David Attenberry, Mission Director, USAID gave short overview of the whole event after the completion of Technology Speed Dating Session around 4 pm. He uttered that the technology has become a powerful tool which is being used by many people all over the world. According to him, we must encourage to learn about the technologies so that it can be implemented in various sectors for change and development of nation. He mentioned that technologies have become tools for efficiency and management of various fields.
USAID has been helping in Nepal in number of sectors like platform for blogs so as to share information for journalists, agricultural programs, Nepal NGOs, etc. He also mentioned that due to the technological partnership with Microsoft the capacity of managing all these fields has been improved. He asked all of us to stretch up our imagination and wants to hear from us our creative ideas concerning this. He also hoped to continue to work with it and know how technology can benefited in innumerable areas. Finally, the event ended with exchange of thanks to all the participants who helped in succeeding today’s event and a cocktail party with gifts to the participants.
Ujjwal Thapa, the Online Banker is using websites for last 10 years. He gave us information about Social Media and shared how social medias like Facebook, twitter, etc. help to connect with the donors. He quoted as “Change is happening fast”. He also asked queries to the audience to make it more lively and yes the audience were all very excited to give answers related with their own experience. Questions like ”How many of us were using mobile phones 10 years ago?, How many of have heard about IPhone?"He concluded the answers with 37% people using mobile phones now and he also believes that after 10 years all Nepalese will be browsing the internet via mobile phones. Likewise, while giving a short introduction to social media he requested audience to send sms typing Nepal to 2426 and the audience were replied back with their calls information.
Now relating the social media with the non-profit organization, he mentioned that most of the NGOs would prefer emails rather than talking. He also pointed out four major reasons why they do not use social media:-
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don’t know how to use Information Management.
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don’t have time to use or priority.
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don’t know what content to create.
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don’t have the money.
Finally, he gave bright spots about social media in Nepal with human relations. He gave an example about how Facebook page is helping the NGOs for collecting views and feeling about oneself by any favour. Concluding his presentation he showed a brief interview regarding the use of facebook in context of Nepal.
The NGO day starts with the registration. at 9:30. The chairs of Durbar Hall at Shankar hotel are being fill up by the members of different NGOs, Microsoft, USAID|Nepal, blogging team, video streaming team, internet providing team of NCELL and other guests. Mr. Allen B. Tuladhar, Country Manager, Microsoft is busy with his technical arrangements. Ms. Jenifer Billings, USID is hosting todays event. It is fair to name the event today as “NGO Day – WORKSHOP – MEETING”. The hall is full with more than 120 chairs, four bloggers, banners, guests, reception.
Parina Shakya talked what MIC is about and what services it provides. She said that organizations get something from MIC and it collaborates with NGOs in various fields of IT. MIC helps how to develop global software economically. She focused on the programs of MIC which includes building skills, talks about Microsoft Products, doing some trainings and MIC is specially focused for students, entrepreneurs and everyone who wants to do something in the field of IT.
She also mentioned about the services provided by MIC Nepal. It includes technological issues, solution on mobiles and any problem in IT sector. The other services provided are internship, startup-incubation and technical workshop/ training. She cited that MIC provides solution to the problems focused. She also discussed about the trainings and workshops provided by MIC Nepal. She briefed about the Phone/Yogita training as well as the competition which is being held these days. She discussed what the participants would gain from the training along with different attractive prizes. She ended her talk giving the link of MIC : http://nepal.micnetwork.org
This session was started by Allen B Tuladhar with a video regarding the challenges and the opportunities. He talked about how we can get the solution about the framework that Microsoft has and how do we look at engaging at software development in the field of NGO. He explained about bringing the technology in the hand of poor people being together. This can be done by socializing through social networking connecting with community and reaching out to the people without money adopting Entrepreneur. He also mentioned about the technology innovation where he mentioned about partnership as for NGOs its important with to link with people, donors, sub organizations. He quoted that there should be “Believe in partners”.
He gave an example of the competition that held two years back which was about Windows Multipoint Server Multipoint Mouse that was using number of mice in one PC. There was various software been developed by the students participating like Baghchal , Café Software, etc. Today we have got the solution as “Mouse Mischief”, software in which we can use multi keyboards, mice in one PC.
The video regarding Multipoint Nepal was shown in which teachers of schools spoke about the need of technology to the students. It was shown that the requirement of PCs was the main problem there for each students. So by using this concept of Multipoint, the problem was resolved and one PC could be used by multi users.This could save 77% of the cost and satisfied students as well as teachers as the unwanted sites could be blocked by the teachers. (to be continued…….)
Mr. Kedar P. Badu, Development consultant in collaboration with save the children. He has been working in NGO for 15 years. He presented his experience in the field. He gave a suggestions on different problems experienced by different NGOs and INGOs.
He mentioned about the objective of the NGOs and INGOs. Also he mentioned there are many problems in recording the reports, analyzing it and sharing. Due to lack of hardware and software resources that should be using by different organization. In details, he suggested some of the policies to launch which make organization easier by the GoN. He also suggested company like Microsoft to help out with cheaper software and quality technician. He also included the use of local software by NGOs. Also MS-EXCEL is used by almost all of the NGOs. According to Mr. Badu, NGOs want some new applications but before that they need basic need of the technology. Nepal is still fighting to be in reach of a single computer. They are having lots of problem with virus and unsecurity towards the soft-copy/digital copies. So, to make sure they keep hardcopy as well. No effective email exchange for the work purpose. He mentioned they need a common format and common server by which it is easier to share files and information. He gave information to the developers that they need analyzing tools to analyze the reports. NGOs also demanded the technical training as they have energetic and educated staffs, it was known as one of the guest mentioned it.
