Mr Harold Kerzner initiated a discussion on Future Project Management Office – A Value driven approach for Key stakeholders
Share of Projects using Project Management software is less than 35%. There is a shift of trend towards more non traditional projects being executed under current business conditions. Unlike in Traditional projects where the focus is only on the Triple constraints , in non traditional project there is an additional parameter focus on triple constraint +Value
The shift of Contractor Expectations is towards Long term strategic partnerships (Engagement Expectations).Each project is seen as a collection of values scheduled to attain corporate objectives. Statement of Work ( SOW ) is subject to numerous changes in current PM’s with multiple stake holders. Unique value driven KPI (Key performance Indicators) are enumerated. Flexible “Fluid ” PM methodology adopted. There is a demand for Real time reporting of Project progress. Managing multi stakeholder expectations. All this is illustrated as a matrix.
With this there is a Multiple definition of success of a project (each customer / stakeholders have different definition). This demands the need for Creation of customer satisfaction Index. that can be measured occasionally on the project. Metric driven PM will be the future.
Project failure is bound to happen when linear thinking is adopted and when Methodology doesn’t not allow out of box thinking.
Newer analyses tools like Different Value analyses – Intellectual Cap valuation. Intellectual Property Scoring , Balanced Score Card method, Future value management, value management methodology to take customer engagement to a higher level.
Project management reports like Forecast reports >>Status Reports>>Progress Reports help in monitoring how projects progress in future.
Forecast Reports tend to capture data point and parameters like >> Time @Completion, Cost @completion.
The entire session was so informative and good perspective of what project management will be in the future.
The Theme for this year’s Conference is ” Unleash The Power of Project Management of a better Tomorrow “. organized by PMI India along with PMI TEAM INDIA (7 PMI chapters of India) hosted by Pearl City Chapter, Hyderabad.
PMI creates history in Showcasing the best Projects in the Indian Subcontinent and the convergence of best of talent to share the cutting edge practices in Project Management. Of the 12000 certified Project Management Professionals from India, the conference has a foot fall of more than 700 of them at the Venue which is a very impressive number. The Name badges had different color bands to indicate the Project Management Qualification of each delegate thus facilitating breakout conversations among the peer group.
Anything @ HICC is a pompous affair and PMI PMC was no exception. Starting with the traditional Kuthuvilakku (lighting of Lamp) by the distinguished chair and political blessings from the honorable Chief Minister Shri Rosaiah, it had all the making of Showcasing what India is all about to the distinguished global audience.
Welcoming the delegates, Mr Raj Kalady, Managing Director PMI India was all praise for the “awesomeness” of the Event.PMI India team drives excellent coordination between volunteers of 7 different Chapters to ensure that the pre event coverage is extensive across industry and Project Management practitioners. In-spite of their day jobs all the volunteers draw synergy to make this event a grandiose success .
Mr V Srinivasa Rao, Chairman PMI India Team talks about how Mahatma Gandhi through his philosophy of ” Resistance through non-violence ” was able to successfully execute the greatest project of Delivery Freedom for India. He also cited examples of post independence projects like the space research programmes and . Successful Projects are not just about translating profits / bottom-lines but about impacting social change . There is a major need for Project management competency in India.
The Keynote was delivered by Mr Jagdish khattar, Former MD, Maruti Udyog who talked about how Maruti brought transformational change in the Automobile business landscape in India. He was all praise for the lessons we Indians learnt associating with japanese (Suzuki) The corporate mantra of Project management at Maruti Udyog was Plan – Plan – Execute -Plan more .
Mr Peter Monkhouse , Director At-Large PMI Worldwide, talks about Project Management as a Strategic Catalyst for transforming India. He showcases Indian success stories like Delhi Metro Rail Project and TATA Nano and how they stand setting precedents for more successful projects to come. Incidentally TATA NANO was awarded PMI’s Business Process Award on 30th Oct 2009 at London. Recent global survey conducted with employers on “What Skill is the most important in Staff ? ” the top answer was ” Project Execution”. The Key value drivers in India Economy was the advancement of the Baby boom generation and the incoming workforce being smaller and more demanding. This also resulted in increasing demand even on global downturn. PMI India today boasts of 12000 certified professionals with more than 16% growth (Second largest in the world). 20 years back we had just 20 PMI professionals here.
