Search Disabled |
|
|
|
Search Options | Help | Site Map | Cultivate Web Site | ||||
|
|
|||||
| Home | Current Issue | Index of Back Issues |
| Issue 4 Home | Editorial | Features | Regular Columns | News & Events | Misc. | ||
By Mike Robbins - May 2001
Mike Robbins gives a further introduction to Asia IT&C, a programme first mentioned in the news and events section of issue 2 of Cultivate Interactive. Asia IT&C is a five-year programme under the European Commission which co-finances projects in the Information Technology and Communications (IT&C) sectors. The projects must be joint activities between non-profit-making partners in at least two EU member states, and at least one of the participating countries/territories, which are: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. The lead partner can be either Asian or European. Co-financing of up to 80% and €400,000 is available, depending on the programme component.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Asia
IT&C began in late 1999. Its purpose is to address not only
the ‘digital divide’ between rich and poor nations, but
also between knowledge-rich and knowledge-poor members of the
same society. It does this by co-financing co-operation between
Asia and Europe. This is the core philosophy underpinning the
programme; its intention is to strengthen links between the
IT&C sectors from both continents, rather than just handing
out grants. Like all EU activities, the programme is intended to
involve more than one EU member country, which is why there must
be partners from at least two different countries. If just one EU
country was involved, bilateral assistance from that
country’s Government would be more appropriate.
The partners must be non-profit-making, typically, they are Government departments, colleges, universities or NGOs (non-government organisations). However, this does not mean that the programme is irrelevant to the private sector, consideration is also given to projects that intend to strengthen the IT infrastructure for business. The programme is also happy to consider proposals from Chambers of Commerce and industrial or commercial associations and federations.
There are currently two Project Management Offices (PMOs); one in Belgium, and the other in Thailand. The Bangkok office is hosted by the Kingdom of Thailand through its National Electronic & Computer Technology Centre (NECTEC), a component of the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment (MOSTE).
A survey of delegates to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland in January 2000 found that 50% believed information technology would widen, not narrow, the gap between rich and poor. A recent BBC report claimed that more than 80% of the world’s people have never used a telephone [1]; however, it quoted no source for this. The UNDP Human Development Report (HDR) puts the figure at about half the population, and indeed UNDP has recently set up mechanisms to try and reduce the digital divide [2].
According to the HDR, 26.3% of the United States population use the Internet, but just 0.8% of the population in Latin America and the Caribbean use it , while only 0.5% of the population in South-East Asia use it with an even lower percentage in the Arab world, Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The divide is within, as well as between, countries, and not simply in the developing world. The BBC quotes the OECD as saying that in France, the highest income bracket had 74% PC penetration in 2000, against just 11% for the lowest income bracket [3]. However, the internal gap is more dramatic in developing countries. The number of computers in India has now reached 4.3 million [4] but this is just a fragment of the country’s one billion people, and the country is a leader in information technology. Statistics must be interpreted with care; in 1998 there were six times as many Indian-registered Hotmail accounts as there were Internet subscribers [5].
Poverty can make a terrible mockery of the information revolution. The point was made forcibly in May 1998 by the distinguished Indian scientist Dr M.S. Swaminathan, whose role in introducing dwarf wheat varieties to India in the 1960s was a key part of the Green Revolution. Speaking to scientists in the Middle East he pointed out that birthweights as low as 2.4 Kg were common in South Asia, causing what the U.N. had called “the cruellest form of inequity”- retarded intellectual development which would prevent people in the developing world from coming to grips with the new Information Age. How are such people supposed to compete in a world of the Internet and galloping information technology [6]?
But information technology can be used to benefit the poor; given sufficient imagination. A recent EC report quoted the case of “one poor village in southern India… where two solar-powered computers were installed in a room at the side of the village temple, giving access to a wealth of data. Sometimes, computers are obtained by an NGO through a donor agency; in other cases, they are bought by the village and franchised to an operator who charges a modest fee for use. Examples of results cited include finding a local veterinarian to cure a sick cow, to downloading a local map from the US Navy website, showing wave heights and wind directions in the nearby Bay of Bengal. This information was communicated to the local fishing village, which broadcast the daily weather report from loudspeakers fixed to poles along the beach" [7].
