sustainability first

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In search of telecentre sustainability

|Harsha Liyanage, Ph.D|

Research Publication by Sarvodaya Fusion, in collaboration with telecentre.org


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Harsha Liyanage, Ph.D.

Research Publication by Sarvodaya Fusion, in collaboration with telecentre.org

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Attribution: you must attribute the work by identifying both the sponsor/licensor (telecentre.org)

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For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work: Any of the

above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the licensor or authors.

The authors moral rights are retained in this license.

This book and the telecentre.org program are supported by the following social investors:

Sustainability FirstIn search of telecentre sustainability

ISBN No: ISBN 978-955-599-507-8


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Sustainability First

Table of Contents Page no

Word from Telecentre.org 04

Acknowledgements 06

Preface Sustaining Telecentres in Development Landscape 09

Introduction 12

Research Methodology 17

Chapter 1 25

Sustainability Dream Why is it Unsustainable?

Chapter 2 52

Sustainability What Makes it Possible?

Chapter 3 74

The Silver Lining of the Sustainability Cloud

Building partnerships for telecentre sustainability, case study ATN, Brazil

Tapping the bottom of the pyramid, case study Drishtee, India

Exploring the knowledge market at grassroots, case study D.Net, Bangladesh

Telecentres as a corporate social responsibility, case study Grameenphone CIC,

Bangladesh

Evolution of a social enterprise, case study Sarvodaya-Fusion, Sri Lanka

Chapter 4 141Social Enterprise Approach to Telecentre Sustainability

Conclusion and Recommendations 164

Bibliography 165


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Word from Telecentre.org |

Word from Telecentre.org

As we started the fabulous telecentre.org journey back in 2005, we invited hundreds of grassroots

leaders from all around the world to dene collectively what were the key challenges for the

future of the telecentre movement.

Some clear needs and opportunities emerged from those debates: a better organization and

knowledge exchange among them; a research agenda for the future of the telecentre movement;

a capacity-building effort among grassroots practitioner; and above all, ways to ensure long-term

nancial sustainability for those initiatives without jeopardizing their main social purposes.

As a result of this process, we engaged in supporting the creation of open telecentre networks

in more than 50 countries; we launched a vibrant online community and resource center (www.

telecentre.org); we undertook a global effort to train and certify operators (The telecentre.org

Academy); we engaged in broad research initiatives focused on understanding the social impact of

public access; and we started tackling the challenging issue of nancial sustainability.

The former was for sure a difcult challenge, as the whole meaning of sustainability was also

mutating as a result of an evolving, knowledge economy, a changing technological eld, and the

disparity of realities across the globe. We assumed that our approaches must also consider this

complexity by being open to diverse points of view, without prejudgments or the pretension of

nding a one-ts-all denitive formula. We then started a process of research and experimentation,


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Word from Telecentre.org |

looking at different contexts and experiences, and bringing together skilledand intellectually

generouspartners with different backgrounds. Dr. Harsha Liyanage was one of them.

Interesting responses emerged from that effort in places as diverse as Sri Lanka, the USA, Chile,

Brazil, Uganda, and India. We realized that sustainability models depended on context, but also

on the entrepreneurial and innovative capacity of local leaders. We became inspired by the social

entrepreneurship movement as well as by the emerging focus on new services to be offered at the

bottom of the pyramid.

Within that framework, Dr. Liyanage started a passionate research on identifying paths, models,

and successful cases of sustainability, principally within South Asiathe most vibrant scenario on

this particular eldand tried to organize it in a comprehensive framework. This book is the

result of that effort, which includes nearly two years of hard work, where dozens of people were

interviewed and experiences scrutinized. Nevertheless, it is - as any possible research on this eld

would be - a work in progress.

It is also the proof of how the telecentre movement is learning how to build together a better

future for itself and for the millions of people it serves in a changing era.

Florencio Ceballos

Program Manager

telecentre.org, IDRC / CRDI


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Acknowledgements |

Acknowledgements

Sustainability First is a product of a long journey, across four continents, over a two-year period.

Two interesting incidents mark the birth of this journey. One was a dinner table at Gallery Caf

in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and the other was a train journey from Ottawa to Toronto, Canada. The

individual who sat in front of me at both occasions was Mark Surman, whom I gratefully recall for

his vision, energy, and convincing power that formed the foundation to undertake this project.

Dr. Richard Fuchs is the next most important individual, who made important decisions to

accommodate me as a Visiting Fellow at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)

- the very unique organization whose staff I appreciate mostly for investing in individuals like me

to experiment, learn, and contribute to the world. I remember gratefully the contributions of

Florencio Ceballos and the lovely team at telecentre.org for providing me leadership, logistics, and

warm friendship at every turn of the research.

I am ever grateful to the ve organizationsATN of Brazil, Drishtee of India, Grameenphone CIC

of Bangladesh, D.Net of Bangladesh, and Sarvodaya-Fusion of Sri Lankafor allowing me to carry

out in-depth studies into often sensitive institutional data. Jos Avando and Fernando Portella

of ATN, Satyan Mishra and Swapna Mishra of Drishtee, A.M.M Yahya and Sultanur A.H.M. Reza of

Grameenphone CIC, Dr. Ananya Raihan and Mahmud Hasan of D.Net, and Isura Silva and Ravindra

Ariyawickrama of Sarvodaya-Fusion were key individuals of the respective organizations who have

devoted their precious time to answer lengthy interviews, and who subsequently directed me to

the important sources to carry out further studies. It was a great opportunity to witness the tireless


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Acknowledgements |

contributions of these individual leaders to their respective organizations, and I was fortunate to

enjoy their warm-hearted hospitality, friendship, and humanity that helped to shape the content

of the research.

Although I cannot list the enormous number of telecentre leaders whom I met all across Africa,

Latin America, Asia, and North America, I recall them with utmost respect. Their passion and

contributions articulate the content of this book. I remember friends of UgaBYTES and other

telecentre leaders in Africa fondly, though I was not fortunate enough to capture much depth in

that territory.

During the articulation of academic thinking, a few individuals and organizations contributed

immensely. Professor Michael Clarke of IDRC, Canada, the research team at LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka,

and Akhtar Badshah, and the research team at Microsoft Unlimited Potential Group, Seattle, are all

remembered for their intellectual contributions at various occasions. Loic Comolli and Eva Varga of

Nonprot Enterprise and Self-sustainability Team (NESsT) are remembered with gratitude for their

open-hearted contributions at formulating case study models. I am grateful for NESsT for sharingtheir survey formats to carry out case study interviews. More importantly, Karishma Kiri of Microsoft

Unlimited Potential Group, Frank Tulus of telecentre.org, Helani Galpaya of LIRNEasia, and Ravi

Gupta of CSDMS, all have my grateful appreciation for their contributions. Their reviews have

helped me a great deal to ne-tune the nal write-up. I also fondly remember Dr. Abhaya Induruwa

of Canterbury Christ Church University, UK, for helping me at formulating research methodology.

Contributions of John Zoltner and Christine Prefontaine are remembered with great affection

and gratitude. John has done tremendous work as an English language editor and I am thankful

for his critique of the book. I am also grateful to Prasantha Dematage, Shorab Kareem, and the

team of Mudra, Sri Lanka, for contributing their wonderful design skills, which have enhanced the

attraction of the book.


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Acknowledgements |

If there is pain associated with continuous global travel, while adding endless carbon miles, there

was a team who shared that pain with me, who wrote letters to me, and tolerated my lengthy

absence. My loving wife, Anandika, and three lovely daughters, Devni, Savani, and Asini were the

victims of those lengthy stretches of my absence. My heart goes to each of them in appreciation

of their tolerance.

It is always wonderful to see the end of seemingly never-ending research work and book writing.

It is almost impossible to note all the names of wonderful human beings who had immensely

contributed to this endeavor. Telecentre operators, taxi drivers, rickshaw riders, village leaders,

and poor mothers and fathers who shared a moment to tell their storyI salute them all at this

moment of ending this journey.