Mr Steven Fahrenkrog, VP, PMI USA recalled his Indian experience . Vote of thanks was delivered by Mr Suresh Chandra, President PMI Pearl City Chapter thanking the 7 coordinating chapters for the success of the event. As soon as I came to the venue I met with Mr Arun Kiran Ponnekanti, who heads Corporate communications and Brand Management for PMI PMC. After a 10 minute discussion we got to work on updating the Social Media tools like Twitter ( #PMIPMC ), Facebook and Youtube with minute by minute live updates.
Incidentally i am at the HICC at the same place exactly a year ago (2008). I was invited by NiXi(National Internet Exchange of India) as a Internet Governance Research Fellow to IGF 2008 and here i am a year later as part of PMP sharing notes with the peer group. Look forward to 2 more exciting days with PMI Team India. Good Nite folks !
L&T Award Ceremony for Distinguished Project Award
6 Months since i wrote a blog post ! There has been a mental shift all these months that those who don’t do any thing at ground level are that ones that have time to blog. Pursuing on this belief and getting hands on into so many initiatives got me so busy and blogging got a lower priority on things… Slowly i found that apart from the tight circle of influence and friends , ppl were unaware of what initiatives that we were pursuing or putting to shape. So here i am back to old ways to reach out to those who have been online contacts so that we can update you on what is going on at Chennai and at The Knowledge Foundation.
Later this year 100 countries across the globe are getting together at Copenhagen to sign a key treaty on Climate Change and initiatives to reduce the carbon foot print of individual nations. This we believe will be a big step towards safeguarding the ecosystem from an unending spiral of destruction owing to development/industrialisation. Pls follow the key tenets of the campaign at the following url ( http://www.hopenhagen.org/ ) .
For the last 6 months i have been a part of a Climate Change Diplomacy group of 20 researchers from across the world convening at a study on the initiatives pursued by individual countries for climate Change. Some of the most active proponents of this cause or European nations, island states, many countries in africa. Some of the developing countries like india, brazil are debating on the extent of tradeoff one can pursue given the exponential growth that they are witnessing right now. Countries like China and US seem to contribute majorly to the GHG (Greenhouse gas) emissions.
The previous meeting of the UNFCCC was at 2007 wherein the Bali Action Plan was drafted in a effort to preserve the forest and ecosystem.The initiative was focussed towards tech transfer that can aid poorer countries to leapfrog over development and ensure they leave a lesser carbon footprint.
We at the Knowledge Foundation are rolling out a campaign on Climate Change as a part of Elements5 . The campaign is to substitute CFL lighting at rural schools across tamil nadu. The rationale behind the campaign is that we intend to reduce energy consumption in schools that are currently using filament bulbs and tubelights with better energy saving alternatives like CFL. We are currently talking to a lot of colleges garnering volunteers to help us in the rollout of this campaign. Will update you more as we go on…
Last week i happened to be invited to chair a high level discussion panel at WSA ” 21st. Century India on Digital Content” The meeting was held at the Intercontinental. Delhi as a part of the World Summit Awards and went excellently well. I happened to chair 3 major discussions panel of which the primary invite was for ” Digital Content in E-Governance : Policy Focus :
The objective of the brainstorming session was to arrive at solutions to bridge gap in content delivery on public services online. Some of the recommendation arrived at were presented to Mr Wajahat Habibullah, Chief Information Commissioner of India and Mr Chandrasekar, Special Secretary DIT , MOCIT
Recommendation provided by the group to Govt of India
1. An all Inclusive approach to development rather than creating information silos
2. Incentivise content delivery models for PPP initiatives
3. Subsidize cost of devices, access and other factors to build sustainable models around such initiatives
4. Set standards for interoperability particulary to support regional language content
5. Rather than aiming at holistic models like Single window solutions build model that fit local requirements
Among the co panel members with me were
Rudi Vansnick, President ISOC Belgium
Effat El Shooky , Advisor to MOCIT, Egypt
Dorothy Gordon, DG , Ghana-India Kofi Annan Center for ICT
Ashish Sanyal, Sr Director, DIT, MOCIT, Govt of India
Tulika Pandey, Addnl Director, DIT
Ajay Mishra, Principal Scy IT & C . AP Govt
Neel Ratan, ED, PWC India
Gitanjali Sah, UN Solution Exchange
During the Networking sessions i happened to exchange notes on ISOC India Chennai’s Online Child safety Initiatives with many distinguished guest of which prospective leads were with Rudi Vansnick, Effat Elshooky, Gitanjali Shah (UN Solution Exchange on ICT and Sreenivasan (Founder- Career Launcher Network), Jayalakshmi Chittoor, Deepinder Singh ( Egov -MOCIT) . All these ppl appreciate our efforts. Particularly i had a conversation with Dorothy whjere she made an observation of having visited an internet cafe in Remote india and it will filled withy school boys watching porn. Most of them are willing to participate as well as help us in the initiative. All we need to do is pursue forward with single minded focus.
