Co-Founders of the eCommunityLink:

Goal of the eCommunityLink:

 Knowledge Sharing through Online Forums

Creating Networks and Partnerships

Organizational Principles

Co-Founders of the E-Community Link:

Akbar Khawaja (President, Development Dividend, Pakistan)

Alex (Sandy) Pentland (Professor, MIT Media Laboratory, U.S.A.)

Prof. Alex (Sandy) Pentland is a pioneer in smart environments, wearable computers, and technology for developing countries.  He is one of the most-cited computer scientists in the world. He is the founding director of the Media Lab Asia, and is a co-founder of the Media Laboratory's Digital Nations Consortium, of the award-winning LINCOS project, and of the Center for Future Health.  He was formerly the Academic Head of the MIT Media Laboratory, and is the Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences. He has won numerous international awards in both the Arts and the Sciences. He was chosen by Newsweek as one of the 100 Americans most likely to shape the next century. Human Design Research Group (people) (projects) Unwiring the World Initiatives

Chetan Sharma (Executive Director, Datamation, India)

Dorothy Gordon (Executive Director IRG, Ghana)

Ms. Dorothy Gordon is a development practitioner with over 20 years experience working within countries in Africa and Asia.  She has had oversight responsibility for a number of community-based information initiatives in India and is a member of the Digital Partners Brains Trust.  She is at present on leave from UNDP, after working as Deputy Resident Representative in India.  In addition to her current work on Sector-Wide approaches she also lectures on non-profit management at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration.  She serves on a number of boards including that of the International Society for Third Sector Research (http://www.istr.org/).  Her academic background includes an MPhil from the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex.

Emiko Kusakabe (Environment Specialist, U.S.A.)

Ms. Emiko Kusakabe started the E-Community Link activities since its inception in 1999 and developed the concept and contributed the contents to its Website. She received Master of Science of Environmental and Developmental Studies at London School of Economics and Political Science. She worked in a comparative study of UK and Japanese corporate attitudes toward environmental protection as a Senior Research Associate at the UK Centre for Economic and Environmental Development (Cambridge). Recent years, she served as the Chairman of the Welcoming Committee of the World Bank Volunteer Services.

Joan Martin-Brown (Former Foundation Coordinator, The World Bank)

Koji Osawa (Managinf Principal & Co-Founder, Global Catalyst Partners)

Mr. Koji Osawa (Managing Principal and Co-founder) has over sixteen years of experience in investment and management of high-tech companies in Japan, U.S. and Asia. He co-founded Global Catalyst Partners, L.P. (GCP-I) in 1999. Prior to GCP he was at Mitsubishi Corporation (http://www.mitsubishi.co.jp/) for 14 years since 1985. Mitsubishi is the largest trading firm in the world with
sales of over $120B.

Mr. Osawa was Division Manager of Mitsubishi International Corporation (Palo Alto Office) from 1994 though 1999. He had responsibility for business development with high-tech companies in Silicon Valley in the areas of semiconductor, communications and computer systems. During this period, he
invested in several private companies and venture capital funds. He arranged a wide range of business agreements between these private companies and prominent Japanese and Asian companies, which resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars of business. Mr. Osawa also served as General Manager of
MC Silicon Valley, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corp., and has been responsible for managing a U.S. investment fund since 1998. Mr. Osawa is Chairman of Schools Online Japan, and Director of Global Catalyst Foundation. Mr. Osawa received a BS in Electronics from Keio University, Japan.
 

Marvine Hamner (Professor, George Washington University, U.S.A.)

Motoo Kusakabe (Development Practitioner, U.S.A.) 

Motoo Kusakabe is the founder of E-Community Link. He just retired from the World Bank’s Vice-President for Resource Mobilization and Co financing. He joined the World Bank in 1997. Mr. Kusakabe has been responsible for mobilizing concessional and grant resources for the Bank's operations in poor countries and for donor relationship.  He led the Bank's initiative to promote global partnership programs as the Chair of the Council of Development Grant Facility, and has been instrumental in drumming up support for the ICT and Development, community-driven initiatives and has promoted partnership with NGOs and foundations. He initiated  Global/Local Connectivity Workshop in December 2000, and promoted the Community Telecenters in the World Bank and World Summit on Information Society. Before joining the World Bank, he worked for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development as Country Director for Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and held other operational positions there.  Mr. Kusakabe had a long and distinguished career and held key positions at the Japanese Ministry of Finance including Deputy Commissioner of National Tax Administration and Deputy Director-General of Banking Bureau in charge of financial sector reform.  He studied Mathematics at the University of Tokyo and economics at Yale University.

