A Global Network of Organisations working in Human Rights and Sustainable
Development.You know you have the necessary
training, knowledge and experience to make it work. The only limitations
are the financial restrictions and the available equipment ....
we want to give you some resources to overcome them !
TBSC - CONSULTING is a partner of ...
A Global Network of Organisations working in Human Rights and Sustainable
Development.
On this page you will also find some "live" feeds (everyday changing) from: ELDIS - the gateway to development information:
ELDIS live feed: Corporate social responsibility
news
ELDIS live feed: Globalisation news
ELDIS live feed: Internet for development
ELVIS live feed: Poverty
This project is based on some simple facts :
We all have very basic needs - like food, water, clothing, housing etc. To survive we are participating in certain activities - we work for example - to satisfy these basic needs. It is mainly the factor "labour" which allows us to produce something, to trade goods and services etc. With the right infrastructure in place we are then able to develop further and to prosper as individuals, as a business or society as a whole.
There are several factors of production (often complementing each other) :
Resources - esp. natural resources, Labour and Capital.
Data - and the resulting "information" (based on existing data) - is considered now as another important factor contributing to our further development. This factor was always there and has not been invented recently by some computer freaks in the nineties. Being better informed, having a greater "know-how" allows an individual to prosper more than others.
The factor "Labour" is the most important one - "working" is probably the only meaningful way to create income which then can be used to purchase products and services. A market place where goods and services, money for exchange purposes and input via "labour" are present should be a fair one.
[ Profits scored from speculative and "pseudo" activities (cost savings by shedding the workforce, share trading, speculation in precious metals, currencies and other forms of gambling) do not contribute much to sustain the factor "labour" for the future of all of us.
What really counts is the sustainability and the expansion of the "labour" factor with an ever increasing world population (see also the following link to explore matters further).
Six Billion - World Population in October 1999
In the future we will have more people (and more prospective customers). On the other hand: they must be in a position to afford products and services. This requires however that more and more people are trained and educated to perform qualified working activities.
But slowly more people become aware that we are world wide actually on a quite different road - esp. if we continue this way ... and: if we don't do something about it now we will certainly have more conflicts on earth (next time not only about land or tangible resources but also about access to "data" and "information").
It makes absolutely NO sense at all to eliminate the factor of production "labour" whenever we can (and this is exactly what we are doing increasingly over the last decade or so with some of the international company mergers and esp. with more input of IT in many forms: ATMs, E-commerce, Internet trading etc. to save costs and to be more competitive. There can of course be benefits in all these new technologies for the consumer in developed countries - but what about the rest of the world: some countries in Africa for example had still no Internet access at all (at the time of writing this page).
Having NO access or less access than others also means NO or less participation in many forms of economic progress.
If it were not so sad - one could laugh about the story regarding the appointment of a new CEO for an international airline with the main objective to cut the work force of this airline by around 6000 employees and workers.
Extract from a newspaper in the Pacific Rim region :
Mr *** most immediate
task will be to repeat his successes at *** and return *** to profitability.
"I feel privileged
to be given the opportunity to lead this great company,'' Mr *** said.
The company *** has
a fine, professional workforce with a strong focus on customer service.''
One of Mr *** first jobs will be to cut routes and to reduce staff numbers by 10 per cent, or 6000 people.
... (end of extract) ]
We wonder how this man can sleep at night ... ?!
ELDIS LIVE FEED:
Corporate social responsibility news
At the moment you can't help the world with all the hype surrounding the Internet, e-commerce, globalized markets etc. ... it is our objective with this project to help those who want to learn from these mistakes to do better when their turn is coming.
Even Pope John Paul II has entered into the discussion about the dramatic changes we all are experiencing during his speech at the May Day Mass in 2000 at the Vatican in Rome :
The Pope, who was to make an appeal for remission of Third World debt, said humanity should see the new millennium as an opportunity to rediscover the authentic value of work.
"It invites us to face the economic and social imbalances that exist in the world of work and re-establish a correct hierarchy of values, where the dignity of men and women who work, their freedom, responsibility and participation assume the top priority."
The Pope said high technology should NOT lead to low values.
"New realities which are forcefully affecting the productive process, such as globalisation of finance, of the economy, of commerce and of work, should never be allowed to violate the dignity and centrality of the human person or the democracy of peoples," he said.
Not everyone might agree with the position of the Catholic Church (or any other religion) - but a word or a reminder from these institutions should at least make people think about the true values in life.
With the worlds economical power now concentrated in some dozens of hands only - it is time to think about our destiny ...
ELDIS LIVE NEWS FEED:
Globalisation
Back to the factors of production :
Having natural resources - oil for example - can compensate for missing factors (because these resources can be sold to buy other goods and services). However if there are no (natural) resources, no capital and no qualified workforce then we have the situation we find in the poorest regions on earth.
The following are only some of the problem areas we are facing in these regions :
- the lack of basic goods and/or lack of
access to them (because of unsufficient
infrastructures)
- the lack of one or several factors of
production to develop and prosper, esp. a qualified
labour force
The lack of a permanent infrastructures in many regions to distribute / transport goods and services is also one of the major handicaps. Furthermore: building up these infrastructures requires capital (which is only available if something else can be offered - some OPEC countries are a good example).
