In January 2008 connectivity between the Research and Education Communities in Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa was established with a 1 Gbps between the UbuntuNet Alliance and GÉANT.
Director General Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology
Principal Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology
Prof. Bjorn Pehrson KTH, ICT TS-LAB, ELECTRUM 229
Amos M. Nungu Dar Es Salaam Institute of Technology
Main/Partner organisations
Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology
Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology
KTH, ICT TS-LAB, ELECTRUM 229
Dar Es Salaam Institute of Technology
Contact Details
Director General Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology P.O.Box 4302, Dar es Salaam, TANZANIA Email:dg [AT] costech.or.tz
Principal Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology P.O. Box 2958, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Email:principaldit [AT] dit.ac.tz
Prof. Bjorn Pehrson KTH, ICT TS-LAB, ELECTRUM 229 164 40 Kista, Stockholm, Sweden Email:bjorn [AT] it.kth.se
Amos M. Nungu Dar Es Salaam Institute of Technology P.O.Box 2958, Dar es Salaam, TANZANIA Email: amnungu [AT] kth.se or amosnungu@dit.ac.tz
Objectives and short summary of activities
To facilitate public investments in infrastructure,
the focus of the project is on business development in basic public
services, such as education, health, local government and support to
rural entrepreneurs. To design business models for sustainable
operation of the infrastructure and services, every stone is turned to
find users that can benefit from the services and are able to pay for
them.
The project is implemented as a set of pilot
sites, testing different infrastructures and different business models
for operating the networks and providing the services in a sustainable
way. The project is using existing infrastructures (optic fibre,
wireless, microwave links etc) wherever possible to avoid costs of
constructing new ones.
To accomplish capacity
building, the bulk of the work in the project is done by stakeholder’s
employees and other qualified Tanzanians in the framework of
problem-oriented, project-driven courses and thesis projects in PhD and
Master programmes offered in cooperation between Dar es Salaam Intsitute
of Technology (DIT) and Royal Institute of Technology (KTH).
This approach combines individual learning towards degrees,
organisational learning towards certification of institutional skills
and consortial learning deepening the understanding of communication
markets and the roles of different actors.
Goals
To design an approach to ICT-based rural development to be the
basis for a development program with sub goals and draft workplans for
1,2,3 ,5 and 10 years.
To establish one pilot site per year to test technical solutions and business models
To identify end-users needs and ability to pay for their services
To propose and test methods that can be scaled up on a national level
Target/Beneficiary community
Technology used, standards and services employed
Research activities carried and out and scientific data generated
The program is built on four pillars: Usage, Technology, Entrepreneurship and Impact Assessment:
Usage
Identify
and support proactive local user representatives of user organisations,
at potential and selected pilot sites, that can be mandated by their
own organisations to take responsibility for the development of ICT
usage within their organisations, focusing primarily on schools, health
centres, local administration offices in public sector, SMEs and start-ups in the private sector, civil society organisations and households
Initiate and coordinate activities supporting ICT usage at selected pilot sites.
Provide report on the existence/penetration of e-services (government, school, health) at selected site
Based
on the report above, provide suggestions on how to bring those services
to the community so that they will be utilized efficiently
As
the project is targeting government offices, advise on how to motivate
the government so that they can start paying for the services offered
Make
a follow-up after the project implementation and report on how the
project accomplished in bringing the e-services to the area
Technology
Identify
technologies and technical solutions that can be used to provide
broadband network connectivity and ICT services in the rural of
Tanzania
Provide guidelines for how to design, install,
operate and maintain networks and services based on these technologies
and technical solutions
Make follow-ups and report on how the implemented technology best suit the environment
Entrepreneurship
Identify
and disseminate information about ICT business opportunities related to
provisioning of broadband services in rural Tanzania
Evaluate and report entrepreneur awareness of people at selected site.
Assist entrepreneurs in venture creation and business establishment
Stimulate
the organisation of education and training opportunities on all levels
(local, district, regional, national) for ICT entrepreneurs that can
establish, operate and manage sustainable broadband service
provisioning in rural Tanzania
Make suggestions on how the project can create awareness for people to utilise opportunities created by the project
Report how the project has impacted the society by job creation, more opportunities
Assessment
Initiate
and coordinate Baseline and Impact studies at selected pilot sites and
benchmarking studies between selected sites in a way that can provide
dynamic feedback to the monitoring processes in other pillars
Evaluate and report on the conditions and life style and economic level of the people at selected site.
Provide
another evaluation report 6 months later after the project
implementation to asses how the technology has impacted their lives and
economy.
Principal outcomes and documentation (plus link to case studies)
Other potential application areas/ actual spillovers
