---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Wainaina Mungai <wainaina@madeinkenya.org> Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:46:53 +0300 Subject: Re: [kictanet] Local Content Issues and beyond...... To: Catherine Adeya <elizaslider@yahoo.com> Thanks Nyaki, Going down memory lane, we had the non-commercial Open Knowledge Network (OKN) in which local content was developed under the banner of "local people, local languages, local content". We enabled people in various communities to place "their own" content onto the web. From Siaya to Kwale and Kibera to Isinya, locals loaded content to a central hub using both online & offline means. Access We also had to address the access question by using offline means of getting content (e.g. collect data on diskette in a remote village in Kwale and take it to Mombasa to upload it) onto web and giving access to communities through free Worldspace receivers. That may be another example in defining local content. CONTENT However, the OpenKnowledge.net approach may not be an ideal definition of local content....but it provides local languages to local knowledge to locals....in a village that may not have had it's issues online. To many players, some questions arise: - Is that the local content that one can build a sustainability model around? - Is the non-profit intervention like OKN feasible? - Is a "local language" (Digo, Kuria, Rendille) pursuit the way to go or is the development of local knowledge language-independent? Good day, Wainaina On 11/20/08, Catherine Adeya <elizaslider@yahoo.com> wrote:

Okay.......okay....Tandaa and beyond. My honest opinion from this flurry of emails is the following:

1. We need to discuss more about local content and define it within our context. I think the piece Eric Aligula sent is a good starting point and there are similar ones. There have been many debates around these issues, remember less than a decade ago the debate was all about we in Africa needing access.....the key word was 'access'.

2. Then, we started getting the 'access' we so desired, the debate moved to "access to what?"....that is where the local content issues come in. Aligula's piece defined it as Localcontent is the expression andcommunication of a community's locally owned and adapted knowledge andexperience that is relevant to the community's situation. A great starting point but we do not have to stick to that definition but we can refine it in our context and maybe that is partially where the challenge lies.

2. The other issue I can flesh out is the fact that there are many who are involved in local content development; and either they are not known or they have not made themselves known. Maybe we need to provide a platform for them to show-case what they are doing but within a defined definition.

Ladies and gentlemen, debate is healthy, but there are pertinent issues that are coming out that some may deem 'noise' but my research nose smells the beginning of a great venture. Maybe we needed Tandaa to simply get us here. Let us refocus.

Nyaki

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