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Southeast Asia is a region where the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ is particularly striking. The benefits of access to information and communication technology (ICT) are remarkably obvious in contrast to vast poverty of those without such access. The ASEAN Foundation is an intergovernmental organization of South-East Asia. The Foundation was formed in 1997 with the objectives of encouraging greater awareness of ASEAN, and greater interaction among the peoples of ASEAN as well as their wider participation in ASEAN's activities. Another main objective of the Foundation is to undertake human resource development in a number of fields, including social development, science and technology, education, and environmental and civil service. Human resource development is a critical element in bridging the technological gap, termed "digital divide" and, today, is increasingly linked to building ICT capacity.

 

The ICT4D Collaboratory is a partnership between the ASEAN Foundation (AF) and IDRC’s Pan Asia Networking Unit (PAN). Improving social and economic development and alleviating poverty is at the heart of both partners’ missions. While ASEAN’s mandate includes all types of human resource development, PAN’s main focus is ICTs and their use for development. Together, they form a Collaboratory for human resource development in ICTs. The main thrust of the partnership is ICT training, both face-to-face and e-training. Initial face-to-face training takes a “training of trainers” approach, whereby a network of qualified ICT trainers is developed within the region, who can subsequently train others. Thereafter, continuation of learning and application-building takes place online under remote teacher e-guidance through e-mail, help-desks, and discussion lists. Subjects of instruction include: e-commerce, educational technologies, e-government, geo-information systems, bibliographic and textual database systems, system-generated discussion and mailing lists, electronic conferencing, and multimedia applications. Trainees may come to the Collaboratory for face-to-face training either during regularly scheduled courses or for individualized hands-on training.

 

To reduce the digital divide within a country and between countries in the Asian region through human resource development in ICT technical capacity, ICT managerial capacity and ICT training capacity in Asia. More specifically, the project aims to:

 

As the project has not yet been completed, its full impact cannot be assessed at this time. However, there have been some encouraging developments thus far. For example, the Collaboratory has organized and conducted many workshops on subjects such as e-commerce, ICT training, e-business, office tools for executives, web design, and ICT in education. Many ICT trainers have been trained, and are now training others.

 

The ICT4D Collaboratory now provides web-hosting services, and is piloting a video hosting service. Videotapes of Asian development institutions can be made available on the Collaboratory’s website for viewing by the public. It is hoped that links from the video hosting page to the institutions’ own websites will increase traffic and raise awareness of their work.

 

Another initiative of the ICT4D Collaboratory is an e-mall for online commerce (http://www.panaseanemall.org/). On May 25 and June 8, 2005, two workshops were held to teach participants about the mall and give step-by-step instructions on how to set up a new shop in the PAN ASEAN E-Mall. Currently, there are 16 shops operating in the e-mall, displaying about 400 items. 80% of these items are publications or books. E-commerce represents and opportunity for people in South-East Asia to enter the export market.