Literacy for a human-centered recovery: Narrowing the digital divide
Those who don't know history won't be able to improve the present and plan for future generations. Current generation will be able to describe a way that a past historical event could inform their understanding of the recent event. The Cultural Capital, Human Capital and Social Capital were high in Nepal in earlier days, however, youth should find out how such best practices spread from the land of Gautam Buddha into several other countries boosting economy and the same practices deteriorated in our own country. In West Indies countries schools children are taught about Nepal as a living museum of the world while teaching about original skills on craft and heritage of Nepal. The emperor of China handed over the daughter from the royal family to Arniko, an artist and Architect of Nepal because of the magnificent skill he possessed then. Many Nepalese people are introduced by Japanese experts to people in Japan and world as people coming from the great nation where best management practices originated in ancient days and they quote the valuable contents written in old ancient carved stone slabs called Shilapatra known as stone documents in the Archeology department and Museums in Nepal. There is a serious need to analyze these trends in Nepal, offering a comprehensive agenda to exploit the opportunities offered by converging technologies while minimizing the risks to vulnerable populations. Researchers should study and propose the ancient Human capital system and draw strategies for building public sector capacity and promoting data and technology governance frameworks in a rapidly evolving technology landscape.
This Approach here considers the role of technology, public finance to build, protect and utilize human capital as countries seek to recover from the COVID-19 crisis and lay a foundation for inclusive, resilient and sustainable development. It defines the problem in relation to human capital outcomes amid the COVID-19 crisis and outlines three areas for action: policy priorities, governance, and fiscal space for building and utilizing human capital. Stakeholders should be made be provided with resource materials which highlights recent innovations and illustrates actionable steps for the short term as well as directions for the longer term, by country context, with the overarching objective of supporting a resilient recovery.
Nepal, which has always been affected by natural disaster like earth quake, landslides, flood etc, is heavily impacted by the devastating loss of lives and human capital from the COVID-19 pandemic and the converging technology revolution sweeping the globe. Covid 19, climate change and technology convergence has deepened existing inequalities, hitting the poorest and most vulnerable communities the hardest. It has put a spotlight on economic inequalities and fragile social safety nets that leave vulnerable
Nepal could capitalize from emerging Converging Technology Revolution and Human Capital to accelerate its development of human capital and promote adaptability and resilience to future shocks. This requires strategic planning for uplifting the economy of the country driven by dynamic visionary leadership. The convergence of technological breakthroughs spanning biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science is driven by artificial intelligence, data flows, computing power, and connectivity. These breakthroughs can improve service delivery, productivity, and innovation, but they can also exacerbate inequalities and eliminate people’s agency and empowerment.
COVID-19 instructions, such as asking elderly persons above the age of 60 to stay home, are being broadcasted on popular social media like Facebook, Google and YouTube etc. However, vast majority of our unfortunate elderly citizens of Nepal are unable to understand or access social media due to language barrier, lack of education, lack of Internet access, and/or unavailability of computers and laptops. Majority of the people are not educated to understand the complexity of the pandemic and care system for elderly is poor. Many of them died because they were unaware of precautionary measures to be taken during this COVID-19 pandemic period. While lack of education, we still have to get rid of age-old rules, which promote ignorance and silly beliefs, hindering medical education and following the instructions of medical care teams. This continuously changing knowledge and instructions about COVID-19 pandemic require everyone to be able to read, listen, and comprehend international news, especially from health experts and researchers, to stay safe and survive. However, elderly citizens are seriously handicapped and depend on their grandchildren for the required information. Asking grandchildren to get educated and develop knowledge is a late realization.
Most of the COVID-19 patients also believe in 33 crore “Devis and Devatas” and remaining Muslims and Christians also believe in blind superstitions not founded on scientific knowledge, thus unable to comprehend the true complexities of this deadly disease. They were unfortunately overpopulating around temples, churches, and mosques and infecting more people around and spreading this deadly disease. They also cannot differentiate between misinformation floating on various print media, television, and social media. They are dying because of lack knowledge on such sensitivity of COVID-19 complexities.