How would you feel that your home has a open door that you are not aware of ? How would your react if i were to say that your child is exposed to this open door ? Have you ever wondered what your child is doing online ? Isnt it time that we start to understand the impending threats of an unregulated internet at home. Assuming that the government is doing a lot of measures to curb illegal material online and also assuming that our ISP’s (Internet Service Provider) also do a great job in regulating content online. 10th of Februray commemorates Safe Internet Day and is a good time to discuss issues related to this and thereby create awareness among the society at large.
First lets understand certain basic facts about online content.
1. Content is classified as legal or illegal based on the person viewing the content . What might be appropriate viewing for an adult can be offensive when viewed by children and minors. Content providers need to provide Proper Age verification systems on their website to facilitate child protection on such sites.
2. Online content is never limited by geographical boundaries. National borders don’t play a pivotal role in internet. In principle the criminal jurisdiction can be created with the place in which the criminal act has been performed or the place in which the perpetrator resides
3. Dissemination of content takes place in the following manner. It also narrows down on the onus of shouldering responsibility .
The principal role players in child protection falls primarily with parents and then its is left to the teachers. These two are the key stake holders in providing online safety to children. Create an awareness campaign among parents spreading the message on the possible risks that are children face online and how we can combat and prevent such threats. We need to remove certain perceptions on safety that most parents have about the online world. Apart from protecting our children from lurking paedophiles online, today the children are exposed to extreme forms of violence in video games and demented views online. We hear cases and instances of misguided youth taking to directions of terrorism. Eventhough we are yet to find a direct blatant link between online content and behavioural influence we cannot deny the fact that there is an element of threat.
Some of the Recommendations that we can propose to address these issues are
1. We need set standards / clear guidelines for online game development as well as for adult content viewing
2. We need to put in place Sophisticated Data mining tools to track the online perpetrators who have been producing Child porn content
3. We need to have an ISOC Chennai focus group on Child protection online that can address these issue on the ground in Indian Scenario.
4. In Indian most of the content is accessed by children from cybercafe and we need to insist on universal framework / means to verify age group of the user to address this concern
5. We should clearly establish a minimum age sentiment on certain sites like Child erotica, manga, Stales so on.
6. Using the ISOC Chennai Focus group on Child protection, we need to empower the parent and teachers on mechanisms and methods by which adequate measures are taken to protect children from such exploitation. First there needs to be Self regulation instruments and that awareness needs to be imparted to the parents and teachers.
7. From ISOC Chennai we need to create a Youth protection round table inviting teachers and parents to be a part of and that encourages collaborative and cross border dialogue thereby to provide an optimal mix of effective technology enhanced strategies in one hand and education based strategies on the other thereby enable a safer and secure internet.
8. Global organisations like Clicksafe, CEOP, Insafe network will join up with organisations from all over the world in a virtual exhibition ground starting from 10th February. Currently Insafe operates across European Union and we in India need to create a similar body to address a much bigger child user group online. The Insafe virtual fair will open its doors to the public on 10th February and close on February 24th. You can access this event at www.sidfair.org, visitors will be able to get an overview of what is going on in their country, browse resources in their language and watch videos.
All these issues need to be addressed and in Indian scenario we are in a very premature stage in terms of Child protection online. We are talking about moulding a future generation and It is the onus of credible organisations like ISOC to address these issues. As a part of this we invite educators and parents to join hands with us to make this possible after all we serve our time at earth for maybe 60 – 70 years, but lets leave behind a better tomorrow for our children.