Rintaro Tamaki (Minister, Embassy of Japan, U.S.A.)

Ronni Goldfarb (Executive Director Equal Access)

Ms. Goldfarb is a founder and Executive Director of Equal Access. In this capacity she has worked closely with the UNDP to develop the Equal Access/UNDP HIV/AIDS Awareness and Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment Project in the Asia Pacific Region and to create a Regional Digital Broadcast Infrastructure for Development. As a Strategic Communications and Business Development Consultant, Ronni has over 16 years experience creating and implementing strategic communications initiatives, programs and events for Fortune 500 Corporations and United Nations global conferences. Her work with the United Nations includes strategic consulting and production of programs and conferences for UNDP (RBAP), the UN Conference on Women, Beijing, and the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Ronni holds a Bachelor of Arts Cum Laude from SUNY Buffalo and studied Culture and Media at New York University.

Susan Esserman (Former Deputy USTR – Steptoe and Johnson)

Susan G. Esserman is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, where she practices in the international group. Ms. Esserman also leads the firm's Global Business Services Team, which offers multi-disciplinary services and counseling to international businesses.

Ms. Esserman assists clients with their international business challenges by providing legal and strategic advice on expanding access to foreign markets and all facets of international trade litigation and dispute resolution. Ms. Esserman draws on her experience in administering the U.S. trade laws and in trade policy and negotiations, and her extensive knowledge of the workings of the World Trade Organization rules and dispute resolution.

Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Esserman held four senior-level positions with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and Commerce Department during the Clinton Administration. She was appointed by President Clinton and confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, the second-ranking official at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, with the standing of Ambassador. She was responsible for U.S. trade policy and negotiations with Europe, India, Russia and the former Soviet Union, Africa, the Middle East and in the World Trade Organization. She also held the position of USTR General Counsel where she played a lead role in devising U.S. litigation strategy in the critical early years of WTO dispute resolution.

Ms. Esserman also served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Import Administration, where she was the decisionmaker in literally hundreds of antidumping and countervailing duty cases. In addition, she played a lead role in developing comprehensive antidumping and countervailing duty trade legislation and regulations implementing the WTO Uruguay Round Agreement. As Acting General Counsel of Commerce, Ms. Esserman counseled the Secretary of Commerce and senior Department heads on a wide range of issues, including trade laws, regulatory reform, litigation strategy, ethics, Freedom of Information, congressional reviews and oversight, intellectual property, and procurement issues.

Prior to her government service, Ms. Esserman was a partner at Steptoe & Johnson LLP where she specialized in international trade litigation and policy.
 

Satish Jha (President, Digital Partners, India)

Goal of the E-Community Link:

Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) catalyze fundamental changes in the world's economies and societies, toward Knowledge Economy and Information Society. Developing countries should take advantage of these changes rather than remain marginalized by the digital divide. In this new millennium, it is crucial to a country’s aspirations for economic growth, and for a person’s quest to grow out of poverty, that there be access to information, viable information technology, the ability to share knowledge, and to transact. These capacities profoundly affect a society, and a person’s ability to create bridges to broader communities, seizing economic and social opportunities, enjoying human security, and seeking their own choice of life.

To develop ICT industries in a country requires both holistic e-development strategy and accumulation of certain economic and social infrastructure: Communication infrastructure to provide universal access to communications with affordable cost, a good regulatory policy to allow competition and dynamism, vigorous content industries to create relevant knowledge contents in local languages, economic and social infrastructure to support entrepreneurial activities and trained human resources to support research and operation of ICT activities. Clustering of all these resources and functions will create a good incentives for the people to invest in ICT skills and businesses and a dynamic growth of ICT industries. We call the whole system as “Habitat”. E-Community Link is aiming at facilitating the creation of a favorable habitat for entrepreneurial development, through community-based bottom-up approach.

