By Francis Mwathi

telecentre.org Foundation moved to its new home base in Manila, Philippines. This was in line with the foundation’s big plans to continue its mandate of increasing the impact of grassroots telecentres on social and economic development in communities around the world.

Since its inception in 2005 during the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), telecentres.org has been housed in International Development Research Centre’s (IDRC) offices in Ottawa, Canada. IDRC has been one of Telecentre.org major investors with others being Microsoft and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)

The choice of Philippines was reached through careful consideration of a number of factors. Philippines for instance has one of the strongest telecentre movements in the globe and also boasts of a sound political environment with basic democratic guarantees like freedom of speech, the free flow of information and transparency. It is also based in a region where new technologies are emerging and very vibrant -where the country scores highly, particularly with rural technologies and the use of mobile telephones for development. The Philippino government also backed the move to the country and its Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), expressed an interest in hosting telecentre.org there.

The growth of Telecentre.org has been phenomenal over the years it has been in operation and it’s the maturity it has attained as well as global success that contributed to its need to move to a new home. Telecentre.org has provided both financial and technical support to Telecentre networks to help in strengthening them. Its help in the development of the telecentre road map in many countries, activation of telecentre networks, as well as in many other avenues like the Telecentre Academy have proved invaluable.

Telecentre.org’s recognition of the value of online advocacy and knowledge sharing can not go without mentioning. Through its popular social-networking website (www.telecentre.org ) it has served as the official voice of the Telecentre movement facilitating sharing and interaction among telecentre practitioners, government agencies and private partners involved in the Telecentre movement. The web portal makes available information on different telecentre initiatives and services, statistics, contact information of telecentre enthusiasts globally, as well as success stories and best practices. Available in English, French, Spanish and Arabic it is facilitated by a dedicated team of 13 Community Facilitators across the four languages.

In mid-January this year Dr. Basheerhamad Shadrach was appointed as the first executive director of telecentre.org.  As head of the telecentre.org Foundation, he will oversee the implementation of the global telecentre networking, advocacy and support program over the period 2010-2015. ‘Shaddy’ as he is fondly known has been involved in telecentre and information-related work since 1986, spending years measuring the impact of telecentres on the lives of people living in the developing world and news of his appointment was widely received with joy and high expectations.

The foundation also appointed an advisory Council made up of an international pool of telecentre experts, partners and network leaders, responsible for advising the board and the executive director, based on their regional backgrounds, on matters pertaining to the telecentre.org program and its implementation.

The Telecentre leaders named to the council are, Aminata Maiga of Mali’s Afriklinks (Africa), Reshan Dewapura of Sri Lanka’s Information and Communication Technology Agency (Asia Pacific),  Ian Clifford of Telecentre-Europe (Europe),, José Avando Souza Sales of ATN in Brazil (Latin America and the Carribean). Others are Sherif El Tokali of the United Nations Development Program in Egypt (Middle East and North Africa), Dr. Latha Pillai of India’s Indira Gandhi National Open University (Telecentre Academy) and Rebecca Masisak of Techsoup Global (Social Enterprise).

Currently the telecentre.org is filling up key posts for its new secretariat and all those interested can get more information from http://www.telecentre.org/group/jobopportunities . As a new era begins for Telecentre.org lets all hope that the new team will continue the good work and will drive Telecentre.org to new heights.

Francis is Community Facilitator for Telecentre.org/ UgaBYTES initiative in Kampala, Uganda.