PanAsia Small Grant Submission 2000:

A.                Completed Application Form 

PanAsia R&D Grants Programme
Application Form
The International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
Tanglin P O Box 101, Singapore 912404

   Date: September 25, 2000

 I IMPLEMENTING ORGANIZATION

II PROJECT INFORMATION

B.                Project Abstract:

Project Objectives: General        

Theory of sociology reveals that outskirts of a capital city always suffers from various disadvantageous circumstances and naturally Mirpur town being at the outskirt of Dhaka city, similarly suffering from many of them. Shadows are there in society pattern, education habit, law and order situation and financial strength of the society. During the independence war in 1971, similarly this town has been shattered most with missing education eminencies, thus lengthening the literacy gap.

Established in 1989, Institute of Computer Management and Science (ICMS) has been a silent partner in this devastated community, because of its inception from a sponsoring programme of Detosearch, which was started back in 1982. The founder members of ICMS shares the rebuilding experiences of this broken society as a partner of this community since 1972.

Keeping the staggering notion of educating this ignored community towards a technology learning processes, ICMS is acting as a milestone. ICMS has been working relentlessly towards raising the platform of technical knowledge and participation of masses to the technology based education since the inauguration. The main slogan of the project is to outreach the masses with technology mediated learning. During these years of operation, computer education has been taken to the door of the unreached through various programmes and it is aspirant to carry out this banner towards another successful decade.

Project Objectives: Specific  

Bridging the Digital Divide is part of few projects taken by ICMS and this phase of the project introduces computer based knowledge to the general community at very specialized ways to make the participants useful enough for necessary higher education in this field. Starting from teaching wordstar in 1989, it is teaching MicroSoft Word now in 2000 with offering knowledge of basic computer education.

The participants are given enough theory and practical sessions to enrich themselves in this highly technical education through mere research methodology. The syllabi are made with years of experience, interactive knowledge sharing with the participants and gathering practical demand of the concurrent global market, so that successful participants would take the challenge of working at any situation. Success of ICMS participants in different job placements shows these facts.

III PARTNERS

Partner Organization(s):  None
 

IV PROJECT BUDGET 

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C.                Project  Proposal 

Background 

In recent days by the positive activities of the government and relevant authorities towards ICT infrastructure, price of computer has been drastically reduced, but education in computer is still remains a difficult task for this sub-urban community of Mirpur.

 Thoughts have been given to literate a cluster of this neglected community, who are self educated and completed at least twelve years of schooling, to basic computer literacy, computer networking basics, email correspondences and finally to Internet connectivity. In this way, this computer literate group will form standalone backbone of the nation, thus transforming a neglected masses to a useful citizen of the global village.

 At the final phase of the project, they would be able to accumulate knowledge and share experiences through Internet with other developing partners locally, nationally and globally and then disseminate their knowledge and experiences to the society for promoting developmental activities ranging from simple family planning, nature protection, pollution control, poverty alleviation, disaster management to human resource development and management.

 Similarly, other field of applications can be elaborated, like awareness on ecological problems, pollution control, transmission and prevention of mosquito incubated diseases, national polio injection campaign, fresh water and sanitation practice, etc. All of these human resource development related aspects can be rapidified through this type of Internet based project from where knowledge accumulation, sharing and dissemination steps out.

 Objectives

 This phase of the project (BGD) aims to create a computer literate community capable of preparing an appropriate tool for achieving and facilitating exchange of information among the participants to design and implement plans for sustainable knowledge network and human resource development in Bangladesh. Successful achievement of this cluster activity through proper observation, monitoring and evaluation. Regional activity centres could be taken into consideration, replicating the ideas and thought of the central node at ICMS.

 ICMS Computer College is taking the challenge to be the host organization in Bangladesh to implement this technology based project which could be transformed to a nationwide ICT network in the course of seven to ten years of span.

 Beneficiaries

 Primary beneficiaries are meant to be the educated under privileged youths successfully completed their 12 years of schooling. Secondary beneficiaries are their family elders who would be given access to the network participation through workshops, discussion forums and other developmental activities. Tertiary and final beneficiaries are general social mass aimed to utilize the network for sharing of agricultural information, weather forecast, population control, water and sanitary awareness programme, agricultural marketing information, community based information, family planning related activities, female education, etc.

 Sustainability

 Token amount of fees (namely, registration fee) from the project participants are the main circulating fund for the sustenance of the project as a whole. Several future plans are at hand to make it sustainable enough with the assistance of global donor agencies and efforts are there for extension of phases. Submission of this project to PanAsia Research Grant is a part of this programme.

 Methodology

 At the first phase, seminars are arranged with the idea of collecting prospective project participants and for that purpose letters are be given to all the neighboring education institutes who runs Higher Secondary Certificate level (‘A’ Level) courses and also published through local dailies about the programmes.

 Participants are selected after reviewing their application contents and enrolled as per availability of seat allocation. Their academic result and reference from the head of the institutes are added advantage for selection. A percentage of the participants are also taken from outside and for these cases their interest, intellect and reference from local elite are given preference.

 During the tenure of 6 months inside the first phase of the project, the participants are mainly prepared for the second phase of the project. However, exceptionally brilliant students are always leaving the project obtaining better opportunities of education and higher study.

 Outcomes and Achievements

 First phase of the project produces basic computer knowledge of the project participants, who could join the second phase of the project, or study computer in higher education institutes by preparing themselves for necessary upgradation of this highly technical education platform, or could find a suitable job at local job market.

 Monitoring

 At the central level there is a ten member, government approved and Bangladesh Technical Education Board affiliated management committee, under the presidentship of the Controller of Examinations, Bangladesh Open University. The Director of Computer Division, Bangladesh Open University is the member-secretary. There are two professors from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka among them one is the present Head of water resource engineering department and rest of the members are the elite and classified professionals from the society. This committee is providing over-all guidance to the implementation of the project with necessary monitoring. By virtue of the law, the committee meets at least five/ six times in a year with additional meeting on urgent demand. The member-secretary reports to the management committee regarding the progress of implementation and any problems encountered.

 Budget

 Table -1  shows the budget requirement in detail.

 Project Applicant

 Name                            :            Engr. Md. Hakikur Rahman

Designation                   :            Project Coordinator

                                                (Member-Secretary of the Management Committee)

Curriculum Vitae            :            http://geocities.datacellar.net/hakik_2000

                                                http://www5.50megs.com/hakik

 Project Staff

 Technical Manpower

 Project Coordinator            :            Engr. Md. Hakikur Rahman

 Network Administrator            :            Engr. Md. Mahbubul Alam

                                                BSc. Engg. (Electrical & Electronics), 1994

                                                from Bangladesh Univ. of Engg. & Tech., Dhaka

                                                and specialist in Computer Networking for the last five years.

 Management Committee 

D.              Detailed Budget

Table - 2: Project Cost Breakdown: 2001-2002

*      This sum would not coincide with the CAD conversion as some items are not included for the grant. They would be provided by the ICMS fund.

·         L.S.= Lumped Sum

·         1 CAD= Tk.33.00 approximately and then rounded up to next higher figure

·         N.I.= Not Included in this summation

·         Inflation has not been considered

·         Depreciation has not been considered