OLPC South Africa

Initiatives

Government Initiatives

ICT Initiatives

Schools Programs

Various schools development programs are currently active across South Africa.

Government Communications Programs

Government in conjunctions with some of the Telecoms providers like Telkom and Sentech has been working on improving the availability off internet connectivity to rural areas. Recently the government issued a law that requires of Internet Service Providers to provide schools with access to their services at half of their regular retail price.

Universal Services Agency

The Universal Service Agency, established in accordance with the Telecommunications Act 103 of 1996 as amended, was launched on 16 May 1997. At its inception the Agency primarily focused on the establishment of Telecenters, since then the Agency has grown to be involved in the following activities:

• Telecentres in Schools and Communities;
• provision of training in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services;
• has conducted research into and kept abreast of developments in the Republic and elsewhere on ICT, and made recommendations to the Minister and Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) on the provision of universal service and universal access in South Africa;
• subsidised telecommunications licensees to deploy telecommunications services in the under-serviced areas; and
• has promoted and stimulated awareness of the benefits of ITC services.

The vision of the Universal Service Agency is to be the leading organization in the strive to promote the goal of universal service and universal access to Information and Communications Technology in South Africa.

Government information services

GCIS was established in terms of Section 7 (Subsection 2 and 3) of the Public Service Act, 1994 PDF PDF as amended and GCIS was officially launched on 18 May 1998.

GCIS's vision is helping to meet the communication and information needs of government and the people, to ensure a better life for all.

GCIS's mission is to provide leadership in government communication and to ensure that the public is informed of government's implementation of its mandate.

Department of Service delivery

Vision: To be a responsive public service that delivers on the government's commitment to a better life for all people of South Africa.

Mission: To render professional support to the Minister in:

• leading the transformation process by developing appropriate policies and facilitating their implementation through strategic interventions and partnerships and
• maintaining a functioning public service.

The department of public service and administration sees to the development of administrative policies and a legislative framework to facilitate the transformation of the public service, in order to enhance service delivery.

The policy and legislative transformation process of recent years has now shifted gears to focus on implementation and the restructuring of the public service. In this regard, the DPSA leads several major initiatives.

Investment Initiatives

Treasury Development Co-operation Project

NATIONAL TREASURY VISION 2005: The Treasury aims to promote economic development, good governance, social progress and rising living standards through accountable, economic, efficient, equitable and sustainable management of public finances.

OVERALL IDC VISION: IDC strives to ensure the optimal utilisation of Official Development Assistance (ODA), in the context of South Africa’s broader international relations, and in support of South African, regional and African development priorities.

MISSION: To contribute to development in South Africa through deepening and extending ODA linkages between South Africa and donors and shaping the regional, African and global ODA policy agenda. This involves the following:

1. Deepening and extending ODA linkages between South Africa and donor countries;
2. Deepening and extending development linkages between African countries through ODA;
3. Shaping the regional and international development policy agenda; and
4. Monitoring and evaluating ODA programs.

IDC will achieve its mission through engaging in activities that provide high quality research, professional policy analysis, support, facilitation and advice, with excellent coordinating services.

VALUES: /In performing its work, IDC is driven by the following core values: Excellence, Integrity, Transparency and accountability, Customer orientation and Innovation.

--Jaco Vosloo 04:26, 4 April 2006 (EDT)

Independent Organisational Initiatives

[http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.co.za Shuttleworth Foundation

• Building Analytical Capacity through Peer-Taught Software Engineering

Private Sector Initiatives

Furyx

Due to the large number of initiatives in South Africa, Furyx strives to improve co-operation between the initiatives and making the distribution of the e-Learning products a reality. Furyx understands the challenges of distributing content in Africa where Internet connectivity is slow, unreliable, expensive and often non existent.

Furyx has is developed distribution mechanisms where content can be simultaneously distributed using the internet and CD/DVD to augment the bandwidth of the internet connection.

• Content
  • Free content is obtained from existing Government initiatives, e-Learning institutions and business incubators.
• Content Management & Distribution Software
  • Content is cached on servers at Schools or Information Hubs. Students can schedule the automatic downloading of content not available at their hub. Content download priority is based on the number of requests received for a specific piece of content.
  • Currently Furyx systems use Microsoft .Net Framework & Web Services on the Server and HTML, Java or .Net on the client.
• Network Infrastructure
  • Information Hubs are connected together using National Telecoms or Satellite connectivity
  • Users are linked together using WiFi or WiMax to form a mesh with potentially a Hub as an internet bridging point
  • Pre-packaged business models like ISP, e-commerce and free business accounting packages encourage the community to use the infrastructure to improve its own welfare.
• User Devices
  • Furyx is currently searching and designing low cost user terminals. Current available options include:
    • Home entertainment PC:
      • Many households own a $100 battery powered television set. By merging television functionality (KnoppMyth) into the PC, the potential exists to make it affordable to households.
      • Devices will cost less than $300 in low volumes.
    • OLPC:
      • The OLPC initiative promises to eventually deliver laptop computers with pre configured mesh networking for around $100.

--Jaco Vosloo 04:26, 4 April 2006 (EDT)