e-Infrastruture, Winner 2012
Areas way beyond broadband infrastructure and phone lines are the target of lowcost computers into poor communities.However there is a major and fundamental problem.A large percentage of the devices are in remote regions where there is no existing internet or any other method of information transfer. These devices are digitally disconnected and have no way of receiving new updated information, or native language content. They are unable to utilize the potential of the digital world.TheOneBeep solution addresses the problem and offers solutions. OneBeep has developed an inexpensive and robust method to send digital content to these devices.UsingOneBeep’s software any digital file can be converted to audio, which is then sent via radio waves.This can be received on anyAM/FM radio, which passes it on to the laptop via an inexpensive audio cable. The file is then converted back to its original form once it has been received on the devices. As every village has AM radios, a low- cost way to beam out daily lessons, health material or other information over long distances has been created.
These centers are positioned as e-infrastructure that is within easy access of everyone in the gram panchayat and it is manned by a localvillager who is trained by BASIX to become an entrepreneur (VLE). The Common Service Centers (CSC) scheme started in 2010 is a part of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) which aims at providing e-governance country wide to deliver government services to citizens. BASIX has initiated the scheme in Tripura by setting up 145 CSCs. BASIX centers have 2 substantial differences from other centers,namely, they are also oriented towards providing a multitude of non-governmental services and they support livelihood initiatives for the betterment of the standards of living in villages. Some of the services offered include tele-homeopathy services, livelihood promotion services like mushroom cultivation, tailoring training or online basic computer training through Microsoft Digital Literacy in cooperation with B-ABLE & NSDC to school children and rural youth. Other services are related to activity based small loans and micro insurance while in addition the Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) further offer services which have been time consuming in the past, such as photocopying, scanning, printing, resume making and online ticket bookings. BASIX Convenience Outlets (BCOs) are equipped with basic IT infrastructure such as internet, printers, scanners and digital/webcams for operation as well as basic office infrastructure. These centers are positioned as e-infrastructure that is within easy access of everyone in the gram panchayat and it is manned by a local villager who is trained by BASIX to become an entrepreneur (VLE).
E-governance means to deliver online services to citizens, businesses and governments and requires increasing interactions amongst departments and with external agencies at various levels in government. The National e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway (NSDG) is an attempt to reduce such point to point connections between departments and provide a standardized interfacing,messaging and routing switch through which various players such as departments, front-end service access providers and back-end service providers can make their applications and data inter-operable. The NSDG aims to achieve a high order of interoperability among autonomous and heterogeneous entities of the Government (in the Centre, States or Local bodies), based on a framework of e-Governance Standards and to act as a core infrastructure for achieving standards-based interoperability between various e-government applications implemented at various levels and geographically dispersed locations. The system applies gateway messaging standards and builds a government owned Central Gateway based on these standards. It also acts as a catalyst in enabling the building of standards based e-governance applications with the gateway as the middleware to ensure interoperability.The application enables integration across Centre, State or Local Governments by facilitating Integrated Service Delivery and a Service OrientedArchitecture (SOA) leading to joined up government.