Harsha Liyanage,

Managing Director (Honorary), Sarvodaya-Fusion

April, 2009


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Preface Sustaining Telecentres in Development Landscape |

Preface

Sustaining telecentres in development Landscape

The last 20 years have seen a great deal of excitement about computers and the Internet.

Governments, businesses, consumers, and the media around the world have spent huge amounts

of time, money, and words heralding a shiny, networked future full of nifty gadgets. In the context

of emerging economies, this shiny future is more often than not linked with jobs, prosperity, and

development.

While much of this is hype, there are actually very good reasons for our love affair with computers

and the Internet. They are exible, general-purpose tools that people can use in any way that

their imaginations fancy. As such, they areor at least can bewhat Canadian pacist and thinker

Ursula Franklin calls holistic technologies: open-ended systems that lend themselves to human

creativity, innovation, and generativity. It is these properties that have allowed people with little

power and few resources to use computers and the Internet in surprising ways to create wealth,

topple governments, and change the ways in which we communicate as human beings. This

potential for generativity and innovation is at the root of our love affair.

It is exactly in this context that telecentres emerged. They came from the idea that computers

and the Internet are raw material for innovation, and the instinct that people would learn, invent,

hack, and generally improve their lives if given access to these tools. This isnt to say that the

government and foundation bureaucrats who have funded large telecentre programs were thinking


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Preface Sustaining Telecentres in Development Landscape | 10

this way. In fact, these people more often than not brought rigid, over-engineered ideas along with

their telecentre projects. However, if you talk to the pioneers and entrepreneurs, it was exactly

this spirit of generativity and innovation that has fueled them. They have always seen telecentres

as a way for people to enter the knowledge society creatively, and on their own terms.

Despite a great deal of skepticism, telecentres have in many ways lived up to this promise. Local

entrepreneurs, activists, and community animators around the world have slowlyand sometimes

in bumbling and painful waysevolved the telecentre into something very much like a computer

itself: a general-purpose tool that people can shape into whatever they need. Some people use

these tools to sell their crops at better prices so they can remain in the village. Others use themto learn the skills that will get them a job in the city. And still others use them to express their

ideas and make their voices heard. The point is this: People have found ways to use telecentres to

make their lives better.

With well over ten years of telecentre history behind us, the challenge is now one of sustainability.

This is partly about the social and nancial sustainability of individual centers at the local level.

The people running centers need to nd ways to engage and excite their neighbors. They also

need to generate income - or motivate others for outside support - to keep the doors open and

the Internet connection running. In more cases than not, this kind of sustainability is near at hand.

And, where it is not, centers will close, which is natural and ne.

The deeper challenge is one of continued innovation and creativity. Telecentres need to continue

to evolve with the cultures, economies, and technologies that surround them. They need to nduseful ways to weave themselves into a world connected by mobile phones. They need to invent

new social enterprise models that balance mission and market. And, most importantly, they need

to give regular users free reign to evolve, improve, and invent the products and services offered

through the telecentres. It is sustained innovation that will keep telecentre alive and vibrant.


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Preface Sustaining Telecentres in Development Landscape | 11

The path to this kind of sustainability is most likely through telecentre networks. When they work,

telecentre networks are like peripheral vision: they provide a way for people who run telecentres

to see whats going on in other places. This, in turn, makes it possible for innovative ideas about

products, services, management, community, and technology to move quickly from place to

place. There may not yet be many telecentre networks that are succeeding in this role of being

innovation channels, but such networks are certainly possible, and needed.

Leaning into the future, there is no question that we will see successful and sustainable telecentres.

They will certainly not be the large, expensive telecentres that rst emerged in the late 1990s.

They likely wont even look like the telehuts, kiosks, or village information centers of today. Just

like situations where computers and the Internet are the fuel, telecentres will create new ideas

from anywhere and everywhere, and become what the people who run and use them want them to

be. That is the essence of sustainability.

Mark Surman

Executive Director

Mozilla Foundation, USA

April 2009


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Introduction | 12

Introduction

Imagine a rural village, where women ock around the public water tap to collect the trickling

daily water ration, children run to the public school held under a tree canopy, and youth acquire

vocational skills by pulling a cart alongside their fathers while they remain hopeful that tomorrow

will somehow be different. Despite the gravel roads and broken lampposts, their aspirations

remain set on the hope for economic prosperity. The nearest telecentre to their village is a magical

place that nurtures this hope and keeps it alive. Computers are fashionable and the internet is

powerful.

As shared-access facilities, telecentres provide Information and Communication Technology

(ICT) access to disadvantaged communities that can hardly afford access otherwise. Often known

by different names, such as kiosks, telehuts, community multimedia centers, or rural knowledge

centers, telecentres exist in almost every country in the world. Equipped with basic ICT equipment,

such as computers, printers, and photocopiers, and often with an Internet connection, these

shared-access facilities have a common objective, which is to facilitate the development of local,

disadvantaged communities. People access these fee-based or free-of-charge facilities for learning,

communication, or business purposes.

The concept of shared-access facilities took shape in the telecottage or community technology

center movement in Europe, Canada, and the US in the 1980s. Aiming to bridge the emerging

digital divide, during the 1990s, telecentres were started as pilot experiments in developing

countries, mostly carried out by civil society organizations with the support of donor agencies.


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Introduction | 13

Focusing on disadvantaged communities (i.e. bottom of the pyramid) as the primary target

group, these telecentres aimed to facilitate community development above all else. Thus, the

initial models were mostly service delivery channels providing ICT services to communities thatwere being supported by donor agencies, charities, or public institutions. During this period of

telecentre evolution, attention was mostly focused on recognizing appropriate models to install

the handle-with-care equipment (such as computers) in harsh, low-infrastructure, unskilled, rural

environments.

Towards the mid-2000s, such pilots had expanded, diversied, or been scaled-up to national

networks in multiple countries, including Sri Lanka, Brazil, and India, among others. The intervention

of national governments, the corporate sector, and academic institutions contributed to such

expansions. Such progress has been linked to new terms, such as telecentre 2.0, telecentre

ecosystem, and telecentre movement, which are associated with up to thousands of telecentres

working as a network under different partnership arrangements. By 2007, telecentre.org had

suggested that there were over 60,000 telecentres functioning worldwide, of which approximately

35,000 were being installed in Latin America.

The growth of telecentres and their associated networks triggered alarms about their long-term

economic sustenance. How can telecentres be sustained beyond their initial funding cycles? Are

these cost-intensive facilities viable in the poverty-ridden environments? What are the appropriate

business models?

Another parallel development in this new era (in early 2000) was marked by the emergence of

a new prot-seeking ICT for development (ICT4D) industry, which tended to collaborate with

public or nonprot partners, but engaged the private sector as the driving force.

The primary drive behind this new industry is the untapped potential market within bottom of


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Introduction | 1

The second chapter presents the best practices by the sustainability champions. While the chapter

derives most of its content from the ve case studies, it showcases some positive sustainability

efforts by a variety of additional organizations as well. These two chapters were organized

and presented so that they may provide a basic picture into the factors that affect telecentre

sustainability, both negatively and positively.

Chapter three contains the in-depth case studies for ve key organizations. The cases present

organizational background, key lessons learned, business model innovations, nancial performance,

and human resource aspects in great detail.

Chapter four provides an analysis of the ve case studies. This chapter discusses the scale, stability,

strategy, and protability of the ve organizations, while scrutinizing their business models to

demonstrate how each organizations experience can contribute to the sustainability of other

telecentres and telecentre networks.


