Digital Empowerment Foundation

Vol 2 Issue 4 | April 2013

Quest for May 2013

UNICEF India Consultation 'Mobiles for Social & Behavioural Change in India' on 9-10 May, 2013 at IHC, New Delhi.

mBillionth Award 2013 Edition

mBillionth Award 2013 : NOMINATION OPEN
The 4th edition of mBillionth Award South Asia has been launched on 18th march 2013. After its successful launch in 2010, mBillionth Award has only gone from strength to strength. Keep visiting www.mbillionth.in

Red Rickshaw journey special

Celebrating ordinary women doing extraordinary things : Join us in an adventurous journey where two teams (DEF and Vodafone Foundation) collaborated to create an epic revolution. A team of 30 started from Delhi with an Auto, crossing 5 states, reach Mumbai with an objective of meeting Real women heroes along their way and to raise funds with this initiative to empower more women across the country. The three musketeers, 'Laura Turkington (Country Director, India, Vodafone Foundation), Carina Deegan and Sunita Chaudhary (first female rickshaw driver in Delhi)', were steering red rickshaws to meet extraordinary women all across the passing routes of the journey. Read more

Meet RRR Inspiration

Vijay Lakshmi Sharma : A firebrand leader and fearless fighter against girl child marriage : Vijay Lakshmi Sharma is 24 and is B.Ed. She has two brothers, Vijay Sharma, 22, also B.Ed and Mahesh Sharma, 20, pursuing Polytechnic in Civil. She was born to her mother Kamla Sharma, when Kamla was 14 years, obviously a child mother. Read more

A report by 14 year old child - Abner Manzar : Abner is part of a crew 'DEF' & 'Red Rickshaw Revolution' whose mission is to meet ordinary women doing extraordinary things. The team travels from New Delhi to Mumbai passing through 5 different states (New Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra). Read more

RRR Inspiration of the month

RRR Journey through the lens

Osama on broadband in rural India

Follow him @ Facebook | Twitter

Meet the Tech Innovators

Towards a totally digitally inclusive India : Not more than 1% of India’s population is truly habituated to depend fully on digital device-based information. But does that mean India is far from going fully digital? My observation and experience says no. India will be digital exponentially and there will be geometric progression of people adopting digital devices, either on their own or through schemes, subsidies and tax holidays. Besides, India will not be required to go through the necessity of being literate and educated through the written medium as the digital form is multimedia and supports seamlessly orally knowledgeable Indian masses. Read more

def publications

INDIA'S BEST DIGITAL FOOTPRINTS

meet the manthan winners

90.4 MHz Henvalvani Community Radio : The roots of Henvalvani Community Radio, Chamba in Tehri district in Uttarakhand,werelaid in September 2001 when a group of young rural youth came together in anattempt to find a distinct voice of their own. Read more

Voice of Gurgaon Community Radio Station : Gurgaon Ki Awaaz is a platform for the voices of marginalized community groups in Gurgaon, such as local villagers and migrant workers... Read more

Recent activities

A Report On Technical & Policy Consultation: 'Empowering rural communities of India through open & free spectrum' : Technology can play a decisive role in determining how networks can be used, whether they will be centralized or decentralized... Read more

TISC completed ICT & Education Training : Information and communication technologies (ICT) have become common place entities in all aspects of life. Across the past twenty years the use of ICT has fundamentally changed the practices and procedures... Read more

Digital Resource & Training Sonapur Centre completed first batch of BPP : 6th May 2012 was a proud moment for North East Development Foundation. The day marked the start of the first Krishna KantaHandiqui State Open University study centre in Sonapur, Assam. Read more

DEF Organized Four ICT Training & Capacity Building Programmes for NGOs : Last week, DEF organized four eNGO workshops under its eNGOprogramme. The workshops focused on ICT and digital training programmes to grassroots organizations. Read more

'नॉलेज सोसायटी' की ओर भारत के बढ़ते कदम : भारत 'नॉलेज सोसायटी' बनने की तरफ बढ़ रहा है। इसी कड़ी में अब एजुकेशन रिफॉर्म की बात भी होने लगी है। ये हमारे लिए अच्छे संकेत तो जरूर हैं, लेकिन, भारत जैसे ग्लोबल कंट्री के युवाओं को ग्लोबल सिटीजन बनाने के लिए पहले जरूरी है कि सही शिक्षा के साथ साथ... Read more

def's articles

Rural India finds a connect : Seventeen-year-old Rajkumari spends much of her time on the computer and surfing the internet. What sets her apart from other urban teenagers is that she lives in Baran district in western Rajasthan and edits a newspaper, 'Khoj Khabar'... Read more

Wireless for Communities Programme: Connecting remotest communities of India through unlicensed wireless spectrum : Information is power! However, creating an equitable society is one of the core challenges in India. Indians constitute about 17%... Read more

The Best of the Best: WSIS + 10 Global Champions : On occasion of WSIS 10th birthday, WSA Online Jury, consisting of 48 international jurors, once more evaluated 200 great WSA winners, all of them already WSA Winners in former years, and selected their 8 WSA... Read more

juror's column

Time to Break Free by Debdas Sen : A few years ago, noted economist and my professor Illian Mihov along with Antonio Fatas co-authored The 4 I’s of Economic Growth. The paper discusses what the authors believe are the major drivers... Read more

