We are happy to announce that registration for a new Wireless 108 course is now open. The four-week course (June 20 - July 15) will be delivered out at our premises in Upper TCV, Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh. The overall course cost will be Rs. 5,000, which will cover tuition and study materials. Travel, accommodation and food are the participants' responsibility (we will be happy to advise on possible accomodation in the area). 

A new Wireless 108 course will be opening on Monday, February 7. the four-week course (February 7 - March 4) will be carried out at our premises in Upper TCV, near Dal Lake, upper Dharamsala. The overall course cost will be Rs. 5,000, which will cover tuition and study materials. Travel, accommodation and food are the participants' responsibility.

The course is open to anyone who speaks English (our instructor can speak Tibetan and Hindi, but the materials and language used in the course will be English), has an interest in computers and is willing to put his/her head and hands to work.  

While some seats are reserved, a few places are still available. If you are interested in attending the course, please write us at info@airjaldi.org. It would greatly help us if you give us some details about yourself - in particular your background in computers (if any) and reasons for wanting to join the course.  
 
We look forward to hearing from you!

The AirJaldi Network Academy’s new offering – Wireless 108 – is on at the AirJaldi premises in Upper TCV. The four week course, delivered by Tenzin Yonten, is AirJaldi’s new offering. Wireless 108 is our basic wireless course, which is aimed at anyone who has basic computer knowledge, good knowledge of English, interest in the field and willingness to put one’s hands and head to work.

The course is designed to cover the basics of computers (hardware and software) and networking (wired and wireless). At the end of the course, participants are able to carry out basic PC troubleshooting, create a simple server-based network and connect computers to it via wired and wireless interfaces.

Recently, a fine article by Anurag Behar, co-CEO of the Azim Premji Foundation , entitled "Limits of ICT in Education" was published in LiveMint.Com .

In it, Mr. Behar concludes that “After 5 years [of developing a digital learning resource library and supporting schools who made use of it], when we took stock at a fundamental level, we realized that the whole thing was at best a qualified failure.”

Having read it with great interest, and being involved with activities in the derided ICT4D field, I thought of sharing my own thoughts on this thougtful and provoking piece. 

A long absence from one’s own website, such as the one visitors to this website have witnessed for quite some time, requires explanations.

Well, we were here all the time, but as sometimes happens (though shamefully should not happen to an ICT-minded outfit such as ours), our small team was always busy doing other things, or rather – those of us who are willing to submit postings (most are not – they prefer to be out and about putting up nodes and would rather struggle for hours with a pesky connection rather than try to articulate what it is that they are doing).

“I have a terrible headache!” admitted Dhonam, climbing down after a 2-hour stint in the    mid-day sun near Pong lake. We were all dehydrated and discouraged. We have been trying to bring up the carefully-planned and so far meticulously executed link for the best part of the day with little success. It was time to rethink our approach

The Stockholm Challenge Award winners were announced on Thursday, May 22 at a Gala dinner held in Stockholm. The winners were selected from among 2,000 registration, from whom among 145 finalists were selected. Of those, seven projects received prizes as winners of their categories and nine additional projects received special mentions for excellence in the use of ICT.

With some delay (quite some delay…) we are happy to let you know that we have been selected as finalists for the Stockholm Challenge Award in the Public Administration Category .
The Award promotes ICT4D initiatives by highlighting projects that use ICT to tackle development challenges. The Stockholm Challenge 2008 features a six category award in the following areas: Culture, Economic Development, Education, Environment, Health and Public Administration. The winning projects – one for each category – will be announced at a prize ceremony that will take place in Stockholm on May 22nd. Each winner receive the Stockholm Challenge trophy and certificate of achievement and a cheque for 5,000 Euros.