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Research Methodology | 1

Research Methodology

Telecentre sustainability is a broad and complex topic, echoed throughout the history of the

evolution of telecentres, beginning in the 1980s (Fillip & Foote, 2007). It is important to note

that, although the word sustainability is often used as a synonym for an organizations nancial

ability to continue operations, it should include the social, cultural, political, technical (Stoll,

2003) and environmental dimensions that supportor work againstan organizations ability to

survive (Fillip & Foot, 2007). The research featured in this book, however, was motivated by plight

of the telecentre operators around the world who have complained of their inability to generate

sufcient revenue to cover their expenses.

The telecentre sector has been evolving from telecentre pilots to telecentre networksoften

referred to as telecentre 2.0 (Harris, 2007). A diverse set of ownership models has emerged,

that includes entrepreneurs, community-based organizations, religious organizations, and state

bodies (Proenza, 2008). They are organized through a variety of operational models, such as public

access service providers, private enterprises, and social enterprises (Fillip & Foot, 2007), and

are reported to stimulate desired outcomes, such as developing human skills, social capital, and

knowledge capital (Kapadia, 2005; Heeks & Molla, 2009). Nevertheless, they are often associated

with undesired outcomes as well. Socio-anthropological aspects, such as gender, cast, ethnicity, and

religion, at times tend to downplay the desired degree of community engagement with telecentres

in rural, poor communities (Raihan, 2007; Atukorala, 2007).

Telecentres are in operation, more often, with a development objective (Gomez & Hunt, 1999;

Heeks & Molla, 2009) in rural and grassroots settings in developing countries (Proenza, 2001).

Research studies conducted in pro-poor development context is complex, due to vulnerabilities

that the people are exposed to, in an environment where livelihood resources are scarce, and

which also plagued by less-developed policy strategies and weak institutional structures (DFID,

1999; Heeks & Molla, 2009). Understanding telecentre sustainability in such a dynamic, diverse

context presents a complex and subtle challenge.


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This research was commissioned by telecentre.org, a program of the International Development

Research Centre (IDRC) dedicated to promoting telecentre innovation, effectiveness, and

sustainability. The underlying objective of telecentre.orgs work is to recognize and address the

factors that constrain telecentre sustainability, while highlighting the key elements that telecentresustainability champions have mastered. As with any research, there are certain restrictions

associated with this investigation, including both the limited availability of resources to visit and

interview partner telecentre networks and the limited availability of those networks to participate

in the research being conducted.

Research Framework and Strategy

With the key objective being exploratory research (Ryan, 2005) to surface the complex reasons

and emerging patterns of the telecentre sustainability question, qualitative research models were

chosen as the main methodology, supplemented with limited quantitative research (Ryan, 2005,

Denscombe, 2007). Thus, more attention was paid to the breadth than the depth of the issues.

The case study method enables the researcher to employ a exible set of investigative tools,

depending on the circumstances (geographical, institutional) and specic needs of the situation

(Ryan, 2005), resulting in a book more likely to be useful to the telecentre practitioners andadvocates that make up the core of telecentre.orgs family of stakeholders, which is the major

target group of this book.

Martyn Denscombe (2007), in The good research guide, for small-scale social research projects,

explains that primary case study research focuses on:

Depth, rather than breadth, of the material studied

Relationships and processes, rather than end products and outcomes

A holistic view, rather than isolated factors

Natural settings (explaining the complexities and subtleties present in real life

situations), rather than articial situations

Multiple sources, rather than one research method

(to capture the complexities of reality)


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The literature survey was carried out to study the existing knowledge about the telecentre

sustainability and to identify the telecentre operations where reasonable sophistication and

experiences are present (representing the multiple regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America).

Findings had been veried with the team of telecentre.org who has been supporting 13 telecentre

networks (globally) at the time of research planning. Accordingly, the research was carried out at

two stages, initial scoping study and subsequent in-depth case studies.

a). Scoping study; this study was carried out with telecenter networks in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

The objective was to gather an overview of the constraining factors of telecentre sustainability.

Empirical observations were made by visiting the telecentre facilities (ve to ten telecentres per

country) in Benin, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, India, and Sri Lanka. Semi-structured interviews werecarried out one-to-one with the telecentre operators, and group interviews with the telecentre

users. Seven to ten participants were in each group. Documentary evidence, such as nancial

records, progress reports, published news material, and image records (photographs) were studied

to gather additional data. Additionally, third party accounts (anecdotal) were utilized to validate

the evidence.

b). In-depth case studies were carried out with selected sustainability champions to identify the

models they adapted to overcome those constraints.

For the in-depth studies, ve network champions were selected using the attributes given below:

Uniqueness

Potential replicability of the projects studied

Presence of credible economic practices

Presence of social enterprise characteristics

Scale of operation and/or potential for further scalability (if not scaled up).

Six network organizations out of 13 were initially qualied. One was subsequently disqualied

during the detailed due diligence process; thus, ve were eventually selected for the research.

In-depth studies were carried out regarding their operational sustainability. One-to-one, semi-

structured interviews were conducted with senior executives, which helped to access the privileged

information. Furthermore, semi-structured group interviews were conducted with junior staff.


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Written questionnaires used for the interviews were developed with the support of the Nonprot

Enterprise and Self-sustainability Team (NESsT), a non-prot consulting group with twelve years

of experience in supporting social enterprises that strengthen civil society organizations nancial

sustainability (NESsT, 2008). The interviews had investigated into organizational information,

nancial information, and challenges confronted with respect to social enterprising, legal aspects

and impact.

One case study - Sarvodaya-Fusion - involved a detailed analysis of the 24-month ongoing

organizational transformation from a donor-dependent organization to a revenue-generating social

enterprise. Following this unique evolutionary process required regular, close observations over a

lengthy period of time. Participant Observation (Denscombe, 2007) was adopted to document

the change. It should be noted that the researcher is an honorary (unpaid) administrator of the

organization, and, therefore, had rst-hand experience of the organizational restructuring process

as well as access to privileged information that would otherwise be difcult to obtain. In order

to minimize any potential personal bias, the researcher employed Documentary Data Analysis

(Denscombe, 2007) to establish research ndings in an objective way, utilizing other research

publications, audited nancial documents, donor progress reports, and printed as well as online

publications.

For all ve case studies data triangulation was carried out with quantitative investigations and

additional secondary interviews. Organizational annual reports, audited nancial reports and

progress reports were the resources for quantitative investigations. Secondary interviews were

carried out with ve telecentres that had been operated under each case study organization.

Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted with telecentre owners and operators.

Questions were designed to study the ownership, governance, initial investments, products and

services, promotions, user patterns, business plans, pricing structures, and revenues. Additionally,

nancial and user records were extracted from their nancial accounts and log books.


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Table 1: Criteria-based Selection of Case Study Institutions

Organization Study details Features & attributes

ATN,

Brazil

Case study carried out in May 2008

with in-depth interviews with the

director general and two other di-

rectors, interviews with ve tele-

center operators, and two partner

institutions.

South American state-driven initiative, building multi-

ple partnerships to support telecentre sustainability.

Uniqueness: partnership models to achieve

telecentre sustainability

Replicability: replicable for most national or

state-driven initiatives

Credible economic practices present

Social enterprise characteristics present

Scale: national scale operation

D.Net,

Bangladesh

Case study carried out in May 2007

with in-depth interviews with ex-

ecutive director, nance director

and other senior members. Inter-views with ve telecentre staff,

and one partner institution.

South Asian, non-governmental research initiative,

capitalizing on knowledge services and products to be

offered through telecentres.

Uniqueness: innovative knowledge for develop-ment application as a social enterprise

Replicability: some components replicable


Social enterprise characteristics present.


Grameen-

phone CIC,

Bangladesh

Case study carried out in May

2007 with in-depth interviews

with director and two other sen-

ior members. Interviews with ve

telecenter operators, and one

partner institution.

South Asian, corporate organization, corporate social

responsibility (CSR) initiative implemented through

telecentres

Uniqueness: CSR application in telecentre

context

Replicability: replicable for multiple contexts


Social enterprise characteristics present



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Validation exercises

Data were validated through eld verications, interviews with third parties and competitors, and

published documents, including annual reports, and printed and online publications. Financial data

were veried using published annual records, audited accounts, and privileged information.