Converging Technology revolution
The converging technology revolution comprises the synergistic combination of four groups of technologies: Info-Technology, Bio-technology, Nano-Technology and Cognitive - Technologies. They go beyond digital technologies, although they are underpinned by the latter. Data is central to the converging technology revolution; a unique feature is the integration of data from the human, physical, biological and cyber worlds. High speed computing power and connectivity are the other two factors powering this revolution. These characteristics drive both the potential and the risks from the converging technology revolution. The development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), itself a combination of information technology and cognitive science and made possible by the availability of vast amounts of data, cheap high speed computing power and ubiquitous connectivity, is further enabling and driving the converging technology revolution. These developments have profound implications for human capital – creating the possibility of rapid accumulation of human capital through technological innovations in education (e.g., by improving learning quality), health (e.g., by improving stunting or reducing non-communicable diseases) and social protection (e.g., by addressing informality of the labor force) sectors; as well as supporting sectors such as agriculture, water, energy, sectors critical for Nepal’s development. Defining policies that regulate technological convergence industry may not be simple or straightforward. Data collection and usage are tied to digital privacy issues because a piece or aggregation of information could identify an individual or reveal patterns in one’s activities. Converged or smart technologies leverage large volumes of data to try to improve the user experience by generating more tailored and anticipatory results. However, such data can potentially identify, locate, track, and monitor an individual without the person’s knowledge. Such data can also potentially be sold to third-party entities without an individual’s awareness. As the use of converged technologies continues to propagate, digital privacy issues will likely remain central. As converged devices generate and consume large volumes of data, multiple data security concerns have emerged: potentially increased number of access points susceptible to cyberattacks, linkage to physical security, and theft of data.
Digital Nepal Framework
Government of Nepal has initiated the Digital Nepal framework with different sectors such as energy, tourism, finance, agriculture, health, education and urban development. The Government's big plan Digital Nepal is designed to facilitate Nepal to connect its driving socioeconomic growth of citizens which will help and support to achieve the sustainable development goal.
Digital foundation as broadband connectivity and Data Center is the most important foundation to make all those mentioned sectors being digital possible. Connectivity and Data Center as the root of a tree, to provide water and nutrition for the fruitful outcome of digitization in different sectors. Governments in the digital age can use information to reduce corruption and increase government transparency, accountability, efficiency and citizen participation. Human rights advocates contend that successful use of ICT in governance requires access to information, education and the ability to share information for citizens
By joint effort with telecom operators in Nepal, international stakeholders have brought 2G/3G/4G technology to Nepal and have made connectivity available across the country from Himalayas to Terai. With the introduction of 4G technology, Nepal has seen a massive increase in the use of internet over the past years with high quality and speed. This technology has made the country progressive not only for communication sector but also for other online activities such as ecommerce, online education, digital finance, online video streaming, online social networking and benefiting overall socio-economic sector.
Besides building connectivity, some stakeholder's ICT technology and ecosystem is helping organizations in different sectors from government to financial institution, airlines, Internet Service Provider, media etc. It has helped to speed up the progress of digital transformation by using ICT technology to improve their internal efficiency, and making their services more convenient, easy, and fast processing.
Dynamics of rural transformation
The complexity of the rural transformation process calls for multi-layered governance and new forms of technical and financial assistance. There are many working groups and forums, with different constituencies and mandates, that explore the central and unifying role.
All Platform activities in the strategic initiative constitute a longer-term exercise in close cooperation with a growing number of institutions and initiatives towards the better-informed positioning of various stakeholders including donor programs within the new development framework. The process of rural transformation must thus be addressed by a policy agenda aimed at making rural transformation ecologically more sustainable and socially inclusive.
