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Community Grants ProgrammePast AwardsThe Internet Society here presents the recipients of awards from its Community Grants Programme. The goal is to enhance the Internet environment around the world. This program initiative is intended to help ISOC Chapters and Members establish creative local programs in support of ensuring the "Internet is for Everyone." The project leaders will be making periodic reports on their progress that will all be made available on the ISOC website. May 2009 AwardsArgentina: Internet Source Web Page Project
The project’s objective is to create a unique web repository that contains updated second level information about Internet issues (such as penetration; information about registries, registrars, ccTLDs gTLDs and other organizations that compile this information; legislation; publications of studies in a related area; etc) within the Latin American region. The information will include data on a secondary level, referred links, maps and graphic interfaces that focus the information to a specific country in Latin America with the expectation of positioning the web page as a reliable information repository and reference for Internet issues. France: Promoting Access to Internet for E-excluded People
Project funds support the E-Seniors organization that provides access to and education on ICT, particularly to the active elderly and those with reduced mobility. E-Seniors aims to train their target populations for the purpose of bridging and shrinking the digital gap between generations, caring for elders by fighting against senior isolation, and opening new horizons to efficiently use free time. Continuing on previous work accomplished to date, Ms. Epstein and her team will use ISOC funds to promote access to the Internet by providing equipment to persons in need or free Internet access in places where E-Seniors already has a computer in place, to expose the population to the most important practical applications (e.g. email, search engines, and to a larger extent “Internet culture”), and to popularize access to electronic administration sites. United States: California Broadband Leadership Corps
The project will bring together FirstMile.US and two California ISOC Chapters (San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles) to help with a statewide public awareness campaign. In particular, this project’s goal is to catalyze broadband adoption in the underserved communities in California, specifically targeting the 15 million individuals that have not adopted the Internet in urban areas due to poverty, language issues, and lack of ICT skills. The Broadband Leadership Corps supports and nurtures broadband leaders in targeted underserved California communities; it is essential to create a grassroots coalition of trained leaders with a deep understanding of local issues. Local leadership has the biggest and most dramatic effect on driving broadband demand. Bolivia: Educative Internet Service Provider (EISP)
Cobija, Bolivia is a main city in the north Amazonican region of the country, next to Brazil. Due to its proximity to the Amazon, it is a difficult access location and it has a smaller population as compared to other major cities in the country. Moreover, the Internet is only recently reaching the community since satellite Internet is expensive. Recently, however, a telecommunication company has started to sell Internet connectivity in the region and one university, the Universidad Amazonica de Pando, has become the pioneer in connectivity for the region. Because of the university’s acquisition of broadband wireless technology, it can expand the wireless network to connect other smaller schools in the area. The main objectives of the project are to reduce the digital gap in the region, to connect the school students, parents, teachers, and the general community of the city, and to expand the wireless network to eight public schools in the region. United Kingdom: The Toolkit for the Dissemination of Cultural Heritage Materials Online
The Toolkit will create and provide open access to a rich and multi-lingual library of resources that will promote the creation of meaningful, well-designed, and sustainable digitization programs by institutions supporting cultures whose textual artifacts are under threat from the political or natural environment. Building on the success of a number of Himalayan digitization projects in using digital technologies to preserve and transmit cultural artifact and practice, the Toolkit will serve as a resource library and community building point for cultural institutions around the world that are beginning to undertake digitization of rare materials. This project is about enabling access for under-served communities (cultural heritage institutions in the developing world) to materials that will help them create successful digital collections, but perhaps more importantly it will be supporting those communities in participating in the growth of the Web. This is not merely a case of helping people to help themselves, but of helping people to help preserve and disseminate the very textual foundations of their culture. Australia: Capacity Building for Internet Accessibility Policy Development
The project aims to build capacity in ISOC Chapters so that there will be ongoing and strong input into furthering Internet accessibility policies for people with disabilities. People with disabilities should be able to participate in the Internet economy – this means more than technical ‘access’ to the Internet; it means that the network and equipment to which people with disabilities have access is usable by them and thus ‘accessible.’ Globally there are 650 million people with disabilities, with a large percentage in developing countries. The primary objective of the project is to provide the capacity building tools to promote government, regulator, and industry outcomes that ensure Internet accessibility for people with disabilities. The project includes two parts: the development of materials that will be trialed at two workshops, with the revised materials made available through ISOC to ISOC Chapters globally; and the actual conduct of two pilot workshops (the first at PacINET in September ’09 and the second at the Internet Governance Forum meeting in Egypt in November ’09).
Armenia: Creation of an Up-to-Date Regional Community Internet Center
The aim of the proposed center is to help people of Vanadzor, a regional center of Armenia, by bridging the digital divide between the capital of the country and its regions and contributing to the development of the industry in the region. Vanadzor is the major city of the Lori province of Armenia but it currently has a high unemployment rate. The potential for the city is quite good as there are well educated, technically minded people, a lot of schools, a Chamber of Commerce and Industry, some successful businesses, and leaders able to head new projects. In order to bring that potential into reality there is a need to retrain people and train the younger generation in information technologies, as well as provide them with access to the Internet. As the result of the project implementation, Vanadzor will have: an updated community Internet center, trained local professionals, a fast Internet connection, permanent courses in IT technologies and programming, videoconferencing facilities and a location for workshops and exhibitions. Bulgaria: Vocational Training on Open Source Software – Needs Analysis
With Open Source software’s wider introduction into the everyday life of many businesses and organizations, it appears that there is a need for a comprehensive training on the software. The main objective of the project will be to identify trainers’ and teachers’ needs and requirements regarding the access and use of Open Source software in the field of vocational training. The research will mainly focus on gathering information on the current problems and needs which stand in front of the trainers in Bulgaria in order to deliver successful courses on Open Source software. There will be taken also into account the needs of the trainers and trainees in the use in practice of the available training materials. A potential problem, for example, could appear to be the lack of homogeneous knowledge bases from where the trainers could gather information and compile a course material, or there could be also financial or other problems. In the end of the project, the gathered data will be compared to the results obtained through other EU projects related to Open Source software, and it will be provided a review on the potential common issues related to training on open source software in Europe – its specifics and peculiarities in comparison to courses offered on proprietary software. As an ultimate objective, it is expected that the project will help in improving the process of conducting vocational training linked to Open Source software in general.
Pakistan: Internet-on-the-Move
Internet-on-the-Move is a 3-month mobile-workshop project, to be executed in semi-urban areas, surrounding Lahore, Pakistan. The idea is to maximize Internet access, usage and awareness among private schools being operated by NGOs in these areas – by regular visits by car/van with workshop lab equipment and technologies including laptops, CDMA based EvDO and WIMAX based Internet access. Lack of infrastructure and facilities are common problems faced by these areas. The mobile penetration has been one of the highest in Pakistan in South Asian region. The wireless infrastructure thus can provide a very convenient platform for proliferation of the Internet. In 2009 the biggest ISP in Pakistan has launched 3G CDMA solution (EvDO) providing up to 3MBps speed via PCMCIA cards for laptops. This will provide a very convenient yet effective way for the project’s purpose. Outcomes expected are that teachers and the administration of the selected schools will be convinced to start their own computer labs equipped with Internet - after they have hands-on usage of the Internet and are exposed to various teaching methods available via Internet-on-the-Move. Final Report (PDF: 542KB) |