Disclaimer : This blog post is not an effort to judge who is right or who is wrong neither is it about taking sides on appealing to religious sentiments of the readers. Here is a typical case study of how a nation can be victimised for the handiwork of the few radical hardliners and the whole world stands and watches nonplussed.
Its nearly a forthnight since outbreak on a mini scaled war in the Gaza Strip ! The two stakeholders under contention are the Hamas and the Israelis. At one side is The Hamas which is clearly a parasite that breeds amongs the palestine community and is least bothered about the extensive damage that inspite of loss of life among the community is relentlessly pursuing its own agenda and on the other side is a country that seems to have a hell care attitude towards humanity with a single minded hard vengenance as the only agenda
How could we justify this ongoing collateral damage where nearly 650 civilians have been killed which include children, women and more than 1400 injured in the last 14 days. Relief supplies of food and medicines has been blocked and barred from entry into the Gaza . Missile attacks on the power supplies of the gaza strip have rendered them dysfunctional and thus event ground water is not available to people. On one hand Israel’s Gross violation of Humanitarian rights of the those few Gaza residents and the whole world is watching helplessly. UN is just a dog barring its teeth but under the strong leash of other superpowers who are keeping mum allowing this to happen . On the othes hand is Palestine that has two parties. Fatah who are the moderates and the Hamas, who are the hardliners. Both these parties have been alternatively succeeding to power by capitalising on incumbent sentiments of the people there. Hamas assumed power since 2006 and has been actively pursuing ” intifada “ and has been on a suicidal streak ever since head on with Israel. The recent culmination of events that have unfolded is a result of this hideous agenda of Hamas.
There is this interesting recommendation on counter terrorism measures called ” The Gills Doctrine ” put forth by KPS Gill after his extensive experience combating Khalistani Insurgency at Punjab in the 80’s. The Gills Doctrine recommmends ”When fighting terrorists armed with military-issue hardware, the definition of what constitutes ‘minimal force’ requires recalibration. If terrorism is after all a new way of warfare, then the Government must be prepared to combat it on a war-footing. At the same time, there remains an overwhelming need to insulate the local population from suffering disproportionate collateral damage. For this reason, the use of area weapons and airpower is to be avoided, even if the result is heightened casualties on one’s own side”
In his approach to combat those who weild the relegious excuse to pursue terrorism strikes down with a strong handed persuasion that no relegion in earth advocates the use of violence / warfare on women and children and for that matter even against unarmed men. People who have been misled by such false idealogies need to be dealt with severly. He states in his doctrine ”Gill offered the terrorists a stark choice: they could either die for their idea of God, or live for themselves. There was no third option. Many Khalistanis responded as per logical dictates and surrendered. Those that did not, engaged in gun battles with the Police, and frequently ended up meeting their Maker. ” Some of his recommendations have been very much hailed by experts across the world. And is an interesting read on measures one can take to quell such insurgency.
Coming back to Attack on Gaza , On one hand it is very important for countries to intervene and talk to either of the countries to seek for a immediate cease fire to prevent further bloodshed of innocent lives. On other hand war is big business opportunity for many countries to intervene and play the big brother role . At current recession climate when countries are groping for solutions to lubricate the economy as well as to create a resource exchange this kind of mediation, peace keeping effort is an excellent excuse. As far as the Media is concerned it has been having a hay day for all this sensationalism with higher TRP’s and feeding us crazy like the day of Operation Desert Storm
Look at the world around us today. Close to home we have the LTTE rebels fighting a loosing war where a lot of civilians are being killed as collateral damage. A little far away we have Thailand nearly in a state of disorder. Then there is Pakistan trying all its antics at our homeland. Each of these scenarios have all possibility of getting played out or escalated to a Gaza like situation if we elect the wrong decision makers to power. These are times that require us to act responsibly and exert our franchise with great thought.
As the new year 2009 beckons amidst recession and financial turmoil things get gradually clear that this year will be more about a struggle for sustenance and consolidation unlike 2008. There will be more surprises and shakedown expected in the market where in it really gets tough going for large organizations carrying a lot of unnecessary baggage and archaic business practices. These are times to be lean and agile to change. Individuals need to multitask and double their roles in business to sustain this shakedown. Inspite of bailout efforts by governments and Fed and several Financial institutions to insulate the recession one thiing is pretty clear…. This slowdown is here to stay and the road to recovery is going to be long and slow. Accepting the economics of that will be the best foot forward. This period is an excellent opportunity for organizations to focus on initiatives like quality, bench marking practices to meet global standards .