Building Technology platforms, Policies, the critical insight to a Nepal’s journey of success requires one to be able to work with and grow the ecosystem. IT sector also need to have volunteers from not-for-profit Think Tank, staffed mostly by volunteers from the tech world, who dedicate their time, energy and expertise towards Nepal’s hard problems. This group should remain committed to being in the background, taking pride in the success of partners who are solving for Nepal’s hard problems.
Stakeholder engagement
There is a serious requirement of engaging Think Tanks of the country to explore strategic opportunities to ensure that converging technologies are integrated into public sector policies, plans and programs in effective and equitable ways. Some of these technologies are already being used by the private sectors, however, not extensively for human capital development. There is a further need to identify constraints that prevent the effective implementation at the ground level, including the sectoral silos that need to be opened up to incorporate these technologies to produce greater impact. And this is particularly pertinent in the context of implementing policies and programs in the relatively new (and fragile) federal structure, in which converging technologies could potentially offer more effective pathways to improve service delivery. IT forces of the nation should be integrated along with concerned stakeholders to strengthen better service delivery at the ground level of the fragile federal structure of Nepal.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds
As part of its Digital Talent Development Ecosystem, various multinational technology corporates are launching CSR programs with global flagship CSR program for undergraduate level students from all ICT-related disciplines worldwide. The students will also get first-hand insight into the ICT industry in Nepal classes from industry experts. students will join the alumni community where exclusive webinars, round table dialogue, celebration events, etc. will be held all year round to strengthen the sense of belonging. There are various programs emerging from developed countries for the development of digital talents in Nepal. These countries hope to help Nepal build the foundation for the Nepalese digital economy by partnering with all ICT stakeholders, through broadband connectivity, data centers, cloud and computing, and other latest technologies. Some of these are using their telecom, enterprise, and public cloud service and solutions. They are assisting the government, the public sector private businesses, and all industry domains in their digital transformation.
Along with the mobile libraries, pre-loaded e-content on tablets and laptops for the children to learn from can also be a part of the mechanism. The library vehicles are envisaged to remain parked in one place for an hour or two and have tie-ups with the local schools to decide on e-content. This activity can also be taken up through CSR efforts or by any volunteers from the local communities ready to provide such resources on their own.
Access to the internet and computers is directly related to household incomes. Help may be taken from governments, charity organizations, companies under CSR for obtaining android phones and gadgets for online classes. Institutions under concerned ministry should work together and take school education to children at home through digital means.
Covid 19 Pandemic and digital acceleration
Online activities have also increased during day time, considering that more and more people are getting used to the modality of work from home and study from home. Beside major cities like Kathmandu, Pokhara, Butwal and Chitwan, most of the remote parts of Nepal are still not covered by broadband connectivity which is affecting peoples’ daily lives and economic activities.
As a responsible corporate organization in Nepal, all the private sectors should be committed to contribute digital foundation to Nepal, including high quality, wide coverage and affordable broadband connectivity and advanced Data Center, with all telecom operators, ISPs, government and all ICT stakeholders in Nepal.
Targets for progress
The third beacon of hope is the increasing prominence of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs provide history’s first universal matrix for achieving a flourishing future. Adopted by the heads of governments from 193 UN member states, the SDG framework addresses the key physical facets of life in our global village – social, environmental and economic.
IT sector also needs to have volunteers from not-for-profit Think Tank, staffed mostly by volunteers from the tech world, who dedicate their time, energy and expertise towards Nepal’s hard problems. This group should remain committed to being in the background, taking pride in the success of partners who are solving Nepal's hard problems.
The motivation for volunteering is hard to explain to those who have not experienced the joy volunteering brings. They should find market players and government entities with the conviction in this approach and help everyone work together and function together. In practical terms, this means that the government builds the digital public infrastructure, and the market participants build businesses on top of it. Groups in regional countries have iterated this model and are continuing to improve and refine this model. To play such a role they use their mission to align with the Government partners, Market partners and their own volunteers.
They should convert ideas into policy proposals to take to the government, stakeholders. As part of their advocacy efforts they should explain, educate and inform government policy makers and other policy bodies that a vibrant software product industry is vital to Nepal’s future. They should have symbiotic relations with trade organizations including professionally run institutions and see them leading the charge of converting policy prescriptions into reality.
