Mr. Fred Noronha Professional Journalist Bytes For All www.bytesforall.org 784 Saligao 403511 Goa India Tel: 0091 832 409 490 or 932 409 783 Cell phone: 9822 122436 fred@bytesforall.org

Presenting paper on: Leveraging Content and Capacity: Case Studies from Asia - Session 6(iv)
Having been a professional journalist for almost 20 years, Mr. Noronha has received many credits for his work including Panos Fellow in 2001 (reproductive health and gender issues), Sarai Print Media Fellowship 2001 (studying the contribution of South Asia to GNU/LINUX), co-founfer of Bytes For All - a widely appreciated site and e-zine studying the use of IT and Internet for development, member and Admin. team for Goa mailing list for 400plus expatriate Goans worldwide, founder member of India-Linux Users group.

Mr. Noronha is currently writing for Indo-Asian News Service, The Telegraph (Culcutta), The Herald (Goa), Third World Network Features, Radio World International US, Inomy (Internet News), zdnetindia.com, Dawn Science and Technology Page (Karachi), Deccan Herald (features) and Goa Today (internet column).

Mr Noronha holds an M.A. English Literature and a Bachelor in Commerce for University of Bombay and an Advanced Diploma in Journalism from IIJ-Berlin.

Some publications which featured Mr. Noronha's work include Economic Times, India Abroad, Financial Express, Spide Internet Magazine (Pakistan), Associated Press (photographs), INOMY, BBC website and a number of websites, newsgroups and mailing list.

Outline of Presentation

Leveraging Content and Capacity: Case Studies from Asia.

IT and India

* Is something really happening?
* Getting widely reported
* Self-fulfilling prophecy
* IT4development bandwaggon / gravytrain

Case-studies:

* Dr Sugatha Mitra: www.niit.com
* Gyandoot: www.gyandoot.net
* Tenet: www.tenet.res.in
* Toeholdindia.com
* Warana
* Mahiti.org
* IndiaLink
* Kothmale (radio-browsing)
* Karnataka Wipro IT for schools
* Pratham: www.pratham.org
* The George Foundation: expert diagnostic system
* tarahaat.com
* Sustainable Access in Rural India (SARI), Madurai.
* Simputer: www.simputer.org
* Railways: www.indianrailways.com
* Banking
* www.computersforindia.org

Categorisation of projects:

* Level of investment
* Scale of impact
* Subsidy element
* Replicability
* Making a difference: micro or macro levels

Linux in India.... Free Software

IT: is it a magic wand?

Getting people excited -- hope versus hype...

* IT4change networks (Bangalore)
* Infodev
* MediaLab Asia
* Aditya Dev Sood: www.cks-b.org