Presentations
From Www.india-gii.org
July 17, 2005
Presentation at the National Association for the Blind for the Linux users group of Delhi, entitled Technology, Abilities and Disabilities
May 24, 2005
Talk entitled Riding the Wireless Tiger in India by Arun Mehta at Golden Jubilee Hall, ECE Department, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
April 18, 2005
Talk at the conference on "Gender Perspectives on the Information Society: South Asia Pre-WSIS Seminar 2005" by Arun Mehta, subject Unpacking Internet Governance – And Finding Red Herrings
Tuesday, 1 Mar. 2005
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) is organizing an Open Round Table on the Role of ICT for Research and Training in Developing Countries as part of the "School on Radio Based Computer Networking for Research and Training in Developing Countries".
Topic for Arun Mehta: Business Models in Wireless for Developing Countries
Presentation at the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA)
Topic: Commercial Possibilities in Emerging Media
Date: Nov 27/28, 2004
Global Learn Day presentation Nov 21, 2004
Every year, GLD is a 24 hour live event that uses the tools of distance learning to look at the problems, opportunities and people involved with distance learning. This year, our 8th, Arun Mehta will moderate a panel entitled "Riding the Wireless Tiger"
Success in the outsourcing business has taught us one lesson: we can find employment for as many people we can properly educate. In this region half the population is illiterate, and at least half of the rest aren’t educated enough to do anything but manual labour. There is no way that we can speed up the training of teachers fast enough to educate hundreds of millions of illiterate people. The only quick solution is distance learning via broadband wireless to the village school, and FM radio into the hut of the poor (who cannot afford any other communications device).
We are here not so much to talk about the technology, but about the politics that prevent its deployment.Just as the mainframe companies gave way spectacularly to the upstart Apples and Sinclairs in the late seventies, the giants of the telecom world, unable to keep pace with the furious rate of progress of the Internet, are reeling. They need a push, and in many places around the world, they are getting one. Broadband policy changes in South Asia and elsewhere now make it possible for the community to take charge of its own connectivity, so that affordable connectivity finally reaches the poor.
It is time for us Davids of the world to rise, and to strike the telecom Goliaths judiciously. After all, we have nothing to lose but our illiteracy.
For more, please go to http://www.india-gii.org/wiki/index.php/Global_Learn_Day_presentation
Details of GLD are at http://www.bfranklin.edu