eCommunityLink’s goal is to support Economic and Social Entrepreneurs pursuing innovative businesses and social enterprises in developing countries that provide connectivity to local communities, support local content creation, and utilize ICT for socially valuable purposes, such as education, health, governance, gender equality, rural development, environmental management; and that create income-generating activities in poor communities.

eCommunityLink aims to achieve the goal through creation of a network of development partner institutions both developing country-based and international. We will focus on key functions necessary to create an enabling environment, “habitat”, in developing countries. Our methodologies based upon the following three steps: (i) collecting case studies with local/international DPIs, (ii) identifying a viable, sustainable models and (iii) building capacity of the local Development Partner Institutions to support local entrepreneurs to start up these models.

In the creation of networks of DPIs, we rely on regional cluster approach, namely to create communities of development practitioners, NGOs, Community organizations in regions which have a cluster of these institutions: (i) India and other Asian countries where various grass-root initiatives have been experimented and software industries are emerging (Digital Partners, India and Datamation Foundation will coordinate this cluster), (ii) African region where many community organizations utilizing ICT to support the poor communities. (iii) Washington, DC areas where the World Bank Group and several international developmental NGOs accumulate global developmental knowledge (Academy of Educational Development will coordinate this cluster), (ii) California area where Stanford University and other research, academic institutions and private ICT firms creating a Silicon Valley habitat (Stanford, Digital Vision Fellowship Program will coordinate this cluster), (iii) Boston area, where MIT and Harvard University with high tech industries create a different type of habitat (Digital Nations Consortium will coordinate this cluster) , (iii) Japan where NPOs and public-private partnership are emerging to support new information revolution.

eCommunityLink’s will use virtual knowledge management system addresses five areas essential for local ICT capacity building.  They include; 1) promoting sound regulatory policies which provide proper incentives to grow the information and communication industry, 2) promoting local content industries, technical and entrepreneurial support industries, 3) promoting connectivity to rural areas and poor communities with combinations of affordable technologies and good business models, 4) encouraging socially valuable activities using ICT, and 5) mentoring arrangements. In each area, economic and social entrepreneurs are key in pioneering new, innovative business models, and promoting social changes.

eCommunityLink knowledge management system provides:

(i)                  Global knowledge sharing on up-to-date technological information, business models, best practices, and case studies through on-line forums,

(ii)                Communication and partnering opportunities with development partners and resource persons,

(iii)               Grants for selected social entrepreneurs to support their business development.

Knowledge Sharing through Online Forums

Knowledge is most effectively transferred when systematically classified in ways that allow easy access, and users to gain knowledge of the multiple aspects relating to a topic, such as trend information, basic conceptual knowledge, case studies, statistics, and toolkits that help business planning and the design of implementation strategies. 

eCommunityLink provides up-to-date knowledge and information through online forums that utilize an advanced global knowledge sharing platform:

(i)                  All related topics are systematically covered, and classified in 9 chapters. Each chapter is classified into Sections and Categories. There are approximately 300 categories provided to accommodate knowledge sharing (Table 1). 

(ii)                In each Category, 15 types of Forums are provided to assist local entrepreneurs in different topical areas such as knowledge/information, communications, partnering, contact information, and funding opportunities.  

Forums for Knowledge Sharing:

New Trends Forums provide information on recent developments and future prospects for specific information technologies, business models, and social activities.

Best Sites /Companies Forums provide information and evaluations of most innovative sites and companies. Local entrepreneurs will find updated and relevant sources of knowledge.

FAQ Forums provide questions and answers on the basic concepts in each category to help familiarize the user with the recent technologies, business models, and social entrepreneurial activities.

Case Studies Forums provide analysis of cases applying specific technologies or  business models in the real world. These studies present information on how the new approach was implemented, the costs and benefits, and the lessons learned.

Statistics/Data provide useful links to statistical sources and databases to facilitate access to references useful to local entrepreneurs when devising a business plan. 

Toolkits provide detailed steps to analyze and resolve issues using systematic methods. 

E-Learning Forums enable the users to integrate the above knowledge and  systematically learn about a Category.  The learning module is created, and then evolves as the contents of other Forums grow, to provide up-to-date information.

