Update 1:
Connecting Island Communities: Pacific Telecentre Workshop, Brisbane, Australia

I left Guam for Brisbane Monday night, November 29th, 2004 and returned Monday morning, December 6th to attend and present at the Pacific Telecentre Workshop. The following is a summary work down at Brisbane workshop:

Over 60 representatives, including representatives from Guam, Yap and Palau, from 16 countries in the Pacific Region met for three days in Brisbane to report on and foster a vibrant telecentre movement in the Pacific Region. Participants included telecentre operators, librarians, community media specialists, researchers, academics, private sector and policy-makers as well as regional and international agencies from the following countries:

Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Japan, Malyasia, Nauru, Niue, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

The workshop was supported (with many representatives present) by FDC, UNESCO, GKP, and SPINF. Bruce Best, a telecenter developer in Micronesia, from the University of Guam (presented on the YOIT Network, see Yap Outer Island Telecenter Network summary), John Waayan, Yap State Education telecenter coordinator and planner, John Gilmatam, Chief of Yap State Public Health and assistant to the Director of Health and Warren Fukuichi from the Palau Ministry of Education attended. The workshop was very informative with a wide range of country, international and NGO workers presenting.

At the conclusion of the workshop, the delegates agreed to the following actions and recommendations. I will submit a paper for publication early next year.

Noted that:

1. the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly poverty reduction and literacy, provide a focus for global priorities in terms of human and society needs;
2. the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the Declaration of Principles and Action Plan, provides a global focus on ICTs;
3. the new Pacific Plan, endorsed at the Pacific Leaders Forum 2004, identifies a digital strategy that recognizes ICTs as a priority for Pacific Island countries;
4. the Pacific Islands ICT Policy and Strategic Plan (PIIPP) identifies infrastructure development including rural telecentres as a specific priority;
5. a telecentre is a community-based facility equipped with information and communications technology (ICT) tools;
6. successful and sustainable telecentres are established to meet needs determined by local communities;
7. telecentres can be built on existing infrastructure - schools, libraries, community radio stations, women's group, SMEs, youth organizations;
8. telecentres provide an opportunity to deliver government services more efficiently;
9. the term "telecentre" is not widely understood and as a result might be unlikely to gain political or funding support; an alternative could be to relate more directly to ICT for poverty reduction and sustainable development;
10. there are many good examples of existing telecentres and telecentre developments in Pacific Island countries (see attachment);
11. gender issues need to be addressed when implementing TC's

Agreed that successful telecentres:

1. engage local communities from the beginning;
2. focus on solving community needs and desires;
3. have a strong focus on women and youth;
4. evaluate, on an ongoing basis, including ethnographic action research, community use needs and impacts;
5. deliver both economic and social benefits;
6. have a business plan, clearly identifying ongoing revenues and financial sustainability;
7. have a commercial component, supporting the needs of local businesses;
8. develop as a partnership between governments, the private sector and local communities;
9. typically provide the following standard facilities - email, computer with standard Office applications, printer, internet connection, training and technical support - but can also include multimedia and video production, digital story telling, website production, ICDL training and testing;
10. can build on established operations, providing the opportunity to scale up;
11. can have an export focus, drawing on revenues from developed countries;

Recommends that:

Pacific Island Governments:

1. ensure a telecommunications regulatory environment that encourages the development of telecentres, through the provision of affordable connectivity in rural communities;
2. ensure a regulatory environment that encourages independent and community media;
3. explore opportunities for a regional banking clearing house, supporting the growth of credit and debit card use for online transactions;
4. integrate telecentres into national ICT policies and plans;
5. support the establishment of a national advisory group (or assign responsibility to and existing National ICT Committee, Computer Society, etc.) to guide the development of telecentres, including support services and activities, e.g. public ICT awareness, independent evaluation and research, development of appropriate and relevant content and applications, partnership brokering.
6. pro-actively seek funding support from donor Governments and international agencies, as well as private sector investors for establishing and upscaling telecentre initiatives, and for support services;
7. allocate the 2.4GHz and 5 GHz frequency bands as unlicensed spectrum;
8. facilitate access to the WINDS initiative, which aims to provide gigabit capacity satellite connections for all Pacific countries in 2006;
   
   
Pacific Island Communities:
9. support a process that engages local communities in identifying telecentre services that meet their needs;
10. develop community ownership (governance) and management processes for telecentres;
11. seek partnerships with local telecommunication organizations and their suppliers;
12. develop a user-friendly brand for telecentres in each Pacific Island county;
13. encourage local tourism businesses to promote their services on the Internet, using the telecentre to develop and publish websites;
14. encourage local communities to promote products and services online;
15. collaborate with other Pacific Island countries to establish distribution centres near major international transport hubs for goods sold online;
16. leverage on existing groups with email access, e.g. diaspora, government employees, to provide "start-up" markets for community initiatives
    
    
FDC/UNESCO/SPINF
17. take the initiative in establishing "Pacific Telecentre Community Online" to encourage ongoing collaboration of telecentres in the Pacific;
18. support the development of indicators to monitor the success of telecentre developments in the Pacific, building on the existing best practice research on ICT for development;
19. support the development of a database of telecentre best practice models and other telecentre information relevant to the Pacific;
20. assist local communities raise the awareness of their policy makers about telecentre opportunities;
21. provide a clearing house of information on planned telecommunications infrastructure developments in the Pacific region, and related ICT developments;
22. encourage Government policy makers to engage with civil society and NGO groups in national ICT planning;
    
    (See attached Telecentre Initiatives in Pacific Countries: Existing and Planned and Current Micronesian Status: Telecenter Activity and Action Plan)

Update 2:
Yap Outer Island Telecenter Network (YOIT Network)

After almost a year of logistical mobilization of equipment to the outer islands of Yap, I left for Yap at 6:00 a.m. on the 27th of October.

I inventoried and moved over 100 cases of equipment onto the outer island trip ship, MicroSpirit, for the voyage down to the remote outer islands of Yap State. From Saturday, the 30th of October to the 18th of November, my team of local Yapese and a technician from Guam, installed VHF LAN emergency traffic systems, 13 HF-SSB email systems, 14 WorldSpace earth terminals, new solar systems on 13 outer islands, repaired countless solar communication systems on schools and dispensaries and I conducted dozens of on-site workshops on solar powered, computer integrated, communication systems for remote island nations/communities.

On the 19th and 20th of November on Waab, I conducted workshops on the project and installed an HF-SSB system on the typhoon ravaged Yap State Hospital and a new SSB antenna system for the Port of Colonia.

I returned to Guam Sunday, 21st of November to prepare for the University of Hawaii-University of Guam Cancer Workshop (22nd and 23rd of November).

Thanks to PREL, SPF, UOG (Mike and Verna), Yap State, UN-SIDS and the National Weather Service for support on this massive project. We made a difference in thousands of isolated outer islander's lives': they can now connect via email to the world and benefit from UOG's and the Micronesian regional college's distance education offerings.

Pictures to be posted on www.demicro.org website.

I presented at the international telecenter workshop last week in Brisbane and I am presenting at the DE workshop at the Pacific Telecommunications Council '05 in Honolulu, Hawaii in January 2005.

Merry Christmas!!

BBEST
December 2004

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