I will looking at two emerging areas of technology that is of growing industry concern and needs our attention. Increasing utility of ICT and its related infrastructure has in one way made our lives easier and flat. But at the same time all these additional infrastructure burdens us with more usage of energy as well as indirectly towards global warming. Addressing this concern is a recently formed body called Dynamic Coalition on Internet and Climate Change that had its first meeting at the IGF 2008 . Dynamic Coalition on Internet and Climate Change ( DCICC ) is proving to be an emerging issue for us at ICT. The issue was first highlighted by Dr Arthur Levin in his paper here. ITU put together an impressive report on the actual issue that can be accessed here . According to Dr Hamadoun Toure, Secretary General of ITU , ICT’s currently contribute to 2-3 % of the Greenhouse gas emissions. To get better understanding of the issue one can view the following youtube videos available here .
The Second issue that is of increasing concern is that in the recent times we are rapidly moving towards ubiquitous internet / mobile computing wherein we are virtually online for all the hours that we are awake either from our desktops or from our mobile. The internet is a key enabler in todays world but at the same time by itself is uncharted territory for most of the new users and there are so many ways that one can loose direction or be lured into some scam or other . With the advent of Web 2.0 it has made the challenges immense as most of it is user generated content. Hence there is a crying Need for an Internet Interpol. Can we have a common law across the globe ?
Whenever there is a infringement or a crime committed online it is found that perpetrator of the crime is in some corner of the earth and the crime is committed at another part of the world and the victim is somewhere else. Apart from the logistic challege to bring the crime to light there is evenn greater challenge to bring such perpetrators to the book and accountability. It needs governements to work together in unison to bring such criminals to task. Currently there is a need for intervention from the other country and based on reciprocity. We have all understood the grave nature of this issue and brought into place IT acts and IETF’s and CERT’s but still the porous nature exist where cross border cybercrime is concerned. Unless there is a untified task force available like a UN body this kind of crime cannot be curbed. Harmonization of cyber law with mechanism and framework for cross border coordination is needed. We need to codify common principles that can be adopted by participating countries in their legal jurispudence and bring about commonality approach
Both these issue need our participation and attention in this ever increasing world of Internet.
The last three days of IGF at Hyderabad we have been talking about innumerable topics related to internet and its various topics , privileges, advances so on. But for the first time there was this interesting session presented by DEF (Digital Empowerment Foundation) India on a topic to ensure tha we bring the neglected masses of the underprivileged rural poor who don’t have access to internet. The objective of the workshop was to discuss on the initiative we need to undertake to bring low cost , sustainable access to the rural poor so that we can empower the next billion into the ubiquitous information superhighway , the internet. The last 5 year has seen many ambitious projects, plans initiatives like OLPC, 100$ Laptop, rural kiosks, echoupal, Project Disha so on trying to create a better value proposition which can benefit the rural poor. All these initiatives created with a prime object for the underprivileged to take advantage of the benefits of internet. But each of these attempts seem to have some short coming or other and don’t seem to hit the nail on the head clearly. Thus the search is still on for a Utopian solution to the a low cost sustainable access. We are looking for a solution at the Base of the Pyramid where the market opportunity is amazingly vast. But at the same time the challenge and supporting infrastructure is pretty bare bone and hostile. The users at this segment are clearly a VFM ( Value for Money) market ie…value conscious .
The session was presided by : Mr Chandrasekhar, Special Secy, Dept of IT, Govt of India and moderated by Osama Manzar, Founder , Digital Empowerment Foundation of India and Manthan Award
The major Pain Points with conditions in developing countries like India is :
There is a severe shortage of power in rural india. And most of the time there is lack of adequate voltage
Lack of computers and basic cost of computers is at higher threshold making it less affordable for rural users
Lack of connectivity in the last mile, internet access in rural areas
Lack of knowledge / awareness among the rural poor on the benefits of internet
Uncertainity of technology adoption by end users in rural india
Given this established premise of thought it was subdivided into 4 Thematic groups
A. Access, Connectivity & Devices
B.Content and Services
C. Commerce and Business
D. Policy and Regulatory Focus
Each of the thematic groups was allowed to brainstorm for 15 minutes on the issue with donning the thinking hat and to evolve at points of influence and its recommendations. The evolved observations and recco were summarized into clear set of points that was bullet ted and put forth to the entire audience. All Recommendations were consolidated as a report to be sent to the IGF Secretariat and the Ministry of IT, Government of India
Recommendations of Session on Access , Connectivity and Devices
We should focus toward providing low cost devices to rural poor with cheaper access cost. What we should focus towards will be something like mobile device that can be multifunctional in communication as well as for internet access at the same time can be charge and used for longer period of time thus derive better utility value to the users. Unless our solutions provide a dramatic level of Price – Performance it will not be a value buy to the user.And we identified the need for a hybrid solution that is able to integrate and address all the pain points of the system.
