<TITLE: Global Challenges of eDevelopment Conference 1
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: technology
DISCIPLINE: information sciences
EVENT TYPE: conference presentation
FILE ID: CPRE08B
NOTES: continuation of and continued in CDIS08A, session also includes presentations CPRE08A/C-F/H (CDIS08B and CPRE08I/L/P are part of the same conference)

RECORDING DURATION: 25 min 36 sec

RECORDING DATE: 14.3.2005

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: circa 40

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 7

S2: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: other; GENDER: female; AGE: 31-50

S3: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: other; GENDER: female; AGE: 51-over

S4: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: female; AGE: 51-over

S7: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50

S8: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: other; GENDER: male; AGE: 51-over

S9: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: other; GENDER: female; AGE: 51-over

S10: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Bengali, Hindi; ACADEMIC ROLE: masters student; GENDER: male; AGE: 24-30

SU: unidentified speaker

SS: several simultaneous speakers>


<S3> <START MISSING> and micro women entrepreneurs er particularly in one country in costa rica and er , we started the project in in year two-O-two and er <SIGH> in costa rica we started with piloting and er because the best way if you if you enter something new in my experience er is to start with a pilot so we did a pilot in costa rica and we did a pilot in bolivia two completely different countries as you may know bolivia is one of the poorest countries in er er south america er with a v- fairly low level of ICT infrastructure er mainly in er big city areas you have a you have internet cafes you have internet access points er and then er huge rural areas mountainous areas where you have basically nothing except in hotels you maybe have an acc- access point then in comparison you have costa rica with a f- fairly developed infrastructure in er telecommunications meaning that in er <SU PREPARING POWERPOINT> thank you er meaning that er you have er basically you have two things in costa rica if you have er infrastructure you have access points to use internet and then you also have er , basic you have internet cafes all around the country you have er educated people in the use of ICT or it doesn't mean that everybody in the country can use them but i it means that you ha- you have people with basic some basic computer skills so i'm mainly now describing to you er the the costa rica experience which was successful in terms of the outcome and then i'm also gonna sa- say some remarks on b- bolivia erm in terms of lessons learned and er as you know you learn more from failure than you learn from success but er okay so , alright i can see it but you can't </S3>
<SS> @@ </SS>
<SU> [how about now] </SU>
<S4> [okay] thank you </S4>
<S3> okay , and erm </S3>
<SU> is this your presentation </SU>
<S3> it's my presentation yes thank you and i hope i i can i can do two things spe- speak on the mic and also talk and think and give my presentation how long do i have 20 minutes </S3>
<S4> less </S4>
<S2> a [little less] </S2>
<S3> [(xx)] sorry [okay] </S3>
<S4> [yeah] </S4>
<S3> so let's go to the project now i'm er okay and i wanted to say s- another thing er after i described you the two countries briefly erm with this project we wanted to address three divides first divide i mean let me before i say the three divides i wanna say something i'm kind of fed up with the word digital divide because i use it every day you probably use it more than once a day if there's a new concept to bridge the digital divide please let me know i'm happy to you can have the copyright i'm happy to use the word but it should be something more constructive we i think we have been for the last ten years bridging the digital divide and i know it's a reality but let's try to invent something new we have heard the word already this is self-criticism not criticism towards you okay so three divides one erm a huge part of of of businesses in latin america are micro small and medium sized businesses so when i started this project i wanted to address how to include women entrepreneurs to run better their business so so business divide how to make them better entrepreneurs in their job , second divide was er technology , women even in costa rica which is the very developed country in terms of central american countries and also south america women are usually not the one ones who have ICT skills meaning computer skills meaning internet use skills they might have business skills but they don't have er ICT skills and then er so i mentioned business economy i men- economical divide i mentioned technology divide and the third one is gender divide which is present in both both in technology not being included and the other one is in in businesses so that's what we wanted to address these er these three divides okay er here's some data about the businesses in latin latin america about 70 to 90 per cent of enterprises are in the category of micro small and medium so less than ten employees usually from one to five and keep in mind majority of them are very local very small run by women , most of these women er do have at least in costa rica they do have a primary level of education meaning that they have been from one to four years at school and in case of because i'm talking about going down to costa rica usually these women not only in costa rica but other countries have a long history of running their local business so then they have they're not newcomers to the business market they have their businesses okay so here's the situation so then in costa rica i mentioned already er about the high level of technology but one thing we wanted to think about how would these women entrepreneurs have access to use computers w- after we are gone without training so erm one of the things costa rica has er is a programme they have several programmes but one of them is to have a provide er access point in local municipalities to women i'll tell you more about that er how it really worked out okay and er and usually the general education level is fairly high meaning they have primary level