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A digital approach to fight against crime in Zambia

    Zambia Police is planning to digitalise the operation system to fight against crime because criminals are becoming sophisticated day by day.

     

    Dr Jere, a senior Officer in Zambia Police, called on the media to join hands in fighting crime and creating peace in Zambia and challenged the media to verify their information before publishing to avoid misleading the public. Police would soon be conducting a press tour to the three police training institutions to familiarise press people with the training offered to officers.

    ICT to create paperless and pen less classroom

    ICT provide a practical and enabling solution for improving overall quality of education. It has been found that different institutions are using different ICT tools, which helps the student to improve the knowledge base.< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

    At Columbia University, a real-time Web-based service called LaundryView lets students log on to a Web- based system to see which washing machines are free before they head to the laundry room. Lecturers at Joliet Junior College in Illinois use an interactive learning software to increase student participation. At Babson College lecturers use voice-annotated spreadsheets that allow accounting and statistics students to make sense of complicated course work. In this way ICT innovation changes the old paradigm of teaching learning. The concept of paperless and pen less classroom are emerging as an alternative to the old teaching learning method.

    India ranked 40th in Global ICT index

    Despite all the hullabaloo about India's prowess in IT and sky-rocketing telecom subscriptions, the country still figured at the bottom rung (rank 40) in the World Economic Forum's Global Information Technology Report 2005-2006. US topped the list, followed by Singapore, Denmark and Iceland at second third and fourth positions, respectively.

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    India's ranking at 40th position amongst 115 economies remained largely unchanged. In fact, India slid one rank from last year's 39th position. China's rank dropped 9 positions from 41 last year to 50 th position this year.

     

    US regains the top position in the rankings, reflecting an impressive performance in the areas of ICT physical infrastructure and high levels of business and government usage of the latest technologies. US topped the rankings for the third time in five years. Last year, US was ranked fifth on the list. The US also stands out for ready availability of venture capital.

     

    Singapore had topped the list last year. Singapore benefits from an excellent regulatory environment and exemplary macroeconomic management. Singapore apart, Asia and the Pacific also did extremely well this year with Taiwan in 7th place, gaining 8 positions from last year and in the top ten for the first time, followed closely by Hong Kong (11), Korea (14), Australia (15) and Japan (16).

    An open source, multi-platform software for digitising libraries

    The Greenstone Digital Library had introduced by John B. Rose of the University of Waikato at the British Council, which is produced in the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.

    The advantage of digital libraries is that they provide access to and storage of multimedia and allow for cooperative input. The software has provision for multi-lingual interfaces and data entry. Hindi and Kannada databases have been created by some of the Indian users. The Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and the Archives of Indian Labour are among the institutions that have put the software to use. The Greenstone software is available at www.greenstone.org and the digital library of the University of Waikato at www.nzdl.org.

    A Digital Inclusion Program in Ghana to bridge the divide

      The Ministry of Communication of Ghana, in collaboration with Intel and Microsoft, has introduced a digital inclusion progamme to assist and advance in information society.

      In pursuit of this, Intel and Microsoft have jointly showcased their plans for personal computers (PCs) designed and built specifically for the local markets. The digital inclusion would boost the PC home ownership scheme and would introduce affordable, locally assembled PCs onto the market. It provides a great opportunity to bridge the divide. Digital inclusion would lead to a change in the quality of life for the people. This progamme would be a key to attain the targets that the world has set for itself in the millennium development goals.

       

      Microsoft in making of self-sustaining rural India

        IT major Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd is going to launch a rural portal shortly within next three to six months. The company is looking at partnerships to develop the portal with relevant information.

         

        The company has unveiled a self-sustaining kiosk model initiative aimed at taking IT benefits to rural India. It is a public-private partnership, called as Saksham (meaning self-sustaining in Sanskrit), on which the portal is being developed. Market linkages will be strengthened in association with ICRISAT and other institutes. The company is looking to set up over 10,000 kiosks in Andhra Pradesh. Similar experiments are being conducted for sugarcane in Tamil Nadu, Kanchipuram silk sarees, food processing industry in Gujarat.

        ‘Affordability Alliance’ to bridge the digital divide in India

        Intel India and Microsoft Corporation India have announced an `Affordability Alliance' to bridge the digital divide in India by creating affordable computing solutions and ensuring easy availability of affordable PCs across the country.< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

        The two companies will work with banks to create financing options so that consumers can have easy access to PCs and realise their potentials. The alliance will focus on tailored solutions for specific segments like, first time PC users, students and teachers. Both the companies are also in discussions with telecom service providers to integrate telecom services and broadband access into these solutions to maximise impact.

        Red Hat and Lotus Learning in India to promote open source education in schools

        The Nasdaq-listed Red Hat, an open source software provider, has announced its partnership with the southrn Indian city Hyderabad-based Lotus Learning Systems Society to promote open source education in schools.

        This initiative is part of Red Hat's commitment to modernise the Indian education systems by promoting learning through IT and usage of open source technology as a platform for learning.

        Discovery Channel launches homework help site

        A new Discovery Channel homework Web site aims to remind parents whose math and history knowledge has gotten rusty how to help their children with the very things they have forgotten.

        Cosmeo, a new online subscription site from Discovery Communications, offers a range of tools from a WebMath equation solver to educational videos and subject-specific Brain Games. Launched recently, the site targets Web-savvy children from kindergarten through 12th grade. It also gives parents and other caretakers a way to be more involved in the learning process while refreshing their own knowledge.

        Cosmeo costs $9.95 per month or $99 per year. Other features include interactive quizzes, a digital encyclopedia and a digital photo library. The service is built on Discovery's united streaming, an educational video streaming service used in more than 70,000 schools. Cosmeo's search functions serve up age- or grade-appropriate content, which is also tailored to match state curriculum requirements. 

        Digital Learning Asia 2006: a curtain raiser

        Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS), India in association with Ministry of Information and Communication Technology and Ministry of Education, Royal Thai Government, recently organised the 'Curtain Raiser Ceremony and First Meeting of the Program Advisory Board' of the forthcoming digital LEARNING Asia 2006 along with the two other parallel conferences

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