We should look towards increasing the investment Capacity of end users or shared access should be made available
Increase human resource capability in using the devices and connectivity. Rural Empowerment on using of these devices and internet need to be focused
Technology seems to be having smaller phase out periods. We are currently using Core 2 machines and we have nearly 7 upgrades in PC based technology in as much as 4 years
We need to create awareness on visible Improvement in the quality of life of end users due to connectivity
Recommendations Content and Services
Standardize content to meet regional languages like standardization of keyboards of all vendors
All citizen services to be made available in the mobile platform too
Suggestion to insist on Uniformity in formats across different states in the same areas
Translated content to be made available in regional languages too
Prioritize and support use of Open source Software
Services and content has to be made available and accessible to physically challenged (disabled) people too
Recommendations on Commerce and Business
Need for a uniform policy for E-Commerce transactions and sites
Uniform security standards for sites that adopt ecommerce traansactions
Low cost / Incentivised access to E commerce sites
Government support for low cost E commerce models
Creation of Synchronous E commerce models that facilitate following market interactions :- Rural >>Rural , Urban >> Rural and Urban >> Urban transaction models
Recommendations on Policy and Regulatory Focus
Proposal to create a Corpus fund like USOF (Universal Services obligation Fund)
Incentivising the service providers from the Corpus (USOF) Fund created to providers who extend services from urban to rural areas.
Ability to share and distribute underutilized capacities (like internet bandwidth) and share infrastructure
Right of the way policy
Demand side policy facilitating long term sustainability
Integrated or unified license for services for multiple services
Spectrum regulation should reflect on public good
The session ended with deeper appreciation to the group dynamics that was clearly visible as outcome of such brainstorming session. All thanks to Osama Manzar for gathering such an elite participant list who also doubled as panelist to contribute in evolving the thought process. The entire gathering was more than 35 people strong and here is a snap shot of some of the participants who doubled as panelists
Panelists:
Deepak Maheshwari, Director – Corporate Affairs, Microsoft India
Rajendra Prasad, VP, Nepal Wireless
Syed Nazir Razik, Co Founder, The Knowledge Foundation.
Michael, Air Jaldi
Priyanthi, Diplo
Subho Ray, IAMAI
Ninad Vengurlekar, VP, IL&FS
Tahmina Rahman, AAIT, Bangladesh
Suresh Chanda, IAS
Ashish Sanyal, Director, EGPMU
Dr Rajiv Sharma, IAS
Sunil Abraham, Director, Internet Society
Joseph Thomas, Lead Partner, Byrraju Foundation
Sunil Kr Barnwal, CEO- JAP IT
Denise
Danny Nagdev
Sanjay Kumar
This has been one of the most grave topics that needs a greater voice in the online world. Unlike other issues where there is only sustained impact of IG in our day today life this topic has greater impact in invasion of our privacy and with serious implications. The topic was moderated by Hindeburgo
Child abuse and child pornography is a key issue that needs wider addressal as it is of paramount importance to protect our children. The panel had key experts from the industry and the public enterprises too. Companies like google, Friendster and social networking sites (sns) like orkut, myspace, face book were addressing their strategies at operational level and holistic macro level .Google seems to be lobbying for stricter laws on Child pornography in India. Safe search, net smart and similar iniitatives in google search have been driving across internet safety to users at the grassroots level.