Women’s agenda
Women, during Covid-19 pandemic, faced some of its most severe and unforeseen impacts. The pandemic exposed deep, structural inequalities that exist within social and economic systems. The pandemic posed a threat not only to livelihoods from inadequate social protection systems, but also to women’s security as violence against women has increased in the country.
As endorsed by the adoption of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on ‘Women, Peace and Security’, women play an essential role in peace and security activities, including in accelerating economic revitalization in the aftermath of conflict and emergency situations such as the Covid-19 pandemic.
Economic empowerment of women not only contributes to more peaceful and resilient societies but also protects women from issues such as domestic violence. Applying a ‘Women, Peace and Security’ lens to response therefore provides valuable guidance on the fundamental need for women’s rights and women’s leadership to be at the forefront of recovery. Government should speed up training to support women to start their own businesses, through training ranging from technology adoption in financial literacy to business planning to ensure that women and girls in Nepal are economically empowered and resilient in the face of crises, now and in the future.
The Covid-19 pandemic has widened gender and other inequalities in employment, with women (and industries dominated by women) experiencing the largest job losses. And men currently earn most degrees and hold most jobs in these future-proof areas. This pandemic has taught the world a lot of lessons. Do the senior elderly citizens of Nepal have sufficient knowledge and skills to record the learning lessons in order to generate correct narratives for future generations? Girls especially should take keen interest in downloading for capturing the valuable contents from the elderly citizens before they fade away.
Women seemed to have a different risk perception and desire for protective action than the men in their lives, but men often determined when and what type of action families took. Researchers found that there are many barriers that disadvantage women in the event of a disaster, leaving them behind when it comes to decision-making and potentially slowing down their recovery. Eliminating the male head-of-household model is crucial for speeding overall household recovery.
When crisis strikes, it often strikes women hardest. Initiative aims to ensure that their policy and investment decisions equitably benefit women and girls. Financial supporting groups seek to support decision-makers in understanding the gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; assess health, economic, and social policy response measures with a gender lens; and propose evidence-based solutions for an inclusive recovery. Survivors of crisis often have critical and mental health needs relating to depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, all of which impact the physical and emotional wellbeing of survivor and the family.
We must zoom in on the multiple barriers that prevent women from entering technology fields in large numbers, many starting in girlhood. Girls often lack access to legal, digital skills and technology, cultural and gender norms inhibit them from learning these skills, and gender biases in the workplace hamper their entry and rise in tech professions.
Across our region, non-profit organizations and the private sector have pioneered community-driven approaches to work locally to encourage girls and young women to pursue studies, careers and entrepreneurship in ICT. Such programs are bridging the gender divides in tech with visible results. Policymakers, academics and businesses have much to learn from these initiatives while designing COVID-19 recovery responses to ensure girls and boys alike are included in the economies of tomorrow.
New regional advocacy platforms are emerging for supporting actors to share knowledge, skills and connections. Growing body of research suggests that hands-on activities that spur girls to combine creativity and address social challenges help stimulate interest in tech. Tec-novation, an international nonprofit, pursues a bottom-up approach by empowering local leaders, organizations, volunteers and girls to identify problems in their community that can be solved. Governments can also partner with the private sector at the local level to offer young women scholarships, internships and apprenticeships to expand their opportunities in the ICT sector.
In the spirit of “Connected Girls, Creating Brighter Futures”, let us celebrate and sustain the work of locally rooted and needs-driven community-based initiatives for girls in ICT. We can bring the entire STEM ecosystem together to help women realize their full potential and build stronger and sustainable economies.
Despite strong evidence regarding the importance of fully incorporating women into the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector, a gender ICT gap still remains in Nepal. Moreover, women are underrepresented in the sector, particularly in technical and decision-making positions. Barriers include lack of role models, lack of limited gender specific networking opportunities as well as the investment one needs to remain up-to-date in this fast-moving industry constantly updating one’s technical skill – stay current. The technological world evolves very quickly and one has to be self-learning all the time.
