Interview
Sir John Daniel, President and CEO, Commonwealth Of Learning (COL), in conversation with Dr Rajeshree Dutta Kumar, Juanita Kakoty and Yukti Pahwa shares COL’s vision and the concerted efforts towards creating a technology enabled society
Development through Technology What is the vision of Commonwealth of Learning (COL)? COL is the only inter-governmental organisation in the world that is devoted solely to the use of technology for learning. We at COL focus on learning for development in developing countries. We focus not only on the appropriate use of technology, but what we achieve with technology. What I find interesting is that 5-10 years ago, we assumed that
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the developing countries will follow the same trajectory as the developed world. The definition of ICT application is even changing across developing countries. For instance, COL has some very successful programmes where mobile phones are being used for developmental purposes. There was a meeting of 6000 women farmers, involved in goat-rearing in Tamil Nadu, recently. The women bought the mobile phones and the
company gave them a free SIM card to talk to people within their group. Everyday short audio lessons are sent to them on their mobile phones related to their livelihood. This has come-out as an extremely powerful medium. With mobiles, they can afford to listen to the lessons. Our vision at COL is to take advantage of technology in order to make it really effective. There is no point using technology if it is not available or if