Beginning in December 2006, when the research was conceived, and continuing through the pub-

lication date, research data and interpretations were periodically presented to telecentre practi-

tioners, policymakers, and donors for their input and critiques, in order to establish the validity,

reliability, and objectivity of the overall research. At the beginning, the research concept was

presented and tested in a participatory workgroup called the Telecentre Leaders Forum, sponsored

by telecentre.org in Benin, West Africa (December 2006). Since July 2007, research ndings were

Drishtee,India Case study carried out in July

2007 with in-depth interviews

with co-founder / director, and

one senior manager, preceded byeld visits to ve telecenters in

2006. Interviews also carried out

with one competitor institution.

South Asian, corporate initiative with strong commit-

ment to building telecentres in bottom of the pyra-

mid communities.

Uniqueness: innovative services and productsbased on sustainability model

Replicability: replicable for multiple contexts



Scale: multiple-state operation

SarvodayaFusion,

Sri Lanka

Continuous in-depth observationscarried out from December 2006

to October 2008, with six eld vis-

its, interviews with a manager and

two senior staff, ve eld staff,

and ten telecentre operators.

South Asian, national NGO initiative, which has evolvedfrom donor dependence to a social enterprise.

Uniqueness: Social enterprise evolution from

a donor dependant NGO

Replicability: replicable to NGO context



Scale: national-scale operation


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shared through a monthly online newsletter (seven issues from July 2007 to April 2008), which was

circulated to 180 selected global telecentre practitioners representing multiple stakeholders in

the telecentre sector. Another online discussion took place in November 2007 through Ugandas

UgaBYTES online telecentre support network, where about 600 telecentre activists, mostly repre-

senting Africa and South Asia, are active.

With the objective of further establishing factual accuracy, respondent validation (Denscombe,

2007) was carried out by presenting the data and ndings to multiple telecentre stakeholders at

three international gatherings:

1) the international conference sessions at eIndia, Delhi, India (2007)

2) telecentre.orgs Telecentre Leaders Forum in Malaysia (2007)

3) Global Knowledge Conference 3 (GK3) in Malaysia (2007)

A colloquium was also organized to share the ndings with the research team of LIRNEasia,

Sri Lanka in 2008 and a subsequent presentation was made to the research group at Microsofts

Unlimited Potential, Seattle, USA (2008) to further rene the research insights of the overall

research documented in the book.

Table 2: Validation exercises carried out at multiple stages of the research

Event Time Participants Objective

Telecentre Leaders

Forum, telecentre.

orgcentre.org,

Benin, Africa

Dec 2006 Telecentre leaders

(Africa and South Asia)

Participatory workshop with

local telecentre leaders to

test the initial research con-

cept and gather insights

Presentation, IDRC,

Canada

April 2007 telecentre.org team at IDRC Presentation of the initial re-

search concept and plan to

telecentre.org team


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eIndia Conference,

Delhi, India

August 2007 Broader forum of telecentre

and ICT4D experts, activists,

academics, and telecentre

leaders

Presentation of the interim re-

search ndings for validation

of research methodology, anal-

ysis and data interpretations

Telecentre Leaders

Forum, telecentre.

org, Malaysia

December 2007 Global telecentre leaders rep-

resenting Africa, Asia, South

America, and Europe

Participatory discussions about

the research ndings in order to

validate the data interpretations

and the relevance of ndings to

the local telecentre leaders

Global Knowledge

Conference 3 (GK3),

Malaysia

December 2007 Sustainability First panel

discussion; broader forum

of telecentre and ICT4D ex-

perts, telecentre sustainabil-

ity champions, academics,

and telecentre leaders

Presentation of the research

ndings to the global audi-

ence in order to validate data

analysis and interpretations.

Colloquium, LIRNEa-

sia, Sri Lanka

February 2008 Researchers at LIRNEasia Presentation of the research

methodology, context and

ndings to deepen research

insights, rene analysis, andinterpretations

Presentation at Micro-soft Unlimited Poten-

tial, Seattle, USA

March 2008 Research team at Microsoft UP

Event Time Participants Objective


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Sustainability Dream! Why is it unsustainable? | 2

Community development is not about technology but about people. It is more than double

clicking and ddling with a remote control. It is about improving the quality of life,

adding an extra slice of bread on the table.

Damas Ogwe, Ugabytes Online discussion on telecentre sustainability, 25/10/2007

The Sustainability Dream Why is itunsustainable?

Chapter 1


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Box : 7

Mapping the reasons for telecentre non-sustainability

Policy reasons

Institutional

reasons

Economic

reasons

Social

reasons

No clear

vision

Lesser respects

at bottom of the

pyramid

Leadership

decienciesEthos

Deciencies in

management

systems

Legal systems

not supportive

Competition

Planning

difculties

Scarcity of

value - added

products/

services

Seed capital

scarcity

Absence

of

motivation

Non-conducive

national policy

environment

Absence of

entrepreneurial

skills



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Box 1.2: A day at an (economically unsustainable one) telecentre

Date: 15 July, 2007

Place: Telecentre, Shelabunia, Bangladesh.Background: Two years into operation. Owned by an NGO founded by a wealthy family, which

continues to support the telecentre.

Management: one operator, one extension staff (Mobile Lady) supported by D.Net, Bangladesh.

Average number of visitors to the telecentre (reported by operator) : 10 - 25 people / day

Visitor record for the day: Only four people arrived:

1. Student: browsed Internet to search university addresses and visa application procedures

2. Woman: requested legal advice from help desk

3. Fish farmer: accessed databases to search for recommended treatments for his shery problems

4.Fish farmer: requested support to nd treatment for dying sh. Help desk rst prescribed somemedicines that were not locally available and then helped the farmer to locate the medicine.Revenue: The telecenter earned only US $0.3 (Taka 20) for the day, though their earnings targetis US $2 3 (Taka 150 200) per day.

Telecentre Income / expenditure records from September 2006 March 2007

Month Income Expenditure Prot / loss

September,2006 50 70.5 (20.5)

October,200620.7 102.6 (82)

November,200664.4 94.6 (30.2)

December,200635.8 60 (24.2)

January, 200744.3 51.8 (7.5)

February*,2006173 159.2 (13.8)

March,2006 38.5 81.4 (43)

* In February, additional income reported US$ 146 (Taka 10,000) & expenditure US$ 87.6 (Taka 6,000) from

computer training classes. Accumulated loss over 7 months US4 193 (Taka 13,242) (Note: 1 Taka = US$ 0.0146)


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Time: November 2006,

Benin, West Africa

Place: Center Songhai Farm

& Training Facility

Event: East Africa Telecentre Forum

Alan Gunnar, the event-facilitator, started drawing a straight white line on the uneven cement

oor, symmetrically dividing the huge circle of 90 Pan African telecentre leaders participating in a

three-day telecentre leaders forum. The event started with Alans spectrogram exercise.

We need your opinion for one more question.

Alan eloquently presents the next question.

African telecentres must embrace entrepreneurship to survive.

He repeats the statement.

If you agree, please line up at the Yes sign posted at the left corner of the room; otherwise,

queue up at the No sign posted at the right corner. Please express your opinions by standing on

either side of the spectrum yes side or no side.


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Eighty-seven (87) participants ocked to the Yes corner, making the three at No sign post look

very lonely.

We all agree we must embrace entrepreneurship!

Later in the day, 12 participants chose telecentre sustainability for their break-out theme

discussion. The resulting brainstorming session caused a particular outbreak of emotion and

frustration by participants, yet scattered ideas lled the white ip-chart sheet:

What would sustainability look like?

My telecentre is serving hundreds of poor people. Am I sustainable?

Sustainability means living beyond the donor cycle!

We charge a reasonable fee for services. But our budget doesnt add up at the end of the day!