There are reservations for women in electoral politics and in government services, one of the fundamental pillars of the post-2006 compact—proportionate representation in all state bodies. However, this power has been ignored during implementation of the constitution. Citizens now feel that most of the attributes such as secularism, inclusion, federalism, and even democracy are only limited in documentation only.
Rotary club and strength mobilization
The strength of Rotracts specially the female members of Rotary clubs all across the nation can be mobilized to transform rural sector. The motivation for volunteering is hard to explain to those who have not experienced the joy volunteering brings. Rotracts under Rotary club could be mobilized in integrated manner with IT professionals. They should find market players and government entities with the conviction in this approach and help everyone work together and function together. In practical terms, this means that the government builds the digital public infrastructure, and the market participants build businesses on top of it. Groups in regional countries have iterated this model and are continuing to improve and refine this model. To play such role they use their mission to align with the Government partners, Market partners and their own volunteers.
The members of Rotracts groups should be trained in above technology skills in order to transfer the knowledge to the teachers involved in the program for better result and effective use of the fund. Rotary clubs who have strong link with international partners should help in expanding such links for greater outreach to accelerate Digital Nepal initiatives. Partnering with such talented students also will certainly strengthen services of Rotary activities.
More factors such as friendly ICT policy, advanced technology, good local service and ICT talents can be the enabler to make the big tree of digital Nepal grow healthier. The joint effort of all ICT stakeholders in Nepal, committed stakeholders will make everyone in Nepal be benefited from the digital world, to fulfill the vision of Prosperous Nepal.
In ICT sector lot of CSR funds are available preferably for girls. These awards recognizes a product that are innovative and can leave a positive impact in the lives of the community while also showing the prospect of being into business for the long run. Such products, however, shall be from the Tech sector and maybe software or hardware or combination of both. Such awards aim to recognize the contribution and innovation made in the technology sector by Youths and Students. These youth talents should be encouraged to gain strength by collaboration with Individuals, academic institutions, corporations, NGOs or governments whose use and applications of digital technologies exhibit exceptional achievement.
In the context of especially pandemic and climate change challenges, there is urgency of reversing losses caused by the COVID pandemic; leveraging the cultural shift that has occurred in the use of technology in the human development sectors, but also the difficulties that have been revealed; and preparing for future shocks as well as adjusting to climate change. There is a need for building capacity to adapt technologies and innovate in Nepal’s context, especially in the context of emergency handling in real time and building back. Rotary clubs should help in identifying countries who are world's most innovative companies. Such initiatives could strengthen the talents of Nepal too. Tapping talents from rural areas requires investments. I have witnessed the talents of rural and economically backward students who have competed in open competition to get enrolled in premier public institutions. Awards for students in innovation should be encouraged by engaging public and private institutions through their CSR funds. Rotary clubs should also initiate programs to encourage Medical Infrastructure Council. If the Digital Nepal framework has to be successfully implemented for overall growth of the society public institutions including universities have to be strengthened by encouraging public enterprise development models. Human Capital Development policy need to be redesigned. Rotary clubs are connected with grass root people and could play key role in aggressively launching Literacy for a human-centered recovery program.
T-E-A- C-H program of Rotary club
Education is one of the most important means of empowering women with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence necessary to participate fully in the development process. More than one third of the world's adults, most of them women, have no access to printed knowledge, to new skills or to technologies that would improve the quality of their lives and help them shape and adapt to social and economic change.
