National Informatics Centre

1. National Informatics Centre • A Government of India organization • Promoting usage of IT in India since 1975 • Engaged in consultancy, network services including video-conferencing, software development and implementation support • Has presence across the country • Addresses computing & communication needs of all layers of Indian Administrative set up

2. NIC - Efforts in Rural Informatics • Has been providing a number of state-of-the-art software solutions to address the needs of the government and citizens in Rural Development Domain • Supported WARANA project in Kolhapur District of Maharashtra (Village Level) • Implementing Community Information Centre (CIC) project in North Eastern States of India (Block Level)

3. “Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you have seen and ask yourself, if the steps you contemplate are going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore to him control over his own life and destiny?” … Mahatma Gandhi Welcome to

4. eNRICH … putting ICTs into the hands of the poor

5. Challenges in the emerging networked knowledge society

6. Problems in Web Site development • Time consuming. • Need special skills to modify, revise and upload information. • Solutions are more information retrieval oriented and less effective in providing facilities for community communication.

7. Unfulfilled Community needs • Information categorization in the net may not be relevant. • Information content in local language is lacking • Illiteracy is a major barrier • Provisions for active community participation are lacking • Communication needs within and between communities are not met. • Research data on access habits is not available

8. Difficulties in Information Search • Time consuming • Surfing is costly by access time • Searching skills are necessary • Relevancy and authenticity cannot be judged immediately

9. UNESCO’s Strategy • To produce a generic browser for usage by Community Multimedia Centers (CMCs) that • Is a one stop access & delivery mechanism for communities • Is customizable by individual CMCs in terms of local language and content • Encourages local content production through active community participation • Allows easy access to relevant and authenticated information • Enables efficient communication within and among CMCs

10. eNRICH a joint effort by UNESCO & NIC Reaching out to the unreached through • Customizable multilingual interface to suit specific local needs • Easy to organize information resources and services • Electronic community bulletin boards and community opinion polls • Local content and messages posted by community using text, audio and video • Quick links to email, chat and messaging services • Learn useful and marketable skills using interactive multi-media content • Built-in research to analyze community needs and prefernces

11. eNRICH Consists of two main components: • Community Browser – the portal interface that will be used by the community members • Desk Manager– a site administration and analysis tool for site Manager and researchers

14. The Guiding Star • eNRICH is delivered with a pre-built information categorization that has been arrived at after an exhaustive study of the information needs of the underprivileged sections of the society • eNRICH also comes packaged with URLs that have been identified as relevant & authentic vis-à-vis the identified information needs

15. Thank You National Informatics Centre Department of Information Technology Ministry of Communications & Information Technology Government of India