Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Focus of SImpaCT
I have finally been bitten by the blog bug. I was bitten by the "make a positive impact on society using ICT" bug seven years ago. This was during my participation
in the first Bangalore-IT.com event in 1998, while on the organizing committee
of the Global Village Seminar.
Since then, I have been on an eventful journey and this Blog is meant to be a travelogue,and since the past is not as intersting as the here and the now, I give a quick summary of the first few years of the journey!
As an academic, first there was a lot of reading, followed by writing, logically leading into a lot of talking (presentations). The key article summarising the material read and discussed is the paper: Global Village: Aspirations and Opportnities for Developing Economies.
The seminar itself adopted the Bangalore Declaration on IT. Following all the talk was the call to action, which resulted in the Simputer, prototypes of which were unveiled in 2001, followed by its commercialisation.
SImpaCT is not about the Simputer. It is about the broader canvas of the impact of ICT on soceity, both positive and negative, of which the Simputer is just a quick sketch made with imaginative strokes of a small brush. My experience during the past seven years has been in India and hence my writings will only be about SImpaCT India!
in the first Bangalore-IT.com event in 1998, while on the organizing committee
of the Global Village Seminar.
Since then, I have been on an eventful journey and this Blog is meant to be a travelogue,and since the past is not as intersting as the here and the now, I give a quick summary of the first few years of the journey!
As an academic, first there was a lot of reading, followed by writing, logically leading into a lot of talking (presentations). The key article summarising the material read and discussed is the paper: Global Village: Aspirations and Opportnities for Developing Economies.
The seminar itself adopted the Bangalore Declaration on IT. Following all the talk was the call to action, which resulted in the Simputer, prototypes of which were unveiled in 2001, followed by its commercialisation.
SImpaCT is not about the Simputer. It is about the broader canvas of the impact of ICT on soceity, both positive and negative, of which the Simputer is just a quick sketch made with imaginative strokes of a small brush. My experience during the past seven years has been in India and hence my writings will only be about SImpaCT India!