Rotary Nepal Literacy Mission has designed a comprehensive program with the motive of Quality education and to make Nepal 100% literate by the year 2030. The program is called "T-E-A-C-H" where :T - Teacher Support, E - E-learning, A - Adult Literacy, C - Child Development, H - Happy School
Some rotary clubs in Nepal have already launched at community school level and some are in the process. To fulfill the target Rotary International degree 3292 Nepal Bhutan has urged all its clubs to adopt at least one school (one club, one school) to implement T-E-A-C-H program. The Rotary India Literacy Mission (RILM), formerly known as Rotary South Asia Society for Development and Cooperation (RSAS) aims to work towards Total literacy and Quality Education in Nepal. Each of these programs has a specific focus and it is interlinked with each other in achieving the common goal of bringing total literacy and improving the learning outcomes of primary education, in various parts of the country.
Stakeholders should issue Students’ Learning Enhancement CSR funds for creating mobile libraries as one of the ways to help students overcome the digital divide. One way of ensuring continuous learning is to ensure that children continue to read and enrich their learning process through reading textual material other than prescribed textbooks. Stakeholders may consider mobile libraries for remote parts, where the library vehicle visits on designated days and students can borrow library books or return read books on those days. This activity can also be taken up through CSR efforts. Related stories should be highlighted.
The creation of a sustainable talent development ecosystem in Nepal requires forward-thinking policymaking and strong public-private partnership. A conducive learning ecosystem promoted by TEACH program supported by Rotracts youth engagements will help to groom a generation of digital talents that will someday lead the Nepal's ’s digital future.
We need a vision and knowledge of what is happening around us, a new view of cultural and religious phenomena, without dividing humankind into limited and subjective categories. That's the tenet for a better world and a job for Rotarians: not engaging in politics, but serving without any boundaries. Rotary institutional support system can play key role in bringing together all concerned stakeholdrers in serving citizens and promote the concept of Ethics in Nepal. Rotary has a core set of ethical principles as a Four-Way Test. As Rotarians, rotary members repeatedly affirm to each other and to the community at large that there is an ethical basis to the things members think, say, and do. Implementing an ethics-related project for youth is an excellent example of “service above self” that promotes universal values such as honesty, respect, courage, and responsibility and that will help young people be ethical citizens.
Putting humans and IT at the center means three things: distributing benefits, managing externalities, and ensuring that technology directly and indirectly empowers and augments the uniquely human aspects of ourselves.
Women friendly policies, institutions and processes can determine access to assets and influence decision making processes. Have citizens of Nepal been able to choose right people at the decision-making places? How much aware are our citizen? Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Augmented Reality and more such technologies have changed the technological landscape like never before. Let’s not forget how Artificial Intelligence has tremendously transformed, customer experience, in recent years. Artificial intelligence (AI) Applications range from large scale analysis of medical data and online retail recommendation engines, to robotics and computer vision, to sensor fusion in the tiniest sensor nodes. The infusion of AI techniques into so many areas of computing is changing compute paradigms across the board. How to keep up with these changes, especially given AI’s propensity to evolve at a staggering rate?
For building HUMAN CAPITAL it is very important that current youth generation learn to analyze characteristic traits of our people who are influencing the society. Now technology is available to track such behavior patterns of people for filtering out wrong people by the system.
Content generations
Societies of Nepal have a rich old heritage and knowledge base that should be recognized, recorded and shared for the benefit of people throughout the world. Much of these valuable content remains inaccessible even to the local population, not to mention at a broader level. Urban and rural communities may be defined by their location, culture, language, religion, ethnicity or area of interest and individuals may belong to many communities at the same time. Further, communities evolve so what is relevant will change over time. This relevant content is often referred to as “local content”.
Policy makers around the world in ministries of culture look for ways to promote the creation and preservation of cultural heritage, including elements that are tangible, oral and intangible. At the same time, policy makers in communication ministries focus on ways to ensure that information and communication technologies and services, such as Internet access, are available and accessible to the population.
