Presentation of Swiss Research Partnership Projects

Swiss Universities for Applied Sciences and Swisscontact
A development promotion program backed by SDC

Report Project IT Consulting and Teaching of Tibetan Monks

Being granted a timeout from my job as an IT professor at the Zurich University of Applied Science, I have spent the summer semester of 2006 providing development aid in India. The objectives of this initiative were:

• Training of Tibetan teachers in computer science.
• Providing help for local IT problems.
• Supply of a productive development environment for a web-based dictionary project.

Results

• Over 20 Tibetan specialists trained in different current computer science topics.
• Consultation of 10 Tibetan senior managers concerning the technological development of their institutions.
•  Training of 80 monks as well as 4 teachers in the use of computers, in building up databases as well as consciousness-shaping over the opportunities and threats of modern computers.
• Private instruction in the Java and PHP programming for a particularly talented monk.
• Availability of a substantially improved telephone system, which lowers the telephone costs of the Tibetan Children's Village radically.
• Computer-based problem solutions, in particular Internet connections.

Impact

• In Dharamsala: the largest use exists in the obtained know-how as well as in the developed telephone system.
• In Sera: first contacts with computers were established. Many monks saw the advantages of this instrument and obtained some positive opinion about it. The sustainability of this result is supported by trained teachers.

Recommendation

This project was my first experience in development aid. I am inspired to see how far little money and personal commitment can do in India.
Having a computer background, I quickly found so many IT issues that can be solved. I became aware that development assistance today should also address modern information and communication technologies, so that the often insufficiently trained people do not have to suffer further from the disadvantages based on their lack of development.

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