Ms. Jennifer Billings, USAID|Nepal hosted the event. MC told, “This is the first event together with Microsoft Nepal. We have really exciting agendas. The major opportunity of this program is to use technology”. With the brief description she then introduced Mr. Allen Bailochan Tuladhar, Country Manager for Microsoft Nepal.
He started with introduction of the program saying, “it was a great pleasure to be here. I can see energetic people here”. He quoted further,” As we mostly see the development parts, we wanted to be able to reach out and to look out how many people are there with solutions. What that means is to able to use to Windows System and office packages. The interfaces are now introduced in Nepali to make sure that the people do not have problems with the language.We have been using it in word and excel documents, and for emails too.So we have solutions to hidden problems where we look at lots of areas”. He mentioned many fields as sector of technology, which includes social entrepreneurship, NGOs, etc. and the use of technology in the programs of NGO he mentioned Microsoft|Innovation center is eager to solve the problems.
As for the NGO day, we have four bloggers from Microsoft and they are :-Abhay Sharma, Sabi Darshandhari, Bhagirath Ghimire and me of course Kripa Shrestha.
Abhay Sharma is from Everest Engineering College, Sitapaila, Kathmandu and is currently doing his fourth year of bachelors level in Electronics and Communication.
Sabi Darshandhari is from Advanced College of Engineering and Management and she is doing her Bachelors third year in Electronic Engineering. Bhagirath Ghimire is from Patan 
Campus,Lalitpur and is pursuing his Masters second year. Now talking about me, I am currently doing my Bachelors third year from St.Xaviers College, Matighar in Bachelors in Information Management.
We are all much excited and are looking forward for the event to start.
Well, looking into the agendas of the great day, NGO Day, we have Jennifer Billings from USAID as MC for the whole event. In the event we have registration for about half an hour from 9:30 to 10:00 am. After that, we are having 15 minutes Welcome Remarks by Allen B. Tuladhar, Country Manager of Microsoft. Then, short discussion about NGOs & ICTs: Challenges and Opportunities will be there which takes about 30 minutes that is from 10:15 to 10:45 am. After the discussion we are having half an hour of Tea/ Coffee break.
As soon as the break ends, there will be one hour session about the Financial and Information Management Practices. Then we will be getting some information about Microsoft Innovation Centre for 15 minutes. For half an hour Social Media discussion is scheduled. At 1:00 pm there will be Lunch break till 2:15 pm. After having lunch, about two hour session of Technology Speed Dating will be held where different people from different NGOs are speaking about various themes. Organizations are: New Era, Winrock EIG, Winrock, Winrock-Renewal Energy, Chemonics, Asia Foundation, Fintrack, FHI/STEP/Nepal, USAID/Nepal. After this session overs we are having David Atteberry, Mission Director, USAID for the closing remarks. Reception from 4:15 pm will be held till 6:00 pm.
He talked about the developer community software and its working. He mentioned about the software competition for phone applications using OS and fully developed solution making the phones smart phones. Today we have various applications in phones which was possible due to the power of ICTs. Also he talked about the program of MSPs of different colleges regarding IT fields. These MSPs are learning, sharing and interacting with different social medias about Microsoft softwares.
He cited about the Imagine Cup which is held every year in different countries where students participate with their concept about different software ideas. Microsoft has provided genuine software with keys for about 15,000 students. He also talked about the Techmela that is going to be held soon in which lots of students are taking part. He talked about Dream spark & Biz spark. Capacity Building and Partner Ecosystem was also discussed by him along with tools from community affairs and community technology skills program. He also showed the pyramid of IT adoption slides.
Talking about software donation and support he said that Microsoft donates $400M software annually to more than 30,000 NGOs around the world. In the Asia-Pacific region Microsoft has donated $62 million. He also talked about how NGOs can donate software. To qualify for software donation it must be a locally registered NGO. There will be one month time to submit the application and application form for donating software will be made available at the end of the today’s day.
In the context of hardware access he said that Refurbisher have been supplying computers to NGOs and schools in over 130 countries and 4 lakhs licenses have been provided in 67 countries since 2004. To get IT support and services, he said that Microsoft helps NGOs to get connected with the support, I along with in NGOS connection days along with NGO IT partners Telecenter.org, Techsoup, etc.
Quoting about social networking he said that the social networking sites such as Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, etc. have been serving a lot to discuss about IT. Ncell the fasting growing mobile network of Nepal has gained more than 58,000 users discussing about its services in the social networking site Facebook.
He ended his speech with an interesting video song “Imagine………..” by John Lennon and concluded his speech.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011, 9:30 – 18:00
Microsoft |Innovation Center Nepal and USAID|NEPAL is organizing NGO Day tomorrow at Shankar Hotel, Kathmandu. There will be more than 120 NGOs taking part in this event. As per agenda, the event will start with Welcome Remark by Country Manager of Microsoft, Mr. Allen B. Tuladhar. After the short welcome, there will be short discussion of about half an hour about challenges and opportunities of NGOs & ICTs. Half an hour coffee break will be catch up by quarter an hour of introduction about Microsoft Innovation Centre. The schedule then directs the event to Social Media of half an hour.
When the clock reaches 14:15, after a long lunch break, Technology Speed Dating starts. Technology Speed Dating is the session here for the technology to Showcase. Some organizations like New Era, Winrock EIG, Winrock, Fintrack, Chemonics, Winrock-Renewal Eenergy, FSI/STEP/NEPAL, USAID/Nepal will be focusing on technology like Tablet PCs in DHS, Field Link, Early use of CDMA, Web based SMS-ASHA project and so on. Mission Director of USAID, Mr. David Atteberry, will be giving closing remarks at the end of the session.
We hope this event is going to be very fruitful for upcoming planning and inspiration to the new generation.
We will be blogging this event live tomorrow. It will be great excitement for the live readers.