[cr-india] Award for Connecting CR to the Internet

[Vickram Crishna]

He is also, to the best of my recollection, a member of this list. 

However, how does the 'availability' of this technology (the description does not really explain how this is unique or new) make any difference, when there is a restriction on the amount of content that can be outsourced? 

Even in the case that say, a CR serving a community in Singhbhum gets a contribution of content from an expat Singhbhumi living in, for example, Seattle, this would definitely be considered external content. 

While the awarders are free to give awards to whomsoever they please (and in the foreseeable future I see this technology going places in Africa or South America, not India), it is a pity that money is not being spent on breaking the government's 'iron veil' on independent media.  

 Vickram
http://communicall.wordpress.com
http://vvcrishna.wordpress.com



----- Original Message ----
From: Nishant | निशाँत <nicheant at gmail.com>
To: cr-india at sarai.net
Sent: Thursday, 22 May, 2008 2:42:31 PM
Subject: [cr-india] Award for Connecting CR to the Internet

An Indian student got the Knight News Challenge 2008 award (http://www.newschallenge.org/189/news-challenge-press-release.html)
for connecting 'rural radio stations to the Internet'.

Find more details below and at http://www.31415926535.net/upload/2008_winners_projects_and_bios.pdf.

Nishant.
______________________________

Category
Community Radio in India

Award
$ 200,000

Organization
University of Waterloo

Location
Ontario, Canada

Summary
This project will connect rural radio stations to the Internet by using new software and computer-based FM transmitters.
The innovations will significantly reduce the cost of creating the stations in India - from an estimated $50,000 to $2,500. India is issuing a new round of community radio station licenses, so the proposal is timely. The effort will start by helping nonprofits already operating in India launch radio stations.

Winner
Aaditeshwar Seth is a Ph.D. candidate with the School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo (Canada). His research is focused on low-cost wireless communication infrastructures for rural areas, including developing hardware and software for starting radio stations in rural areas. He earned his BTech degree
in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology
at Kanpur, India, in 2002. Prior to his Ph.D. work, Seth founded Kalzoom Technologies, an Indian software company. He also co-founded a student organization
at the University of Waterloo that gives technical support to nonprofit organizations in India.
Seth



      __________________________________________________________
Sent from Yahoo! Mail.
A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/cr-india/attachments/20080523/58da19cc/attachment.html