In 1996, at the first Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) meeting, in Bangkok, it was decided that strengthening links between the IT&C sectors in Asia and Europe was an important part of strengthening economic links between the two regions in general. Three years later the European Commission launched the Asia IT&C programme, giving it an initial budget of €19 million to fund about 100 projects; so far (April 2001), it has selected 16, three more will be selected at the end of 2000 and the remainder in March 2001.
Applications must be from non-profit-making concerns. This is liberally interpreted; a limited company is acceptable, for example, provided it is clearly not intended to make a profit and this is clearly stated in the statutes. State-owned corporations of which small shares are held by the private sector may also be eligible, provided there are no payments of dividends to shareholders. And although profit-making concerns are not eligible, associations of such companies – such as Chambers of Commerce, or trade or industry federations – certainly are. Asia IT&C regards them as useful partners in the development of the IT&C infrastructure for SMEs. A business cannot be funded, however; venture capital must be obtained elsewhere!
In line with the spirit of the programme, applicants must be part of a consortium of partners from at least two EU member states and one from Asia. This is a minimum. The programme wishes to encourage the broadest level of co-operation possible, building links between European and Asian countries as well as between the continents themselves, so the more partners, the better, up to a point. There is no upper limit on the number of partners, but they should all participate actively in, and benefit from, the project.
The projects must genuinely be in information technology, and/or communications development. The programme has received several proposals which were really general development projects, with IT&C ‘bolted on’ as a component. These proposals should seek funding from more suitable sources.
The programme funds co-operative projects that apply IT&C to the following areas of activity:
Applicants have to specify the Area of Activity.
They also have to specify a Programme Component. There are six of these, and they are described below – together with the percentage of co-financing, and the grant amounts, allowable. These vary between the components, so it’s important for applicants to be clear about the component under which they are seeking funding.
These join organisations together so that each knows what the other is doing. The methodology can include conferences, seminars and other ways of swapping information. A partnership will often (but not necessarily) start with this component, and can then apply for further funding under a second programme component if it has been a success. Funding available: maximum 50%, between €100,000 and €200,000.
Courses and workshops in either a business or university environment. Funding available: maximum 50%, between €100,000 and €200,000.
Proposals to improve connectivity between Europe and Asia, either globally or in a specific business or professional context. Funding available: maximum 50%, between €100,000 and €200,000.
This is intended to fund liaison, through workshops and taskforces for instance, between Asian bodies and IT&C initiatives taking place within the European Union. It is chiefly meant to help Asian partners link with, or completely participate in, European Commission initiatives such as those under the Community Research and Technological Development (RTD) framework. However, programmes or initiatives not from the European Commission are also eligible, provided they are non-profit-making, and originate from at least two EU member states.
This is intended both to help partners understand the way each other’s regulatory structures have evolved, and their strengths and weaknesses; and also for them to understand the regulatory context in which they might enter each other’s markets. This can be done through workshops, seminars, task forces and seminars.
These should consist of demonstrations of European IT&C technology, showing what it can achieve. Applicants should normally have completed a Get-In-Touch and Keep-In-Touch activity, or something similar, first. Maximum funding: 25%, between €100,000 and €200,000.
There are specific conditions attached to each Programme Component; these are described in full in the Call for Proposals 2001 and Guidelines to Applicants 2001, which can be downloaded from the Asia IT&C Web site [8].
Projects may last up to 36 months in all cases except for Short (University Level) Courses, where the maximum duration is 12 months.
Asia IT&C has already accepted proposals for a number of different types of project. The types of partners are just as diverse.
