Information Society at High Places

Onno W. Purbo (onno@indo.net.id)
Sabbatical leave at International Development Research Center (IDRC)

Coming from Indonesia, a developing country, it is an honor and is a fortune to be able to attend a large Information Society gathering at WSIS. It is possible due to full support from friends at International Development Research Center (IDRC), Ottawa and CERN, Geneva. Thank you IDRC & CERN.

My ten (10+) years background as a practical grass root ICT activist really shapes my reflection on last WSIS 2003. I normally deal with people in real ICT needs on the ground, the one the needs to have low cost Internet connection, needs the knowledge on how to setup wireless ISP, knowledge on VoIP infrastructure etc. Disseminate practical know how, such as, http://sandbox.bellanet.org/~onno/the-guide/ or via mailing list, such as, wifi4d@dgroups.org, would be a simple solution for most of their needs. Not surprising to see ICT4D pavilion fit quite nicely into my profile.

Until WSIS, I did not realize that there is a quite big crowd of people sitting in high places in the World of information society. They are neatly dressed and quite formal in presenting themselves. They talked more on dreams, on vision, on objectives, on goal, on target. I am very much jealous to see; they even get higher paid to talk on such subject.

Sure it is nice to have these people in high places shape the mind set of the regulator in developing countries. Well, to be honest, the Indonesian regulator is shaken by the world’s objectives, such as, to connect at least half of the population to the Internet by 2015.

During WSIS 2003, being a stubborn ICT maverick, I brought all my main ICT equipments, such as, Wireless Access Point, four (4) ports Internet Telephony Gateway (ITG), Kodak DC4800 digital camera, Cheez Webcam, and telephone handset, all in my knapsack and run a real life demonstration to show people that using such equipment we can build our own community based ICT infrastructure. Only few slides used during the demo, all real life activities and I can run WiFi & VoIP simultaneously on the demo infrastructure. I found a demo is a much more convincing approach than words on the slides.

Unfortunately, I have to pay dearly my stubbornness, as I didn’t realize that there is knapsack thief around during WSIS. I lost my equipments including my wallet and cellular in the knapsack few hours after running the demo. I’d like to thank friends at IDRC; they are working on replacing the lost equipment. Thank you IDRC.

On 9 January 2004, the Indonesian Ministry of Information and Communication was organizing a seminar to report the result of WSIS 2003 to Indonesian societies. Not much strategic and tactical plan was presented. In the seminar, considering current Indonesian condition, I argued that my practical experiences indicated that we can easily achieved the WSIS’s objectives if we relax the regulation framework and enable the Indonesian to build their own ICT infrastructure, using their own money, no World Bank, no IMF funding is necessary. Removing all silly stumbling regulatory framework, such as, taxing US$270/year to run a US$200 Access Point.

The key strategic policies are people’s education and relax the telecommunication act to enable community based ICT infrastructures.

I do really hope in upcoming summit 2005, I can see more real examples and exchange of knowledge among ICT4D activists. I do hope to hear fewer dreams and complains, as real people need more simple solutions and real examples.