Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960402184425.25133B-100000@rccsun> Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 18:50:50 +0700 From: Richard Tinsley <mailto:tinsley@AIT.AC.TH> Subject: Re: Traditional I.T. Before the Internet ?! To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Allow me to put in my two cents worth. The first thing is to get computer use in the hands of host country professionals. That means getting it from being a glorified typewriter for the clerical staff to a active tool of the professional. When I was in Malawi between 1986 and 1990 I had about a 50% success rate in getting professional to use the computers. The project I was working on was able to provide a computer for each 2 man adaptive research team, placed in their common office. We had about a 50% success rate in getting them to use and accept it, dispite most having a MSc from the USA. In Egypt it was worse. Of 18 professional staff, only 2 were computer literate. In three years of constant probing I was never able to increase that rate. In evaluating the computer usage, please remember it is only the host country professional staff that really count. Expatriate and NGO staff are non-existant people in the final analysis.Just something to think about.
With best regards.
Dick Tinsley AIT Bangkok