Business plan. How do we create one? We are not business people.

We are socially responsible operations. Should we follow the same models of for-prots?

How do we ensure a social mission while introducing economic priorities?

After 90 minutes of brainstorming and debate, as his peers nodded their approval, one telecentre

leader summed up the common concern: We all have the desire to become sustainable. But none

of us has a good visual picture of what sustainability looks like or how to build that picture.

Key learning: Despite their intense interest, not many telecentre operators had a clear idea what

exactly they meant by sustainability. In the meantime, some had a false complacency that they

are already sustainable.


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Competition

Sao Sabastio is a satellite town located a few miles from Brazils capital. Seeing Brasilias

fascinating skyline in the distance is always inspirational to the 135,000 people of this small town.

Four telecentres in the township provide services to residents of the low-income communities

earning less than US $600 a month, who compose 80 percent of the population.

Mara (Maria dos Reis Pereira de Souza), elected president of the Low Income Workers Association

(LIWA), a small community-based organization, runs one of the telecentres as a community

development project to serve the poor. Her major challenge is sustaining the ten computers and

other equipment provided by the Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade. They offer IT Courses in

basic MS Ofce at a marginal price of US $6.30 per month for a three-month course, and generate

a total of about US $462 (R $1100) per month to barely cover the utility bills and staff salaries,

which add up to US $464 (R $1105) a month.


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We have constant pressure from cybercafs in the area. They complain that our services are

cheap and not legitimate. We have only one software license for ten computers. Unfortunately,

we cannot afford to pay for more. Maras voice is commanding, though her eyes and cheeky smile

imply fear and guilt.

There are 15 cybercafs in the area. Though the cybercafs do not offer IT courses, they are very

attractive to youth, whose primary interests include playing games and using Internet-based social

networking tools. Mara recognizes the potential of IT skills courses to attract more customers

to her telecentre, but she feels constrained from openly promoting telecentre services due to

competitor pressure.

Key learning: Vey often, telecentres are not operating in isolation, and operators are exposed

to a reasonable degree of competition from the open market place. Their competitors can be

a cybercaf, communication center, or another telecentre operating in a nearby town. Action

towards economic sustainability often triggers intense competitor tactics.

We have a constant pressure from Cybercafes in the area.They complain that our services are cheap and not legitimate.

We got only one software license to offer at all 10 computers.

Unfortunately, we cannot afford to pay more


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Box 1.3: Income/expenditure assessment of 15 telecentres.

Following is a monthly income / expenditure assessment carried out during a workshop for 15

Sri Lankan telecentre operators. These telecentres were located in four districts, and were funded

by a donor project as part of reconstruction efforts after a tsunami disaster in December 2004. The

rst ever cost analysis done with the team revealed the signicant decit that they were accumu-

lating over the operation, which was expected to be sustainable after a two-year funding cycle.

District Location Expenses(US$)

Income(US$)

Decit

(US$)

Hambanthota District 479 35 -444

Madilla 339 32 -307

Andaragasyaya 263 15 -248

Wanduruppuwa 301 35 -266

Ampara District 278 43 -235

Karathiwu 238 5 -233

Kalmunai 214 18 -196

Galle District 393 5 -338

Brahmanawaththa 234 18 -217

Pathegama 257 55 -218

Welhengoda 228 7 -221

Mathara District 308 86 -222

Thallala 191 64 -127

Bathigama 295 13 -282

Palena 324 42 -282

(Source: Business plan development workshop by Telecentre Family, March 2008 TCF project reports,

Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka) (Note: 1SLRS = 0.0087 US$)


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part of the curriculum, and students are highly motivated to study. But the local school does not

have the facilities to accommodate the computers. And the families cannot afford to pay. But, we

try to allocate at least few hours to the students, free of charge, every day. Viraj Ekanayake.

In Shelabunia, Bangladesh, Nayan Mondalpopularly known as Mobile Ladybegins the day at 8:30

a.m. visiting the Shelabunia Polithathya Kendra (telecentre). Mobile Lady checks the latest news

updates from the help desk maintained by D.Net at Dhaka, 370 kilometers away; then she starts

her routine journey, peddling the bike through rugged terrain to sell uniquely mobile services. On

demand, she measures the water pH of a shrimp pond (farm) and connects the farmer with the help

desk through her mobile phone to sort appropriate water treatments. Services are fee-based.

She is given a monthly target of connecting 75 villagers with the help desk, which she meets

without a problem. Every day, Mobile Lady travels a distance of between ve to seven kilometers

as she moves from village to village. Yet, on average, she meets only four clients.

The demand is relatively high, but not everybody can afford to pay for the services, Nayanadmits.

Key learning: Telecenters operating in a rural environment with high incidences of poverty are

exposed to a complex set of problems. They are constrained by limited resources (e.g. natural,

nancial), possess limited assets (e.g. homeless), exposed to shocks (e.g. drought), often living

in no- infrastructure environments (e.g. no roads and electricity). Telecentre operators have to

make to emotionally demanding judgments and struggle to design business models.


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Scarcity of Value-added Products and Services

Every day, 18-year-old Prayagraj Chauhan of Taricher, a small village in the Tikamgarh district

in Madhya Pradesh, India, walks several miles along dusty roads, under the burning sun to meet

villagers. As the promotional assistant for the village telecentre, his goal is to cover the daily

target of selling the telecentre services to at least six people.

The handful of posters and printed material that he carries with him help to illustrate the services

and their benets to the villagers, most of who are illiterate. Prayagrajs shrewd eyes always

remain watchful to gauge the potential for marketing his service to every individual he comes

across. He strikes up a conversation with villagers effortlessly and is quick to understand their

needs.

Prayagraj is a walking promoter of TARAhaat, a telecentre network created by Development

Alternatives in India that primarily offers vocational training programs for rural youth. His primary

responsibility is to meet people face-to-face and explain the services available to them in the

telecentre in order to convince them to visit the center.

It is not that difcult to grab the attention of people. Every person I meet gets excited when I say

ICTs. But I feel a bit uncomfortable at times, especially, when farmers, artisans, and women ask

what I can offer specically for them at my telecentre.

He tries to emphasize the fact that the portfolio of services that are being offered are not broad

enough to meet the diverse needs of many clients.

Key learning: The rural population is composed of all age groups, ethnic and religious groups, and

diverse occupations. Most of them are illiterate or not sufciently educated. The ICT demands

and expectations of such a diverse community are broad, where telecentre operations are not

equipped with sufcient products and services to match the demands.


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Box 1.4: A bitter experience providing value-added services via telecentres

In mid 2006, Sarvodaya-Fusion had started experimenting with Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)

as a new value-added service to be introduced at telecentres. The plan was to help telecentres

offer BPO services to businesses in order to provide opportunities to local residents. Telecentres

would therefore be able to: a) provide micro-enterprises to their local communities, and b) raise

additional revenue to support telecentres operational costs.

With a very limited track record of BPO in Sri Lanka, the project has been considered a high-risk

pilot. To mitigate this risk, Fusion partnered with a corporate sector partner (CSM Pvt. Ltd.), which

screened potential BPO service providers and negotiated on Fusions behalf.

The rst step was a three-month pilot test involving three telecentres. The objectives of this step

were to determine the feasibility of BPO operations at telecentres and to identify the appropriate

business model.

The rst two months of the pilot generated encouraging results. With the help of CSM, Fusion

was able to identify and negotiate contracts for the less sophisticated services sought in the BPO

marketplace, such as webpage translations, the creation of Excel spreadsheets or PowerPoint

presentations, etc., that its telecentre partners could perform without engaging in substantial

training or other investments beforehand. More importantly, telecentre operators had embraced

the provision of BPO services as a feasible way to achieve their revenue goals.

Yet, the third month ended in chaos. Telecentre operators suddenly realized they were not

receiving the daily communications the BPO service provider usually sent them every morning.

