Continent Visits with ICT Policy Conferences (From South Pole)

I must say lucky for being able to visit popular countries of two continents with policy conference within this year 2014. ICANN-50 London meeting form 21-26 Jun, 2014; as it is an apex body of internet policy making especially on domain names and numbers & CPR South -2014 (Communication Policy Research South) Conference which I am attending now at Johannesburg, South Africa.

Being lecturer of computer engineering at Tribhuvan University, ICANN-50 policy meet was really fruitful for me and it boosted me up more into my lectures and fulfill the requirements of syllabus to achieve university degree for my students. Additionally I am a master’s student of Tribhuvan University: Masters of Public Administration (MPA).  While I studied public policy subject in my MPA degree, it influenced me towards ICT policy which is the concern of public and a part of public policy. My job while I was an Asst. Director at Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) also catalyzed me towards the value of policy formulation and its importance for the country.  I have decided to continue study towards policy formulation, implementation, public policy impacts and many more in my dissertation period of MPA degree.

When I completed my short term research on “Tele-Center impact on rural Nepal” I have further decided to have research on “ICT in the rural Nepal: Prospects and Problems” which has major research question as “what are the major challenges of increasing ICT accessibilities in the rural Nepal”.  I expect this conference would be highly fruitful not only of ICT policy making but also about how to carry out proper research in the sectors.

On the way form OR Tambo Airport (JNB) to Riverstone

First time I felt really different in my abroad visit after I reached Riverstone Lodge, a bit far from Johannesburg city main area. It is like resort and warmly hospitalized.

ICT and the Rural Nepal

“Baburam ji, lets incorporate an idea, write an article/paper and recommend the government to implement this idea…”, Kailash Prasad Neupane, Deputy Director (Legal), just gave me attention from my nearby cabin at Nepal Telecommunications Authority, while I was still at NTA acting as an Asst. Director. During the moment, when I already informed NTA to switch my job.

“Sure Kailash sir, let me know what to incorporate in our paper/article that shall knock our government.”   I replied.

Nepal Telecom has already lunched WiMAX services throughout the country. Before this the ADSL services were reached to all VDC level, which was set as policy by the government enforcing NT and subsidizing it for those services to make it available to rural areas of Nepal. Till this period, more than 5-billion Rupees was already in stock of NTA behind the revenue collected on behalf of Rural Telecommunications Disbursement Fund (RTDF), 4% of operator’s income. Mean while, I saw the information on Nepalese news media about the initiation taken by Ministry of Education regarding “Connect School, Connect Community” project with the main objective to provide ICT services to communities and public schools of rural areas of Nepal targeting farmers, students, community personnel and school teachers to be more aware of ICT and focus of economic growth. Our Dy-Director’s concept was “lets propose for Rural Nepal Wi-Fi free one” utilizing the RTDF to kick-tart the project and propose for way for self sustainability. Let us analyze first which one broadband technology (ADSL, wireless Zone, WiMAX, GPRS….) would best suit for least cost better service into rural areas. We kept in mind that there is Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and targets of WSIS (world summit on information society), those we can achieve only if Nepal addresses those rural areas by providing ICT connectivity and its services.

Concept was quite appreciable, however there are lots of challenging with rural people and the main thing is