education but also er er increasingly secondary leve- er secondary level education okay how did we start to do we didn't go like say okay guys we come with with ICT computer training internet training no we started on the other end we went we went to interview the women so we want to identify the needs of these women entrepreneurs erm how could they use erm basically computers and internet in their businesses so we went to ask them then the main objective of the whole thing was to develop a training package usable training package which integrates business skills and ICT skills okay erm , so er i think there was something missing there okay maybe i'll okay er then er this was a fr- without charge training we trained er 800 women entrepreneurs in costa rica applied to take this training we trained er we interviewed 312 women and then finally it went down to one <SIC> twen </SIC> in the pilot phase that we trained 110 entrepreneurs 98 per cent had never used a computer so they had actually fear for computer technology they didn't wanna use it it was for their children or their husbands for cousins who name it but but not them and in the habit they might 11 per cent had their own computer and as you can see 98 per cent sa- said they were they had a , fear for t- use of technology okay , so they were er er like i said interviewed selected training package was specifically developed for their use and it had in four it was it took place in four locations in in costa rica san jose san ramon guanacaste and perez zeledon in different parts of the country er <SIGH> okay erm , so we didn't start with computer skills we started with integrating er integrating the the computer skills with business development business skills so first one was how to improve my business that was the first question and they had to write a business plan and that's how they learned to use word i mean not open source i'm i'm sorry @@ mhm mr gates's production m- microsoft sorry mhm this is probably not a good thing to say here but that was the reality then er , then er we wanted to , make them understand that how can i use my business through these skills not just t- er to learn bus- i m- not just to learn computer skills or internet skills but how do i improve my business and the focus was all the time on women as entrepreneurs , because there are still some differences er between er , er the gender in er business and in ICT use okay er so these were the questions of of the con- i mean the contents of the training erm how do i access information i'm just going through how much do i have still time </S3>
<S2> seven minutes or something </S2>
<S3> seven minutes @okay@ okay er so how do i access information through the use of er how do i know about government information how do i k- know about er loans er so they learned to use internet by searching information er about er getting credit er getting government information how to register my business if it wasn't registered and so on and so forth okay erm , so now i'm going to there are six steps in in their learning first the first thing was the basic computer skills what is computer for example they didn't know what this is , so you have to first teach them how do i connect the use of er mouse to my screen what does it mean just the basic sort of er er computer use , okay and then like i said in number one erm . we talked about business development then okay actually number two was the word i mentioned the word how to integrate to write my business plan by using the wo- er er the word @@ microsoft word mhm i have to say it very <SS> @@ </SS> quietly because this is a place for open source debate so but we i confess we used <WHISPERING> microsoft </WHISPERING> </S3>
<S7> [what was it] </S7>
<S3> [they didn't] sponsor us </S3>
<SS> @@ </SS>
<S3> @@ they didn't they didn't pay us a penny okay if that helps anybody </S3>
<S8> @no no you paid@ </S8>
<SS> @@ </SS>
<S3> no we didn't pay we didn't pay them </S3>
<SU> for the for licence </SU>
<S3> well we pai- we paid in the sense yeah okay yeah , okay or this wasn't a PR campaign for them okay fine okay er number three to sear- search information like i said before then er well , <MUTTERING>  what's what's going on now i think it's the </MUTTERING> next okay , then erm , they actually in in point number five er they they we taught them to how to use internet for networking which was one of the big results of the the er whole exercise that they learned how to network as business women not only to use the the internet but how to network also as business people together okay and then er in number six point number six they actually created very simple basic websites of their businesses and they demonstrated the use of their website and we provided provided er er free server and server b- base for for them and they actually produced after the as a result of the training they produced their own website , very impressive i couldn't do that , okay so er that was basic that was in p- in short the the training er package er so we trained in in the pilot phase in er costa rica 110 women guess how many dropped out , these courses took place in the evening after they were after their working hours er it was 50 hours of training free and they er , what else they they had to provide transportation er to or arrange their own own transportation to the s- to the training place , okay how [how many] </S3>
<SU> [two] </SU>
<S3> two correct two persons dropped out , erm okay that was costa rica now we come to bolivia different experience er in bolivia we did this in one actually in two cities in el alto which is er at the altitude of er three 3500 metres fairly undeveloped city up in the in the mountains and then er you have the c- next door you have you have the capital la paz and we did the training there too so we did in two places okay erm so what happened in bolivia we had er same kind of training . guess okay and er , er , here are some reasons why women actually had problems to participate in in the course that they didn't have time they had household er er problems or in running the household and and usually er women felt that they don't have like they did in in costa rica that they don't have the same opportunities as as men do to access er the training okay er okay <SIGH> and why they are not training in er here are some problems why how they felt that they that these reasons were stopping them to er to er not the cultural factors that's my addition and i will talk about that so er . they didn't one of the things was that they missed they lacked the kind of they didn't see the need the last point they didn't see see the need for ICT training okay er in many cases well lack of motivation it's hard to t- tell if you have a lack of motivation if you don't know what you are missing right er then these the three first ones are kind of er practical issues okay cultural factors now now let's let's come to the point what happened in bolivia the failure okay guess how many er we started with 110 again women guess how many finished , 50 hours free training different country in the capital area of bolivia </S3>