Government Services and ICT for Inclusion by Dr. Subhajyoti Ray : One of the professed aims of the Manthan Awards is encouraging inclusion and empowerment through the innovative and largescale use of ICT. Read more

Mobile Applications for the Health Sector : mHealth-the use of mobile technology applications for healthcare-is a young and dynamic field that could improve the well-being of people... Read more

Opportunities with Borders : In 2012, The Alcatel-Lucent's Market & Consumer Insight Team conducted a qualitative research-study of non-urbanization in India. The research has been spanned... Read more

Information & Knowledge For All: An Expanded Vision And A Renewed Commitment : Ten years ago, the representatives of the peoples of the world, assembled in Geneva in 2003... Read more

Special report "Women on the internet" : The Women of Expression theme for 2013 is Women and the Interneti. The development of information and communication technologies... Read more

In Rajasthan, Sahariyas throw off generations of slavery : Sahariya adivasis in Baran in south Rajasthan have waged a quiet war against generations of slavery to local landlords. Read more

Vodafone's e-Mamta helps reduce infant mortality in Gujarat : Vodafone's 'e-Mamta' initiative, a mother - child tracking programme, in association with the government of Gujarat has helped... Read more

Go Organic Using Mobile & Internet Computer Technology Tools : In India the Organic Agricultural growth is mainly hindered by low productivity, a shrinking agricultural land... Read more

Nav Jagruti Yuva Mandal Organizes 3-Day Community Radio Technical Workshop : Giridih, Jharkhand based, self help group, Nav Jagruti Yuva Mandal, in a guidance of Delhi... Read more

Mobiles and Empowerment of Minorities in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra : The socio-economic conditions of the Muslim community of India present a dismal picture. The Muslims are deprived of due representation in public employment even at the lowest level.India's rural Muslim population needs support to sustain itself and retain the faith. The project Mobile 4 Minority Empowering Minority (M4ME),is trying to weave Dalit Muslims together and serve them with quality content focusing on developmental messages. Read more

ISOC At WSIS+10: Knowledge Connects
Access to knowledge is a corner stone to human development and a major contributor to social and economic empowerment. In the past, control of knowledge went hand in hand with inequality and exclusion. Read more

India has an internet problem
Indian parliamentarian M. Rama Jois once described the controversial Section 66A of the Information Technology Act 2000 as “passed in a hurry”. “Hurry” is putting it lightly. On the last day of the Winter Session... Read more

Will new plans for a digital rural India hit or miss?
Since the internet was introduced in 1995 in India’s major cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkatta, it has steadly grown in urban areas. By 1998, India has its first Internet Service Provider... Read more

FREE National Roaming by October 2013 : Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal
Telecom minister Kapil Sibal today said that mobile phone consumers will get Free National Roaming Facility across India by October 2013 as announced in National Telecom Policy (NTP) 2012. Read more

IIPM and Blocked URL’s – with the Draconian IT Act what did you expect?
There has been a tremendous furor about section 66a, so much so that Kapil Sibal had to issue a clarification about who could authorize... Read more

Britain and India to agree cyber crime joint taskforce
Britain and India are expected to agree to set up a joint task force to fight cyber crime on Tuesday, a move London hopes will help it safeguard the personal banking and mobile phone data of millions of Britons... Read more

Internet freedom threatened by 'Six Strikes' policy
A program titled The Copyright Alert System, or CAS, has been active since the beginning of early March. Five of the major Internet service providers and two of the major content providers collectively... Read more

Representative Database of 1200 Ayurvedic, Unani and Siddha Formulations
Traditional Knowledge Digital LibraryRepresentative Database of 1200 Ayurvedic, Unani and Siddha Formulations. Read more

Direct-to-home to cost more from April 4
The Indian DTH industry is a fast growing and highly competitive market with few differentiators in terms of content. Read more

Cash crisis threat to local signals
Australia's community radio stations face an uncertain future after funds to help them make the transition to digital broadcasting were slashed in the coming federal budget. Read more

In South Korea, Activists Say Transparency Must Catch Up to Technology
An investigative journalist for the Korean Broadcasting System, the largest television broadcast network in South Korea and a beneficiary... Read more

Funding Opportunities for Studies in International Development at the Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM)
Applications for the January 2013 MSc Human Resource Management and Development programme... Read more

India's Spies Want Data on Every BlackBerry Customer Worldwide
In late 2012, back when it was still officially known as Research in Motion, the company behind BlackBerry handsets worked with the Indian government to enable surveillance of Blackberry Messenger and Blackberry... Read more

Section 66A of IT Act challenged as 'unconstitutional', Court seeks centre's reply
The Bombay High Court Wednesday asked the Maharashtra Government and the Centre to file reply to a petition challenging the validity... Read more

Prepaid Mobile Connections with Rs.20 Balance Cannot be Deactivated : TRAI
India's Telecom regulator TRAI today released a Regulation on 'Deactivation of Cellular Mobile Telephone Connections due to Non-usage' ... Read more

Eric Schmidt tells India to choose- internet freedom or censorship?
India is the “Land of Contradictions,” a country teeming with opposing forces that are coming to a head around government censorship of the internet. In the Times of India this morning, Google’s executive... Read more

Transparency pays: Are telcos listening?
With their respective reports, Twitter and Google are leaders in a positive new trend of sharing information that sheds new light on just how government surveillance... Read more

How Digital Behavior Differs Among Millennials, Gen Xers and Boomers
While internet usage is nearly ubiquitous in the US, mobile phone... Read more

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