The BPO service provider was becoming increasingly inaccessible to the telecentres and Fusion

Management. CSM, still acting as the middleman, nevertheless convinced Fusion that they were

resolving these operational problems.


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Yet, one morning, Fusion was shocked to learn that the BPO service provider had disappeared

into thin air. The companys clients throughout Sri Lanka were too late to realize that the country

had been cheated by a notorious y-by-night BPO service provider. The pilot experience was

very painful for the telecentre operators as well as for Fusion. The experience was particularly

frustrating because much of the pilot showed that BPO through telecentres can work, providing

jobs that support local economies while helping to sustain telecentres.

Blog extract from http://www.sustainabilityrst.blogspot.com/

Leadership Deficiencies

Mr. Wijewickrama, a 59-year-old retired schoolteacher is a highly respected elder in Ambaraluwa,

a suburban village of 1,400 families in Gampaha District, Sri Lanka. The village library, communityhall, and pre-school are a few landmarks that demonstrate his remarkable ability to drive village

volunteers to mobilize resources towards village self-empowerment. A village telecentre is the

latest addition to the long list of Mr. Wijewickramas accomplishments. By using a variety of

community-based fundraising activities, the village managed to buy four refurbished computers to

expand the original village information center (VIC), which was established years ago. The scaled-

up telecenter was a dream come true to many youth and parents who could not afford to pay

private institutions for computer classes.

Yet, two years into operation, the dream seems difcult to fully materialize.

There are about 25 youth seeking computer training, but we dont have a teacher to train the

youth. So far we have trained two village youth (as teachers), and both left the village for new


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jobs. The moment they get the training, they are attracted by outside private companies offering

higher salaries. Now we are wondering whether we should train another one, Wijewickrama says

with frustration.

The telecentre is currently operated by a village committee, which is inuenced and heavily

guided by the charismatic leader. The majority of committee members barely know how to turn

on the equipment, yet they make the majority of key day-to-day decisions regarding how the

center operates. As a temporary arrangement, Miss Nelka Wijesignhe, a telecentre assistant from

the Sarvodaya district telecentre, visits the village once a week to assist with training, but she

struggles to cope with the villages over-dependency on her.

Village leaders expect the telecentre to be run by volunteers. Thus, on regular occasions, I nd

that new faces come and go. Two trained village youth left the place as they were not remunerated.

The biggest problem is the absence of nancial resources. They are not ready to charge a fee for

the services. With persistent efforts, leaders agreed to charge 600Rs (US $5.20) for a student. But

that is only a third of the cost.

The village leadership has consistently fought against the idea of charging a fee for the telecentres

services.

Their fathers and mothers contributed to put up this building and even to buy these computers.

Now . . . how can we ask them to pay fees for us to teach their own children?

In Chile, the busy charismatic leader of the Maule Activa telecentre network, Leonel Rojas Urrutia,

has a different approach to sustainability. He counts on volunteerism and partnerships, spending

much of his energy encouraging them. After successful negotiations with the Chilean Ministry of

Economy, seven municipalities of Chiles Maule region and Telefnica, one of Chiles largest Internet

service providers, Maule Activas telecentres receive Internet access at a 40 percent discount.


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Box 1.5: Leader-centric networks; are they sustainable?

Leaders have a great deal of vision and ambition. Their vision set the path and the ambition fuels

the mission, generating human and capital resources to translate that vision into action. Thus,

telecentre networks, under such leadership, continue to survive.

Leaders succeed by:

Maintaining a circle of inuence within their target group

Maintaining prole and visibility within their landscape

Frequently altering their strategies to adapt with the changing environment

Always searching for emerging opportunities

Sufcient evidence could not be found to suggest that leader-centric telecentres are not

sustainable. But most leader-centric organizations fail to translate in-kind resources into nancial

revenues that may balance the books consistently.

Another quite common characteristic observed was that they often failed to provide reasonable

welfare packages to their subordinates, who agree to join the organization based on the personal

charisma of the leader. That, in turn, deprives their ability to attract professional staff.(Blog extract from http://www.sustainabilityrst.blogspot.com)


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Ethos

Digana Nenasala is located in a scenic environment, surrounded by a massive lake and neighboring

green forest. The telecentre holds four computers in an attractively designed room. The occasional

wind blowing from the lake carries the subtle aroma of burning incense, reminding the busy Internet

surfer that he is sitting inside a Buddhist temple, though his mind is in cyberspace.

Rev. Katakumbure Dammarama, is the young, enthusiastic Buddhist monk whose interest in ICTs and

passion to serve his community convinced Sri Lankas ICT Agency (ICTA) to provide the telecentre

package. The temples caretaker committee (Dayaka Sabhawa) generated resources from the

devoted local community to construct the building within the temple complex to accommodate

the telecentre.


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Buddhika Adikari, a 26-year-old volunteer manager of the Nenasala, was approached by the monk.

He was touched by Rev. Dammaramas passion and also by the idea of teaching the community to

use modern technology. He agreed with the monks offer to provide his food and lodging along with

occasional fuel allowances to ride his new motor bike, to become a full-time volunteer manager

at Nenasala.

About 30 youth regularly visit the telecentre. Most of them are busy downloading local music. The

place has become an attraction because the center encourages them to develop their technical

skills freely, through their own exploration. One youth managed to develop a local website, on his

own, to further support the music interests of the group.

The Buddhist temple is a place to donate for the benet of other people. We consider the

technology services offered in the Nenasala a technological donation to those people who hardly

can afford to touch a computer. So this is a place of donations, not a place for charging fees, Rev.

Dammarama explains.

Key learning: When Telecentres operate inside another institution, such as a public institution,

community development organization, or religious temple, their operations are inuenced by

the policy context of the mother institution. They are often exposed to a high degree of ethical

concerns, and are confronted by customer expectations that can be counterproductive to economic

sustainability.


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Box 1.6: Temple telecentres in Sri Lanka

In a country where 72 percent of the population is Buddhist, monks command a unique inuence

on politics and culture. Temples play a vital role in rural communities, as they are interwoven

in the social and cultural fabric. Temples are resourced by community donations and managed

by elected caretaker committees (dayaka sabha), as Buddhist monks are not supposed to handle

money. Monks live as spiritual advisers.

Most temples offer schools for preschool children during weekdays, and religious schools on Sundays

(known as Sunday schools). All the services are offered free of charge.

Many NGOs carry out their activities in afliation with the temples, and maintain community

libraries and community halls. The temples are regarded as regular meeting places for their target

communities. Thus, the Buddhist temple has long been regarded as an effective nucleus for rural

community mobilization.

The e-Sri Lanka program carried out by the government of Sri Lanka, had recognized temples as

potential nuclei for technology dissemination to remote rural communities, and thus introduced

a temple-based telecentre model. The model provides between two and four computers, plus

Internet access to selected temples, expecting the temples to organize operations. As of mid

2008, there were 217 telecentres set up by the ICTA inside temples and other religious locations,

including mosques, scattered across the country.


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Sustainability Dream! Why is it unsustainable? |

Absence of Profit Motivation

100 Dimensao of Riacho Fundo, Brasilia, is a cooperative society with 200 members. Their

dedication and passion for recycling is seen all over the place, with heaps of plastic Coke bottles,

metal scraps, and tin cans nicely sorted out from piles of garbage collected from nearby townships.

100 Dimensao sells about 80 tons of plastics, metal, and computer parts every month, generating

about US $6,300 (R $15,000) per month, which provides an additional monthly income of US $200

to $350 (R $500 800) for 200 part-time workers in the low-income neighborhood.

The organizations ofce complex itself is an inspiring demonstration facility to any visitor, where

children can play with toys made of recycled, plastic, zzy-drink bottles, while mothers learn

paper recycling techniques. Inside the complex is a small telecentre equipped with ten Internet-

connected computers.

Most welcoming schools were the least prospective places as the

majority students were coming from poorest families. Their parentshardly can afford to pay, even if the kids were keen.