<S9> [30] </S9>
<S10> [two] two </S10>
<SS> @@ </SS>
<S3> er 20 20 fomen women finished and what do you think was the main cause of the er er so-called failure i mean coming down from one twenty er to to twenty which is like a hu- hundred people less <SU> mhm </SU> and it's free training , i mean one of the reasons one of the main reasons we never thought of <P:05> or i didn't think or of course we had the local trainers so that it wouldn't be that i would go and train we had the local people who know the local culture but nevertheless er this happened , anybody why if you get the same package same models same kind of training okay <SIGH> er we made a huge mistake well learning experience that we put er local aymara women indigenous people in the same class with er non-aymara women meaning er bolivian erm business women from la paz , so the bolivian business ladies left the class they didn't want to sit in the same class with the indigenous people they wanted to leave the class they left and then erm in er el alto which is more <SIGH> which we could where we could say that we actually would have had a chance or we had a better chance er in that environment er i think we failed in meeting the demands the needs of the women it's a thing it's it's not to say that we failed @@ it's not nice to say that you failed but you learn from these things so so there er in the class room in el alto you would have the majority of aymara ladies er participating the course er taking the course but then they would drop out because of the thi- think of the list of the first three issues here i don't have i have to work i have to get some money for my family er er you need more income you didn't see th- th- the that the training might enhance your opportunity to get make better business er and transportation difficulties very important i mean real life reasons are very important for the failure i mean we can have a tremendous the best setting of training but but er if you have real life issues then okay , erm okay here are some of the conclusions i think i talked about the other ones but look at the first one er i mean the last one sorry the sustainability issue er you can give a training you can have a perfect package like the perfect (network) like we did in er costa rica i mean this kind of success but er if you don't have the sustainability conti- continuity then what's the point so er we wanted to make sure that there's a continuity er for erm women to have access to er use the computers and er one t- one er 20 out of one 20 women purchased or enterprises purchased a new computer 20 out of one 20 purchased after the course a computer not with their own money we helped them too er with the micro credit it's very important to provide financing support if you don't do that er not many people do have actually potential to to buy er er their own computer okay sustainability so to have access to to get a computer then erm so like i said low rate erm credit er then another one if you look at the second line there is the new business opportunity some of the women we have i actually have one example i visited after the training which was a women's association er they were in they were selling bis- uh they were selling clothes in their business in san ramon so they were a women's association selling jackets trousers name it but then they actually opened a side business after the training a little just one computer it's provi- provided access to other usually the customers were women micro business entrepreneurs in the same same area so one chance is to have a new opportunity for new business just open a little computer setting for for your community , then a third important issue is in the sustainability area is is backstopping for training erm <SIGH> er you need to backstop you can't leave go away you need to have somebody who provides you continuous support whether it's technology support or just just user er support how to how it how do i continue the use so we had er local schools helping them i think i er mentioned all of these issues already er for the future i think er three lessons learned , er , one of them is if you wanna have free training or if you have an wanna have a fee for the training i don't think it made d- made a difference but it i think it's important then er who provides the micro credit it must be local er locally available low credit interest access points if you don't have your own computer you must have access to to the use of er at least internet then er time of training how long we gave 50 hours that seemed to be feasible for them then er tailor-made it has to start from the needs of the women i- the users and then cultural and social class very important bolivia again and er so my last word is that we er after this pilot we have now by now trained er 500 women entrepreneurs in in costa rica so the pilot extended to 500 and then <SIGH> er we we we started an analysis of same kind of need analysis of women entrepreneurs er in guatemala er nicaragua and er what's the third country el salvador the same kind of er i mean but you can't export the same my my last word @is@ you can't export the model you can have learning experiences we learned a lot from bolivia from costa rica but then again when you go to even to a neighbouring country like like nicaragua or el salvador or guatemala you do have to think of the the local needs er what do these women need even if you have some overlapping with with the general needs of of women i think that's that's all thank you </S3>
<APPLAUSE>