The session was followed by an interaction initiated by Adriana Scordamaglia who is the head of Cybercrime division of Brazil. She was presenting a case on the behaviour of online users in brazil (MPF -Ministerio of Public federale) and initiatives to curb child porn that has been done by Brazil. The cybercrime unit was established way back in 2003 at sao paulo and today brazil stands 5th in the top internet users in the developed world. Each user seems to put in 26hrs per month online. (www.safenet.org.br) has been one of their initiatives to report and track child pornography in brazil. Nearly 25000 cases of child pornography are reported in a quarter from brazil. 2/3 of the internet users in brazil are on orkut. Offenses like cyberbullying, distribution of child porn content, hate crimes, grooming, insult and slander and harrassment of children were discussed in detail and steps that we need to take to handle such offenses. All these sns (social networking sites) seem to be bound by the laws prevailing in the country in which their server is hosted and not the jurisdiction and legislation where the crime has been committed. This issue needs to be addressed with top priority and IGF comes to forefront to enforce such laws among the participating countries with reasonable standards to prescribe to a common law that can be on par with international human rights standards. Initiatives like safernet have been drafted in place at brazil to make the internet easily accountable on conflicting images posted by perpetrators of such crime.
Worldwide there are nearly 80 countries that dont seem to have proper legislation, technology or infiltrations mechanisms to curb such child pornography. Some third world countries have individuals looking at child pornography as a home based business opportunity. Even india didnt have sufficient legislation in this space until lately. Only after the incident where Baazee.com CEO was apprehended for the selling of a MMS clip ( of a DPS school student) seems to the the waking hour. And we have so many miles to go inthis initiative which is still at its infancy stages in India. One of the stronger logic points are that wherever such digital images emanate from into the online world there is a greater possibility that the real crime is happening in the immediate vicinity.
The session was amazingly informative with plethora of speakers on cybercrime from different countries talking in their native toungue thus there were digital translators available. Looking at IGF has opened up the immense possibilities by which we can raise the quality bar in PROTO to an entirely higher level that can be synonymous with global standards.
Amidst elaborate and obsessive security arrangements at HICC in hyderabad after the mumbai blasts, the third internet governance forum got underway on a full swing and one of the first programmes that i am attending is called the ” Commonwealth Connects ” . The topic was briefed by Tony, Tom Walker, and establishes
The CHOGM got together at Malta way back in 2005 to form an digital strategy to build ICT in the commonwealth countries. With that focus there has been a lot of digital initiatives that have been initiated by this group that will be a kind of test bed for similar larger implementations on developing countries that are a part of the commonwealth. Commonwealth connects features a digital library , skills exchange and project market place. There are also initiatives on looking at the mobile spectrum and looking at 2G for bradening its reach to the people. Possibilities to provide narrowband access to people in poor countries in an effort to increase reach.
The topic was concluded with a topic by the Diplo Foundation of Malta by Vladimir who was one of my mentor at the capacity building programme that we did with Nixi India.
A few months back I was supposed to leave to Jaipur on the that day morning and missed it just to realise that evening there were a string of bomb blasts there. Eversince that day everytime i am supposed to fly domestic there is always a awareness to keep checking news until late night. Day before was one such episode as i was preparing to fly to Delhi. The entire week we had added concern on severe rains lashing the city continuously due to the aftermath of ” Cyclone Nisha ” tormenting the state. By 11 pm i was checking twitter from my mobile to get info on these attacks and the rest of night was spent awake before the television as events unfolded. Inspite of the stormy weather i couldnt avoid the trip to delhi and Noida as i had people flying in from brunei for that meeting.
We salute the Valiant heroes like ATS Cheif Hemant Karkare, ACP Ashok Kamte and encounter Specialist Saliskar and similar 14 such people from the police forces who laid down their lives protecting India and our guest in the line of action. Every time terror strikes closer to home there is always an urgent plea within oneself to get proactive and gear up for crisis / Emergency response management. Last time we had such a incident was a week before Barcamp Chennai 2 and we ensured that we got someone from the Police department (Commissioner’s Office) to come and still we felt that we havent heard anyone in particular give us a clear picture on how we can work as a team to help the public at crisis. Maybe we are barking at the wrong tree. We should have atleast a halfday workshop on Crisis and Emergency response management in case of any manmade or natural disasters . We need to get a dedicated workshop arranged on this topic with experts. Learnings from such workshop can translate in saving valuable time that might be a matter of Life and death during such crisis.