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There are 20 students from a nearby public school being provided three hours of training per day

by two volunteer instructors. Osmero Pereira, coordinator of the technology recycling project,

emphasizes their criteria for selection:

The students showing the poorest performances at school are given the chance to learn ICTs

together with environmental education. Most of them are not motivated for their studies due to

complex reasons. But, we offer them an opportunity to learn computers and the Internet, free

of charge. In exchange, they have to engage with waste collection projects and environmental

campaigns.

Key learning: Occasionally, the telecentres are operated as a supplementary service to support

the major activities of the core organization. When the major objective is not nancial, they can

contradict the telecentres economic sustainability ambitions.

Poor Entrepreneurial Skills

In April 2006, when the ten-year-old telecentre network of Sarvodaya-Fusion, of Sri Lanka, made

the crucial decision to use social enterprise strategies as a way to reach sustainability, program

manager, Ravi Ariyawickrama, accepted the challenge of developing the business plans and

executing the new enterprise activities. Ravi handpicked 11 telecenters he felt were prepared

to switch from the familiar free-service mode into enterprise (fee-for-service) mode and ran a

participatory workshop to develop the business plans. The team recognized IT courses as thetelecentres primary service to achieve their targeted revenues.

The team used to operate in a social service delivery model to help poor rural communities. They

had strong experience and skills at mobilizing poor communities, recognizing pockets of poverty,

identifying community leaders, and convincing them to consider ICT as a new option.


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Deficiencies in Institutional Management Systems

Jos Avando, the Director General of ATN, spends more time traveling across the vast geography of

Brazil than sitting at his ofce at Brasilia. He travels to visit the buzzing metropolitan areas of Sao

Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to meet with senior managers of major institutions. His intensive travel

for the last two years paid off with his success at negotiating eight contractual agreements with a

major bank (Caixa Economica Federal), universities (University of Metropolitan Santos, University

of Brazil), and corporate giants such as AMD and Microsoft. As a bureaucrat at the Ministry of

Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, he also engages in negotiations with other ministries of

the federal government and with local governments (e.g. the Science and Technology Ministry of

Minas Gerais State).

All of these executive engagements are focused on a single task, which is to generate products and

services that can support the development and sustainability of 14,000 telecentres across Brazil.


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These diverse partnerships provide multiple services via telecentres. An agreement with Caixa

enables telecentres to become legitimate local bank agents to provide selected nancial services.A partnership agreement with Gera Negocios enables telecentres to provide online courses. A

Microsoft agreement provides 40,000 Microsoft Windows and Ofce 2003 licenses to telecentres.

GetNET enables telecentres to sell the prepaid calling cards of four major mobile operators.

ATN manages all of these institutional partnerships, which involves organizing delivery and

distribution of refurbished computers, organizing training programs, tracking business performance,

and negotiating with multiple stakeholder institutions, while maintaining accountability to the

58 member organizations that comprise the governing body of ATN. To help him carry out such

demanding work, Jose has only two full-time staff members and two other part-time supporters.

The team agrees that they need more staff, but policymakers (the Fiscal Council and Executive

Board) are not in favor of expanding the staff.

Key learning: When telecenters and network operations are funded by public institutions anddonors (NGO), the administrative structures are designed for a development service operation, and

are often led by governing bodies comprising a majority of professionals from non-entrepreneurial

backgrounds. They overlook the required administrative changes when such networks are

transformed into sustainability-oriented operations.

Planning DifficultiesWinning the Global Gender and ICT Award at the World Summit on Information Society in 2005 was

an exciting moment for Ananya Raihan and his D.Net team in Bangladesh. Together, they had spent

a tremendous amount of energy carrying out a countrywide survey in 2004, to recognize the needs

for knowledge products at grassroots level.


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Three years into operation, Dr. Ananya Raihan, Executive Director of D.Net, recalls the challenges

they faced while designing their programs.

We were keen on integrating sound sustainability models into the overall design from the

beginning. Community-need surveys proved the demand for multiple components of the project

- Pallitathya, help desk, knowledge databases. Yet, in the absence of models to refer to, we had

to work on too many assumptions.

Dr. Raihan emphasizes that his teams rst assumption turned out to be wrong:

We felt the stakeholders (i.e. grassroots communities) would recognize the value of Pallitathya

Kendra, and assumed there would be a quick demand, but stakeholders took too much time to

recognize the value (of knowledge products).

And the second assumption also failed.

To design the help desk, we assumed that a corporate call-center model would work, yet later

realized that ground demands were not consistent.

We could develop quality databases, with 30,000 web pages on nine areas of livelihood. But, in

the absence of a critical mass of demand and a varying degree of willingness to pay, achieving

nancial sustainability remained a challenge.

Key learning: When the network operators try to design new business models or business plans, more

often than not, they have to follow trial and error models, due to the scarcity of published material

on the subject. Sometimes, following corporate sector models can lead to negative outcomes.


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Seed Capital Scarcity

Investing in economic sustainability requires different kinds of nancial resources: quantity,

diversity, exibility and longevity. Lee Davis, et al. (Non-prot Enterprise and Self-sustainability

Team, 2004).

D.Net was able to take the initial step toward its social enterprise dream with its Pallitathya project,

utilizing the grants it received from Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) as a seed investment.

They ran initial surveys, recognized partners and grounded the four-pilot Pallitathya Kendras with

a small fund. Realizing the market potential for its services, the organization planned a detailed

business strategy to develop a separate division of D.Net, called Multimedia Content Ltd. (MCCL)

as social enterprise, with the objective of expanding the operation. The lack of venture capitalists

or other entities to fund their model became a major hurdle.

Shilpa Sayura is another award-winning educational package, developed by eFusion with US

$50,000 in grant assistance that was provided by the ICTA of Sri Lanka in 2006. The local language

software package was a unique product for supporting digital self-guided learning by rural school

children, bypassing the barrier of competent teacher scarcity. With the collaboration of the

Ministry of Education, eight educational packages were made available for students to pilot-test

at 26 telecentres and nine schools. The program won an i4D award and a GKP Stockholm Challenge

Award in 2007.

After two years of dedicated efforts, Niranjan Meegammana, the founder of the program, explains,

The product needs further technical improvement. Besides, if we are to offer this product to the

wider telecentre market, it is essential to provide advanced training to telecentre operators. We

have a small team, and it is a big task to provide training to over 500 telecentre operators and


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1,000 school labs scattered all over the country. But, we are ready to take that challenge if we can

raise sufcient funds to carry out the operation.

Key learning: When the telecentres and telecentre networks attempt to convert their operations

into sound business models, they require exible funding for reasonably long time frames with

sufcient volumes. But, telecentre being an emerging industry, not many nance operations

offer nances to the sector. On the other hand, most telecentre operators are only familiar

with philanthropic funding sources; thus, they tend to overlook the corporate sector nancing

models.


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Sustainability: What makes it possible? | 2

For a prot maximising company, the bottom line is how much money you make. But when you run

a social business, its about (social) impact,

Muhammad Yunus, Nobel peace prize winner of 2006

Sustainability: What makes it possible?

Chapter 2


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Policy reasons

Institutional

reasons

Economic

reasons

Social

reasons

Economic

visson & mission

Exploring

un-tapped

martket

bottom of

pyramid

Partnership with

diverse leaders

Social

enterprising the

ethical answer

Exploring

social investors

Enabling

management

environment

State lead

ICT promotion

Systematic

planning

Focus on

marketable

services &

products

Entrepreneurial

focus

Leveraging

economic

resources

Economic

motivation

Telecentres as

accepted

rural outreach

model

Box 2.1:

Summary of the factors contributing to telecentre sustainability, asidentified during the study with telecentre networks.

This chapter summarizes the key learning extracted from the overall study, which illustrates

the ways and means, tools, and techniques that are being applied by different telecentres and

networks to achieve economic sustainability.



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Sustainability: What makes it possible? |

Box 2.2: What does a sustainable telecentre look like?

