[liberationtech] Looking for: ICT/telecom expertise in country in Nepal

[Indiver Badal]

Hi Nick

Sure, please add me to the list. I'm ready to assist in any way I can.

Thanks
Indiver

On Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:12 AM Nick Ashton-Hart <nashton at consensus.pro>
wrote:

> + Indiver
>
> Dear Bill,
>
> I've certainly experienced that dynamic before. I'm very glad to hear that
> families are all OK. I only wish it were true for everyone, and it is great
> that PCH has released staff to help out - very much in the Nepali spirit I
> might add!
>
> In this instance, Im not in Nepal right now, and so I won't be telling
> anyone what they need or anything of the sort. Nor would I be doing any of
> that if I were there.
>
> I'm helping OCHA get access to a pool of people with a variety of skills -
> especially at the moment in 'telecom triage' but I'm sure it will rapidly
> expand beyond that. This is a grassroots thing with the list mostly coming
> from Nepalis referred by NGOs in digital policy and ISOC chapters.
> Microsoft's country director is helping in large part due to his
> connections with universities' tech programmes but in typical Nepali
> fashion also personally.
>
> Indiver, if you would like to be added to the gdoc where the list is kept,
> directly introduced to the chap at OCHA who is helping the teams on the
> ground with all this, or both, let me know, I'm happy to do either or both.
>
> FWIW, the list currently has two PCH people who have put themselves
> forward: Dibya Khatiwada and Rustan Shrestha. The more the merrier!
>
> On 27 Apr 2015, at 20:12, Bill Woodcock <woody at pch.net> wrote:
>
> >
> >> On Apr 27, 2015, at 5:53 AM, Yosem Companys <companys at stanford.edu>
> wrote:
> >> From: Nick Ashton-Hart <nashton at consensus.pro> via
> bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
> >> If you, or someone you know, has hands-on ICTs and especially telecom
> infrastructure experience and is presently in Nepal can you let me know
> offlist?
> >> I'm trying to help emergency teams in country gain access to in-country
> expertise.
> >
> > One of our larger offices is in Kathmandu.  Our staff and their families
> are all accounted for and okay, so we’ve released and funded them to do
> relief work.  Presumably they’ll principally be doing ICT-related work, and
> presumably that will be coordinated through the ICT industry association.
> The current secretary of the industry association is Indiver Badal <
> ib at indiver.com>, who was PCH’s peering coordinator for several years.
> >
> > One issue we’ve observed many times when doing relief work, perhaps
> worst in the 2004 tsunami, the 2003 conflict in the Congo, and 2010 in
> Haiti, is that areas with modest ICT infrastructure that was adequate to
> the sustainable needs of their market, are swamped by aid workers with
> immodest expectations.  i.e. a desire to video-chat with their families
> every day, play WoW, and download video porn.  So they all show up, and
> declare “repairing the Internet infrastructure” (to levels never before
> seen) to be their first priority.  They run rough-shod over the local
> infrastructure operators, step on carefully-regulated or
> carefully-negotiated frequency allocations, etc.
> >
> > I very much hope we won’t have to deal with that in this case.  Nepal’s
> ICT environment is mature, its professionals are expert, and its community
> is well connected.  If and when they need help, they’re perfectly capable
> of indicating what help they need, and anyone from the outside who believes
> they know better is WRONG.  So, if you’re interested in helping, by all
> means, make your availability known to Indiver or any of the many other ICT
> professionals in-country, but please don’t assume that you know what’s
> needed, or worse, that they don’t.
> >
> >                                -Bill
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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