ITShed
Description
Government of Sri Lanka’s Gemidiriya project is about empowering the rural poor to take part in their own village and livelihood development, by helping villages access the Internet for information on services, jobs, and market opportunities; and market their village, its infrastructure, labour pool, and products for sale out to a wider audience. It is also known by its brand name called ITShed. Once a village has a page on ITS, villagers-often the youth-gather and post information about the village, including skills available, job-seekers and products for sale. For instance, a visitor to the IT’S might see that Gemidiriya villages have 13,070 kg of brinjals (egg plant) for sale. Clicking on the link lets them know that the bulk of brinjals are available in Badulla district. Thereafter, Badulla Federation can be contacted for details. The success of Gemidiriya project has led to an increase in farmer productivity and in the number of economic endeavors the poor are undertaking. Gemidiriya Project is all about ICT and digital content intervention with bottom up approach. Uniquely, the community uploads and inform about their products and services and its availability where other peer group access information for their demand to available supplies. Improving the production and building the skills of the poor will not translate into higher incomes unless the poor can link to jobs and markets for their goods and services. Gemidriya’s ITSHED is helping those rural communities and youths forge that link by bridging the information gap that isolates the rural poor in even the most dynamic economies.
What we deliver
CHAT ROOM: Supports global communication and has several features—such as different chat rooms, animation, private chat, etc. This facility can be used to exchange information on educational information, market information, etc. WEBMAIL. E-mail is basically to communicate electronically. The unique feature in ITSHED web mail is it has the document sharing facility and can have a personal web site. LANGUAGE SERVICES. This is also a unique feature in ITSHED. Users can send their documents in Sinhala or Tamil. The ITSHED Language Centre will translate it and send back the information. INFORMATION SERVICES: There are 3 levels of information: all villages, district wise, and village wise. Users can get information about products available for sale, consumption patterns, and job seekers in different professions. E-COMMERCE TRANSACTIONS: Linked to a Shopping cart for e-commerce transactions. Order processing can be handled by the Federations at a later date. (Under construction) LEARNING ROOM: Experiences from ITSHED and important information. Information on success stories and special products are sold in villages.
Why is the project unique?
ITSHED is unique because instead of being a Web site that provides content for communities, it is a Web platform for information provided by communities. The document sharing system within the web mail and Language Centre are additional unique features of ITSHED. While providing trading opportunities, this facility helps to improve the ICT skills of the villagers. It is also unique because ITSHED facilitates maintaining potential economic and social organisation between rural communities binding them with their federations and community professional centres in a network.
Roadmaps
Digital content for development must serve the needs of the clients of development interventions, and in the case of Gemidiriya and ITSHED, those clients are the rural poor. Currently, ITSHED helps the rural poor access information, communicate with each other and the rest of the world, and engage in commerce. It provides a platform for villages to post information about their village, its population and their skills, and the products available for sale. The demand for ICT training is currently greater than the supply at the moment, so there is great potential for expanding ITSHED and the content provided through it. Gemidiriya works closely with villages, and especially the unemployed youth in villages, to provide skills training in computers. Many of these youth already have a vision of providing information online for training, extension, and other services—information that some are already accessing through CDROM and DVD. Their vision is the vision of Gemidiriya and ITSHED.
Contacts
Gamini Batuwitage, Gemidiriya Foundation
No. 40 High level Road, Kottawa
Pannipitiya, Sri Lanka