Thanks to the Internet data and information can now be distributed in great quantities and at practical NO cost - the infrastructure already exists in the form of phone lines world wide.
ELDIS LIVE NEWS FEED:
Internet for Development
One of the objectives of this project is :
To distribute at NO CHARGE at all practical "know how" - esp. in computing and business management - via the Internet directly to those who need it: individuals, small businesses, educational institutions.
Of course many of them have no access to the internet - we will approach therefore at the first stage institutions and organizations throughout these regions who can then initiate the next steps and inform those who might need it.
Some of the (practical) scenarios we can think of ...
A small wholesaler somewhere in the middle of Africa has older computer equipment (let's say from the 386 generation) and wants to make better use of it (he might also need an accounting package or a label printing program) ...
A school in a remote region has some donated equipment of all sorts but to make it work they need printer drivers, software and maybe some other equipment like a better video card (but then they will also need some other drivers etc. ...
A training institution wants to conduct basic spreadsheet and statistics training but cannot affort the software - there are freeware spreadsheet applications and statistics packages available which are compatible with the shrink wrapped commercial packages ...
An individual is looking for FREE resources to teach himself the basics of MS-Windows 3.11 ...
... in all these cases we can help; what they need can often be downloaded from this web site.
Even if the "end users" of our services are not connected to the internet they can be informed by those organizations we have approached in the first instance (and then there will certainly be a way found to get in touch with us by e-mail). If they have a connection to the net they can utilize more than thirty years practical experience in computing and electronic data processing for FREE and directly (this also cuts down connection fees to the net for unnecessary searching).
Over time we will build up "know-how" resources on this web site in several areas ...
Just to give you a "real world" example how we do this:
SPREADSHEET applications are useful for any business. Our target groups can't normally afford the latest commercial versions nor do they have usually the necessary hardware to run them. This means DOS based packages or versions for the earlier versions of MS-Windows are required - preferably FREEWARE applications.
[None of the major players will probably allow the free distribution of previous versions of their products to developing and disadvantaged regions - but we are working on this one too.]
First we need the Spreadsheet application itself :
A FREE Spreadsheet application ( MS-EXCEL 4 compatible) can be downloaded here :
Download the SPHYGMIC spreadsheet application ...
This package is great and it runs also under Windows 3.1, 3.11.
Then we need some EXCEL tutorials - like the FREE one from
If you don't have a computer running under MS-Windows (maybe an older 286 machine with DOS) then you might welcome an integrated package from the early 90s with practically all the functions the MS-Windows based packages are offering.
They will be on our web site - you will find them there + tutorials !
You have only a still older computer - an XT ! Doesn't matter - we have a spreadsheet application for you too.
You have only an old box - but no software at all; not even DOS - we have CALDERA DOS on our website which can be downloaded for FREE !
Need something else ?
Older browsers, ZIP software, Backup software, older .PDF readers etc.
In the real world we might have the situation that a teacher wants to encourage self study for his students. He can give all of them the FREEWARE application + tuturials (without getting into any conflicts related to copyright and piracy issues). Even if only older equipment is available for these students at home - they can study the core subjects and they don't need a connection to the Internet to do so.
But it doesn't stop here: there are situations where only older floppy drives are available; in this case the software must be copied to these formats to install it. Suitable ZIP and backup software is needed - otherwise the whole exercise is useless.
We will also have these
things on our website (they are usually listed in context where they are
needed).
We are convinced that our approach is only the beginning - and we would like to know from you what you think about it (even at this early stage of the project).
By the way ....
Hundreds of millions of people have filled up on December 31, 1999 the bathtubes with water just in case the Y2K bug strikes during the night (and then released the fresh water the next morning down the drain), hundreds of millions of dollars are spend to send probes to Mars to find out if there are some primitive forms of life and maybe a pitch of water from molten ice.
We sit back in our comfortable armchairs, having another drink and watch in disgust the sad pictures from Ethiopia and other poor regions where mothers present their children to the world which are more dead than alive.
Wouldn't it make sense to let this nice toy (the Mars rover) running in the desserts of Sub Saharan countries to explore water sources ?
We would like to have shared with YOU the water we wasted - shared with those who really need it.
You know - we have managed more than thirty years ago to go up to the Moon, we are maintaining space stations and we send probes beyond the frontiers of our solar system. Regrettably we can't transport some buckets of water to YOU because there is NO infrastructure to reach YOU.
However we can now - thanks to the Internet - share our "Know-how", knowledge and our experience with YOU - wherever you are. We have for this an infrastructure in place - at least the chances are good to reach YOU soon and to reach YOU easier than before !
At the COMDEX computer show former US President Bill Clinton challenged the IT industry to get involved in programmes aimed at closing the gap between the technology haves and have-nots - the digital divide.
"Closing the digital divide is one of the most important things we could do that would have the quickest results in alleviating the kind of poverty which is inexcusable in the kind of economy we are experiencing today." Bill Clinton said.
This is exactly what we are trying to do here with very small steps ... (by the way: we have given Bill Clinton our web site URL and e-mail address .... ). If we hear from him YOU will be the first one to know !
Thank you for reading this introduction.
Joe
M., Project Initiator
>>>> About us ....
TBSC - CONSULTING is a partner of ...
A Global Network of Organisations working in Human Rights and Sustainable
Development.
( These pages are permanently under development
)
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