The Internet has helped empower users as content creators which adds value to people’s livelihood. The Internet has provided a platform for crowd-sourced content creation and community-developed and peer-reviewed knowledge bases such as Wikipedia. It has also allowed individuals to exercise greater choice and control over the content they consume. It plays a key role in all steps from content creation to its distribution but perhaps its largest contribution is the potential it gives to creators to disseminate information about their content widely and nearly instantaneously at a very low cost. Stakeholders include not only local professional communities (public and private), but also non-professional content creators and users. Technology can help support the recognition, creation, preservation, dissemination and utilization of local content. Technological developments such as the printing press, the phonogram, telephony, radio, television, photocopying machines, recording media, mobile phones and personal computers, among others, have greatly increased our ability to create and disseminate content.
The more well-known people are, they try to add value via social media channels. "What you sent what you got" as they contributed to the people around them, built up the social capital. Talk about ideas their social capital started extending into culture and when they start adding their social capital in their cultural capital and amplifying through digital technology they get incredible results. People are investing very heavily on social engagement through the use of multiple channels of distribution to reach multiple audiences on the internet. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn actually did connect with multiple audiences. They started co-creating products together with what the brains meant together. They did the best in financial teams during the most difficult economic climate.
Companies that did the best on a financial level are companies which put themselves at the center. The more connected the company is the more employees are digitally literate and encouraged to use that literacy within that organization. They are visible, it is because those companies have more access to information that is pertinent to them. It can make better and quicker decisions than their competitors. It has a competitive advantage.
The best leaders demonstrate vision but they also influence, empathy, attunements as well as desire to help others, a desire to empower others. Now Technology is available so people can better understand and add value. Technology is also is now available to measure performances of leaders. They are visible, it is because those leaders have more access to information that is pertinent to them.
Female students from remote areas should be encouraged to get digitally connected with role models with similar experiences from urban settings. It is not what happens to life it is what one does with it, when one goes through difficult and challenging times that he/she will always be aware of surroundings, Pattern recognition also works in community building interactions. I learnt to understand how to work with communities, especially with those who underwent similar experiences.
Uploads all connections, contacts so that one can start making meaning out of one's life Facebook profile page where all kinds of experiences are collected helps people connect past with present and help co create future adding value. Pick your friend as mentors, because those people together make you co-create your positivity for the future through social media. I have created a Facebook page of mine called timilayamithapa and have created a virtual community. The virtual communities are helping co -create positivity for my days ahead. I have created Facebook pages of my father and mother where virtual communities are helping me co- create list information about the lives of their great past.
Engagement of committed stakeholders, who have been serving Nepal’s ICT industry including international parties who are leading global providers of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices, is essential to bring digital platform to every person, home, and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world.
Sustained, heavy investment in R&D is one of the key factors of these companies who have been in the leading position of technology. International stakeholders have always valued their corporate social responsibility (CSR) in underdeveloped countries who are also engaged in developing ICT talents directly and indirectly from the past several years. They have been an attractive organization to great talents, and became a gateway to the international technology arena for aspiring technophiles.
Strong ICT infrastructure such as 4G/5G mobile broadband network coverage, data center, cloud platform and others, will not only make digital method like telemedicine and online virus contact track tracing to fight the pandemic easier, but also enable the digital economy as the toll to build a platform for strong economy recovery.
They should convert ideas into policy proposals to take to the government, stakeholders. as part of their advocacy efforts. They should explain, educate and inform government policy makers and other policy bodies that a vibrant software product industry is vital to Nepal’s future. They should strive to have a symbiotic relation with trade organizations including professionally run institutions and see them leading the charge of converting policy prescriptions into reality.
There is a serious need for input from futurists if we have to survive in the race of technological advancement. Bringing capabilities from AI and Big Data, Robotics, Automation and Drones, Cloud Computing. Faster Networks, 5G., Extended Virtual Reality etc. are emerging at a faster rate. People are looking at streaming data for predicting analytics. Companies will be offering automated data warehousing and helping streamline business processes. Microsoft, Amazon, Google are offering a lot of capabilities that will transform the coming decade. There has to be additional investment from the government side to build capacities of academic institutions in order to adopt the fast changing technologies for reflection in the academic curriculum, innovation, research, reskilling Academicians.
