The Promise of Technology and Power of Partnerships..

Kennedy Edwine Onyango
Community Initiatives and Social Support Organization (CISSO)

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     Last modified: June 14, 2006
     Presentation date: 10/31/2006 2:15 PM in NT Portland B
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Abstract
The promise of the Technology-mediated Open and Distance Learning through Internet, cellphones, radios and computers extend the reach of schools and libraries to new users, and to serve traditional users in new and more compelling ways, has pushed many projects in the developing world into the new territory of digital knowledge exchange.

Knowledge is more essential for development but how can poor and underserved communities in the developing world become “information-rich”? How can information and communication technologies (ICTs) be applied through tele-medicine, distance learning, electronic commerce, thus harnessed for development? How can inequality of access be overcome – can social and digital divides be addressed together? GRASSUP NOW Initiative, an ICT-Enabled-Open and Distance Learning Programme being implemented by a consortium of three civil society organizations (CSO’s) in Kenya with the support of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) have been addressing these in the past two years

GRASSUP NOW Initiative partners have discovered that digital knowledge distribution is transforming, convinced that digital technology offers new ways of fulfilling their core missions of education, research, and cultural enrichment, the question of what to put online and how to sustain digital collections is hotly debated and this paper is built on this.