Following is a list of characteristics that are indicative of sustainable telecentres, according to

the thoughts and perceptions offered by multiple stakeholders consu lted throughout the study;

A sustainable telecentre, at the very least, is a community-friendly ICT facility outtted with

computers and related equipment congured to serve the needs of the local community, that

is operated in an economically sound, technically up-to-date and socially appropriate manner.

More specically a sustainable telecentre will likely to have:

Equipment and Skills:

Functional, yet modest, technical equipment that can amply serve the demands ofthe local community, while adapting successfully for the limitations of the local infra-

structure.

Capacity to update with frequent technology improvements.

Presence of customer support skills.

Management:

A minimum of a single, dedicated, full-time manager / operator, who operates the

equipment and manages volunteers or full-time staff to provide services smoothly. Transparent management policies and accountability to its stakeholders.

Operation:

Reasonable influence to the local community satisfying educational and devel-

opment needs.

Provision of appropriate products and services.

A welcoming, community-friendly attitude and atmosphere.

Finances: The ability to consistently generate sufcient resources, through fee-based opera-

tions, fund-raising, or in-kind resources, to support:

o Operational expenses, such as rent, utilities, and Internet access

o Decent remuneration for the staff

o The maintenance and upgrading of its assets, including, but not

limited to, computer hardware.


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Social Enterprising the ethical answer

Centro de Ensino a Distancia (Center for Long Distance Learning) of Socorro in Sao Paulo, Brazil, is a

very busy (large) e-learning center. About 400 studentsboth young people and adultstravel long

distances, organizing chartered buses in groups, both day and night. The center offers 17 courses

at the graduate and post-graduate levels in afliation with the University of Metropolitan Santos

(UNIMES), including the subjects of business administration, accounting, pedagogy, and history.

About 90 percent of the students are school teachers between 25 and 44 years of age. In the

absence of sufcient higher education capacity in Socorro City, the telecentre provides immense

help for students and teachers who are eager to improve their teaching skills and educational

qualications.

Sarvodaya-Fusions Village Information Centers (VIC) save signicant time and money by offering

consolidated livelihood information under one roof inside the village. The villagers would otherwise

be required to visit distant townships to access the same information. School children use VICs to

get extra help for their school projects, such as the creation of the herbariums or seed collections

because their rural schools are deprived of facilities. Kamal Kapadia, a Ph.D. candidate from the

University of Berkeley, disclosed in her research report that People learn about child rights and

negative aspects of corporal punishment through their exposure to VICs. (Kapadia, 2005)


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The elected president of the Bogahawella Sarvodaya Village Society, of Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka,

bought a Pentium 4 computer, spending his own money that saved over a period of time. Months

later, his 15-year-old son managed to develop a database single-handedly, that can track

information on each and every family in the village. The president claims that this system is

extremely helpful for him when establishing village development priorities, as with a few clicks he

can aggregate information by individual family or by family needs (wells, toilets, etc.). As Kamal

Kapadia emphasizes, there is a little doubt that the VIC serves as a catalyst for this process to

occur (Kapadia, 2005).

On average, Fusion spends about US $60 (6,500 Rs. SL.) to provide initial training and follow-up

guidance for each VIC. VICs are set up by village communities, which spend village resources (in-kind

as well as nancial resources) to the estimated value of US $75 (7,500 Rs. SL.). Over a three-year

period, their accumulated average assetsin terms of furniture, shelves, and building material

are estimated at over US $200 (20,000 Rs.SL.), which is gathered mostly from donations.

Key learning: The social enterprise approach provides a practical modal to answer the ethical and

social concerns associated with economic sustainability. Already some telecentre networks adapt

this model.


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Entrepreneurial Focus

We started our business as a computer repair center three years ago, but we wanted to open a

telecentre, as there is a good demand for Internet and computer services, and we are proud that

we could become a part of Grameenphone, a very big brand name in the country. Muhammad,

the co-owner of Ecom Cybercaf, Gazipursadar, Bangladesh, was ambitious and hopeful that they

would generate a prot, even it was still not earning much revenue at the time.

There was hope and optimism, yet also anxiety and a feeling of urgency, behind the entrepreneurial

drive of the telecentre operator. Support organizations, such as Grameenphone CIC, Drishtee make

every effort to maintain such entrepreneurial drive across their networks. As for-prot operations,

they depend on entrepreneurship and have created institutional structures and supporting tools to

encourage that drive (See case studies in chapter 3.).

Nevertheless, non-prot organizations, such as Sarvodaya-Fusion and D.Net, have also learned

to support entrepreneurial characteristics in their centers and staff. This evolution took nearly a

decade for Sarvodaya-Fusion, as it made the journey from a philanthropic mindset to a socially

entrepreneurial one. Sarvodaya-Fusion has attempted various trial and error efforts to develop

appropriate telecentre models, then to design business models around them, and nally to

incorporate value-added service packages to increase customer ow and revenue (Box 2.3).

Key learning: Developing an economic focus (in addition to a social focus), and its consistency

throughout the operation, is essential to ensure economic sustainability.


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Box 2.3: Sarvodaya-Fusions social enterprise evolution

From 1997 until 2000, telecentre services were mostly unstructured and driven by local demand. The

major services offered were photocopying, ICT hubs for youth newspapers, bio-diversity databases,

and the creation of PowerPoint presentations, all offered free of charge (Kapadia, 2005).

In 2000, the organization experimented with multiple trial and error efforts aimed at achieving

sustainability. These efforts ranged through innovations in policy and management structures,

revenue generation and business models, and telecentre service packages. As an example of

service experimentation, ICT courses were tested as a fee-based, value-added service. In order

to accommodate disadvantaged communities, a scholarship program was designed, which enabled

697 students from deprived communities to receive the courses at a 60 percent discounted rate.

The discount was paid for by a philanthropic donor (Progress Report, 2007).

In 2004, Sarvodaya undertook a major assignment to develop a Subsidy Voucher for the Information

and Communications Technology Agency (ICTA). Research conducted for the project provided

valuable lessons regarding the social dynamics of the rural communities around the telecentres.

(Liyanage, 2005; Sarvodaya Consultancy Report, 2004).

From 2004 to 2005, eight well-structured IT course modules were developed for children, youth, and

unemployed rural communities. Such courses were offered, for a fee, at 12 selected telecentres.

In 2006, the Sarvodaya telecentre network was decentralized, and an organization (a specialized

program branded as Sarvodaya-Fusion) began working more closely with non-Sarvodaya telecentres,

forming a telecentre alliance (Aka: Telecenter-family).

In 2007, Sarvodaya-Fusion designed core services (ICT education) to be offered through a network of

telecentres that supports revenue generation to member telecentres as well as core organizations.

(See Case Study- Sarvodaya-Fusion, Chapter 3).


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Leveraging Economic Resources

For Mara of San Sabastiao, Brazil, the primary motivation to create a telecentre was to support

the ailing micro-enterprises of 200 poor families of the Low Income Family Association (LIFA). As

youth tended to dominate the ten computers donated by the Ministry of Development, Industry

and Foreign Trade of Brazil, she began to realize that there was another need to be fullled.

We did not realize that we were breaking the law until we received the notication from a

regulatory body reminding us to comply with proprietary software regulations. Subsequently,

we learned that there are four other privately operated cybercafs that felt threatened by our

presence, explains Mara regarding the challenges that made her more conscious of the economicsof her telecentre operation. She nished her story with a sigh of relief:

Thanks to ATN, we are now receiving licensed software. No more troubles to offer ICT classes!

She refers to Microsoft software donations arranged by ATN, which have helped make it possible for

the telecentre to offer ICT classes as a major fee based service to sustain its operations.


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In Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka, the volunteers in one VIC were keen to buy a public phone for their

village because no such phone existed in the entire village. To raise money for the telephone, they

organized a rafe, offering a fan and a

sustainability first

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