More than 50 hrs of thorough engagement with these radical elements has got the attention of the world into India. Time and again let me reiterate ” Terrorism has no Religion ! ” . This year i read a book called ” Shantaram ” by Gregory Roberts that gave a newhue to Mumbai in my mind. Places like Leopold Cafe ,The Taj hotel have been painted with such detail in the book that you feel like you are there. Disaster like this shakes our basic premise and trust on Humanity. In the forthcoming IGF Conference at Hyderabad where I have been invited with a Fellowship on Internet Governance from NIXI (National Internet Exchange of India) I would be making an effort with our global friends to look at this disaster from an Indian prespective as well.
Every Holiday seems to bring jitters and uneasiness in our cities. Tonights attack at our nation’s capital seems to be another failed attempt to break our unity. Since the start of 2006 India has been target of more than 10 major terror attacks on innocent civilians. Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai, Srinagar, Hyderabad, Jaipur and now New Delhi. India is blipping strongly on the Terror map.
Terrorism is a plague that has to be universally condemned . No religion endorses such gruesome attacks on humanity. And those who do it under the pretext of a religion or creed are just cowards and outcasts of the system.
Whenever such disasters strike closer to home all we sit and do is complain and crimp about the inefficiencies in the system. Lets not just blame the system or the government . We live in a democracy and the system is about the people so i rather suggest that we take some active steps to curb inefficiencies in our system. Lets switch over from tradition reactive modes to more proactive mode. We need to start putting our heads together on What can we do as an individual, what we can do together as a team and finally what we can do as a society.
First of all lets ensure we secure our home and office wifi networks. We live in a nation that earns more than $ 50 Billion producing and generating software code . And here are a few rogues using the same system to inflict pain on us. As a team lets combat terrorism by creating awareness among those not so privileged by sharing on initiatives that we can take to secure any unauthorised access.
The Knowledge Foundation is known to create content that is the need of the times prevailing. Chennai has been lucky till now and lets all gear up and do something to combat such attacks rather that leaving it to luck.
Tomorrow there is a meeting on the forthcoming barcamp Chennai and my request is can we combine a separate session to bring in experts in this topic to create an awareness as well as initiatives that we can do as a team if we encounter such an attack in our city.
Right now all that i can think of is discussion on Emergency response volunteers, Traffic planning, relief planning and information aggregation to help locate victims and near and dear ones. If we can put together content by invinting experts from respective fields and succeed in creating a checklist that can be used in the due future as well as archive it online then it will be of great help to others too. Friends who feel the need for addressing this issue all you need to do is post your comments.
May the Almighty guide the delhites during these dark hours !
Its been more than 100 days since i touched my blog. Swamped with work, fatigue and need for a break i couldnt find the time to update the blog at all fronts.
PROTO Delhi edition is going great and the registrations are open. For the startup companies the nominations are getting filled fast as ever and will close down anytime now. We had been busy setting up the ecosystem surrounding PROTO which would greatly help startups to create a platform for open dialogue and exchange of ideas / skillset / resources sharing. As for the organisers having the first out of home edition is proving a logistical challenge. Lately there seems to be a severe consolidation of the organising core team as many of them are too occupied on their work and careers. Every May results bring about attrition of the college crowd to different cities and thus resulting in the spreat of the word on TKF but on other hand we run severely short on resources to do the essentials. Thats very much on the PROTO front.
MoMo Chennai is gearing up for its next edition and as varun is not in town we have Asif taking up the organising part. A month back i had some interaction with Ms Lubna Dajani who is the founder of MoMo New york and we had shared an idea that we create a communication window between both the chapters to invigorate knowledge sharing across boundaries. Now that needs to be worked upon.
Now coming to one of the pet projects of TKF – BlogCamp 2008 is sill to gather momentum as there is a view that too much of blog camps happening across India and we dont end up doing a rehashed content of the same. Last month one of our friends had organised a blogcamp at Villupuram for all tamil bloggers and thats how things are today.
We should aim for something new and something thats tremendously short in the current business climate. And we look for newer enthusiasts to join us in creating the same.
The Underdog showcases wikicamp 2007 in this video as a part of the movie that revolves around Jimbo and Wikipaedia . This movie also covers some unseen footage about wikicamp. For the team at TKF take some time out to watch the clip as it brings out some fond memories of the past. Good day Folks !
Tags: tkf, wikicamp, underdog, chennai, syed, razik, tidel, park