Technology Management
Technology management today is considered as most strategic which has to be well understood by both government, private sectors and Think Tank groups of Nepal. Technology reaches people through business functions and are becoming more women friendly. Firms require shift of IT and IT requires transformation of IT function, in the past IT was support functions the IT organization was peripheral to business strategy. The role of technology in business caused a tremendous growth in trade and commerce. Business concepts and models were revolutionized as a result of the introduction of technology. This is because technology gave a new and better approach on how to go about with business. It provided a faster, more convenient, and more efficient way of performing business transactions.
The IT organization focused on automation of transaction intensive processes and IT was therefore a cost center ,however, in the competitive environment it moved to center stage. It is central to business strategy, product differentiation and market performance of firms. This cost center now drives innovations in firms and IT is therefore transformed to bring a key competitive advantage yet firms are unprepared for this transformation. various industry reports a like quitted here tell you that IT managers and leaders strongly believes that they have a critical role to play in the transformation of their company, however, they also believe equally strong they are their IT organizations are unprepared for this transformation. The transformation not only reflects a shift in thinking but it functions but also a requirement for a new breed of IT managers, managers who can examine technology through a business lens and that is the context of business technology management specialization. Women can play key role in such transformation.
To carry out the entire process we need to understand details of these four components - Technoware, Humanware, Orgaware and Infoware which are interconnected as a ZigSaw puzzle and need to have a balance of these four components. These technologies are managed through cutting edge technology. Leaders of developed nations who have resources to execute continuous research and developing countries who don’t have resources will tend to import technology. The leaders of poor countries need to have a very deep understanding of what kind of technologies they are trying to import. These poor countries will not be able to negotiate for a good technology need if they don’t have a good understanding of the needs. These countries should have close watch over technology development, research and development, technology transfer, intellectual property rights, licensing etc. There is a big gap in Nepal in decision making places. Professional Think Tanks are needed for effective input at national level engaging women experts also. Strategic decisions should be made so that decisions are made on the correct technology which is aligned with the business strategy of the organizations.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR ) funds also get affected with the collective understanding of businesses of organizations and technology adoption in real time. CSR has been hailed as a new means to address gender inequality, particularly by facilitating women’s empowerment. Women of Nepal need to network with international communities to share experiences. The learning lessons need to be spread across rural women through virtual information infrastructure for making empowerment programs effective. Women are frequently and forcefully positioned as saviours of economies or communities and proponents of sustainability. This has implications for how we can imagine the achievement of gender equality through CSR.
Rotary international also should aim at bringing together policy makers, researchers and industry experts to share solutions and best practices in building a sustainable ecosystem that will help foster digital talents in the rural areas. There is a drive from multinational companies to promote girls in the ICT sector under CSR flagship. Women social workers engaged in agendas promoting girls specially from rural sectors should include in their strategic objectives after analyzing the historical valuable contents written in old ancient carved stone slabs called Shilapatra known as stone documents in the Archeology department and Museums in Nepal . True evidence based history of Nepal has to be co_created through content generations by capturing old meaningful photographs, stone documents, hand written and print materials etc in Nepal by involving all concerned stakeholders. In the absence of true history, they won't be able to improve the present and plan for future generations. Current generation will be able to describe a way that past historical events could inform their understanding of the recent event.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forcefully accelerated the digital economy over the last 1.5 years. As companies and organizations are undergoing rapid digital transformation and seeking skilled knowledge workers to meet the challenges brought by the rise of digital economy, it becomes apparent that there remains a huge gap in digital talents across the all regions of Nepal. Governments' leaders require joint efforts from corporations, industrial organizations and educational institutions and should share learning experiences of regional countries on their best practices, policy suggestions and vision in cultivating the sustainable digital talent ecosystem led by female ICT talents. The world ahead will be one dominated by devices: connecting, sensing, and reacting to everything around us. Leaders of Nepal should position Think Tanks supported by academicians to plan on our remodeling education programs which not only reaffirms commitment to social responsibility, but also prepares the next generation of experts to design and navigate this digital landscape.