Examples include a partnership led by the University of Liège, which is co-operating with the National University of Hanoi in Vietnam, along with other partners from France, Sweden and Vietnam. This is a university-level course which will lead to a European Master in Modelisation and Design of Engineering Sciences, with the objective of strengthening Vietnam’s capacity to design flood-protection measures. It is a key question for Vietnam, where in November 1999 catastrophic flooding killed 592 people and caused $235 million worth of damage.
A very different type of project is being led by the Centre for the Development of Advanced Computing in Pune, India, in collaboration with French and Spanish partners. The objective is the development of a text-to-speech convention, Internet-compatibility and optical character recognition (OCR) software for Indian languages and scripts. This could hugely increase the applicability of information technology for non-English-speaking groups.
Different again is the development of a centre of intelligent manufacturing and rapid prototyping, which will assist in the application of IT to manufacturing industry. Led by the University of Cardiff, Wales, it involves partners from Thailand and Malaysia on the Asian side, and Germany and Greece in Europe.
As stated above, Asia IT&C cannot give grants to private companies, but it can certainly support business and industry federations in their efforts to improve the business infrastructure. Thus the programme is also co-financing a project of the Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Paris, France, in collaboration with India, Malaysia and Ireland, which aims to integrate e-commerce in the networked world Chambers of Commerce movement.
All the projects are based around activities, not equipment or capital investment. Asia IT&C isn’t really meant to fund that. It is quite happy to include the cost of a few PCs if they are needed for the project, but this should not be a big part of the budget.
Before any steps are taken towards applying for co-financing, it’s very strongly recommended that the Call for Proposals 2001 and Guidelines to Applicants 2001 be read with great care.
Then, find your partner! Many Applicants already have a clear idea of whom they would like to work with. But those who don’t, and are seeking partners, can upload their details to Asia IT&C’s Partner Search database via the Programme’s Web site [8]. Having done so, they will appear on the database and will receive a username and password which they can use to modify their entry. Whether they register or not, they are welcome to trawl the database for suitable partners in both Asia and Europe.
The application procedure can then begin. It looks more complicated than it is. The grant application procedure is based on the European Commission’s standard format. This in turn is related to the tendering procedure, so conditions are stringent. But there is a reason for everything. Partners will, for example, be asked for the statutes of their organisation; but these are needed to prove that it is non-profit-making. Similarly, they will be asked for their latest set of accounts; these are necessary because the European Commission would not wish to transfer funds to an organisation that is heavily in debt or even bankrupt. There are numerous other documentation requirements, but all have a rationale, and if a proposal does not meet them, the programme’s management is not allowed to review it further [9]. The Commission does try to be reasonable and, in particular, fair in its procedures. Where the requirements are unclear, potential Applicants are very welcome to contact the Programme Management Offices in Brussels or Bangkok for advice.
In practice, most proposals arrive with full documentation, but they can still be rejected at this stage, simply because they are not eligible. Asia IT&C has received beautifully-prepared proposals, correct in every administrative detail, for projects that it could never have considered - either because the partner(s) were not eligible, or because there were not enough of them; or because the proposal wasn’t really an IT&C project at all.
If the proposal meets the administrative requirements, but still fails, the most common reasons are:
The Programme’s staff prefer accepting proposals to rejecting them. They are also aware that the application procedures can be complicated. Potential Applicants are extremely welcome to get in touch with the Programme Management Office (PMO) in either Brussels or Bangkok, to find out whether their project is suitable and to get informal advice and encouragement. Visitors are also welcome in person, and should contact the PMO in advance for an appointment. Bridging the digital divide is a difficult task, and Asia IT&C is always happy to meet new partners with which to share it.
Full information and documentation on the Asia IT&C programme may be found on its Web site [8].
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Mike Robbins
Asia IT&C
Mike has now left Asia IT&C. Further enquiries can be made
to Guy Franck, Director of the Programme Management Office.
guf@asia-itc.org
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
For citation purposes:
Robbins, M. "Bridging the Digital Divide in Asia: a European Commission Initiative", Cultivate Interactive, issue
4, 7 May 2001
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue4/asia/>
|
|