosystem, there is innovation, so that it can continue to evolve and provide for future changes in the education and learning stream. In addition, in the process of curriculum development, it is important that the basket of curriculum developed is not based on a 'one-size fits all' notion. 

Currently, the transition from telecentre.org 1.0 to telecentre.org 2.0 is taking place. How do you perceive this process? What are the vision, strategy and business plan of telecentre.org 2.0?
The vision for telecentre.org hasn't changed from its first generation to the next. However, there are many changes in its business and operational modalities. While in telecentre.org 1.0, grant-making and technical assistance functions predominated, I suppose telecentre.org 2.0 will be a collaborative effort of the present and future telecentre networks. The business plan will revolve around the 'value-adding' feature of  telecentre.org 2.0, thus also compelling the programme to earn revenue for every service offered. Consultancy services to governments will be a key and steady income stream so also the activities of the Academy, especially when it comes to providing capacity building support to the policy makers. telecentre.org 2.0 will work with a number of private and public service agencies, responding to the needs expressed by the community, while also capitalising on opportunities that exist by becoming more of a programme that revolves around aggregation of services and channels of service delivery.  

In your opinion, how would telecentre.org 2.0 be more helpful to the developing countries  as compared to its predecessor's performance?
telecentre.org 2.0 is much more promising than telecentre.org 1.0. When the latter was announced, there were not many telecentre networks around, barring a few such as the Mission 2007 initiative of India. But, today, as we soft-launch telecentre.org 2.0, there are 45 national networks; there are promises for over half a million telecentres by various governments; there are highly talented telecentre leaders; there are examples of over 200 services that can benefit communities through telecentres; there are more promises for a telecentre centric social business; and, there is the
telecentre.org Academy. So, I see much more scope and depth in the work of telecentre org 2.0 than its predecessor.  It is only important to ensure and protect the global character of telecentre.org, while acting locally in each of these 45 nations and the new ones where telecentre networks are emerging.

Apart from providing the public (eGovernance) services to common man, how do you see the role of telecentres in addressing new development challenges, for instance, climate change, disaster management, spreading climate literacy, etc.
We have seen in recent years, the relevance of telecentres in addressing developmental challenges, especially in providing climate literacy to communities, assisting in disaster preparedness and disaster management during and after the events occur. We have also seen the role of telecentres in assisting governments in food and water security by collecting and processing local knowledge.

What sorts of role do you foresee for telecentres in the course of inclusive development?
Already many telecentres are contributing to inclusive development. Wherever there is access to knowledge, technology and processes, there is development. Telecentres have shown how such an inclusion is possible without any opportunity costs. They have, in many parts of the world, become allies in financial inclusion mandate of governments and banking institutions. Telecentres have also become allies to local governance institutions. Under the Right to Inforamtion Act, telecentres are good windows of government information for citizens, especially those which affect them the most. Innovation and research in eHealth, eAgriculture point to the role of telecentres in extending agro-business, agro-advisory and agro-literacy services so also telemedicine, health awareness and social marketing types of services to rural people. Of late, telecentres are also being seen as community colleges that offer distance and open learning programmes to communities.

Last, but not the least, what are the new dimensions emerging in the telecentre movement across the world and what are the main prospects of this movement?
The main prospects emerge from the social entrepreneurs, who run these telecentres. In fact, they are replacing the last mile government 'babus'; they are also challenging the middle men, who unscrupulously have earned profits and commissions; they are also practicing the role of community based organisations that find local solutions to local problems.
The grassroots telecentre operators are today demanding services, information and action from the public and private systems. It is not a government scheme aimed at the so-called beneficiaries; it is a scheme that aims to benefit the governments and the industry that has, for centuries, failed the base of the pyramid. It is a new avenue to cement relationships with a billion people at the bottem of pyramid that are also counted in societies.