Creating Networks and Partnerships

Forums for Communications and Partnering

eCommunity Forums for each Category that provides a community platform for local entrepreneurs and resource persons to discuss ideas, make queries, and share experiences. Local entrepreneurs, who want business partners, such as equity investors, lenders, donors, advisor/mentors, distributor of his product, clients for their services, can explain their activities and send their message to their potential business partners globally.  

Global Partnership and Funding provides information on opportunities for funding by private foundations, public charities and global partnership programs.

Development Partners offer information on Partner Institutions which provides assistance to local entrepreneurs and community groups on the relevant areas of professions.

Organizational Principles

eCommunityLink is a not-for-profit, voluntary organization. Membership is open to all individuals and institutions agreeing to the objectives presented in the first chapter.  

Knowledge contents are provided voluntarily by Resource Persons (Individuals) and Development Partners (Organizations). Each contributor of knowledge acquire a "Contribution Score" by  “appreciation ratings” of the submissions contributed by Website visitors. These scores will be included in the Resource Persons’ List, in the Website.  These scores will be considered in the selection of members serving on the International Board of Advisors.

eCommunityLink’s knowledge management platform (web programs and database) may be shared by all Development Partners who in turn can customize these resources, or give their own brand, and/or localize these resources, and/or manage them as part of their Websites, if they agree to the following criteria:

1.         keep the basic structure for knowledge sharing structure unchanged,

2.         acknowledge that they are a member of the eCommunityLink Network

3.         use the resources only for non-commercial purposes,

4.         agree to the established editorial and privacy policies, and that.

5.         all information acquired by partner Websites will be shared by others through database synchronization and an integrated directory system.

We welcome Development Partners to translate text into local languages.  

The first step to becoming a Development Partner is to register your organization in eCommunityLink.  To become more engaged, the second step is to create a mutual link between your Website and eCommunityLink.  At the third step level of involvement you are invited to provide contents to this Website. 

Resource Persons

Resource Persons are individual volunteers that provide information and knowledge to the eCommunityLink website, and who commit to communicating with, and to answering queries from local entrepreneurs through an eCommunity Forum. Volunteers can include experts in ICT, civil society leaders, NGOs and community foundation groups, and others willing to share knowledge so as to help advance economic and social entrepreneurs in their efforts to improve peoples’ capacities and lives. Contributors of knowledge also acquire "Contribution Scores" provided by Website visitors,, and these contribution scores will be included in the Resource Persons List.

Development Partners

Development partners are institutional members of eCommunityLink, and have agreed to the goals and organizational principles of eCommunityLink.

They include those public organizations, civil society, NGOs, community-based organizations, private companies, foundations, and academic institutions that will respond to the needs of local entrepreneurs.  Such organizations assist local entrepreneurs a) obtain technical and managerial knowledge, b) acquire the necessary capacities to manage a company, c) improve the skills necessary to engage in socially valuable activities, and/or d) assess and achieve self-sustainable, income generating opportunities through ICT. 

Development partners support eCommunityLink activities by;

(i)                  Servicing on the Board, or a committee of eCommunityLink,

(ii)                Contributing to eCommunityLink’s Website, and/or integrating eCommunityLink knowledge management systems into their own website,

(iii)               Developing and hosting a eCommunityLink knowledge sharing platform in local languages.

(iv)              Facilitating and/or editing certain categories of the eCommunityLink website.

(v)                Providing grants [to be matched by eCommunityLink] to local entrepreneurs who meet the economic and social selection criteria as determined by the eCommunityLink Board.

eCommunityLinks Development Partners (as of June 19^th, 2002)

■ASHOKA INNOVATORS FOR THE PUBLIC (USA)

■Asia-Pacific Entrepreneurs' Network (Japan)

■Association of Medical Doctors of Asia (Japan)

■Digital Partners Institute (USA)

■Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, N.S. Raghavan Centre for　Entrepreneurial Learning (India)

■Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology (India)

■Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (India)

■The ITU Association of Japan, Inc.(Japan)

■MEHITI (India)

■Time Dollar Institute (USA)

■Tarahaat (India)

■James Martin & Co. (India)

■Anwesa Projects Private Limited (India)

■DATAMATION FOUNDATION (India)

■Foundation Of Occupational Development (India)

■Division of Nutrition (Zimbabwe)

Governance structure

Governance structure of the eCommunityLink is based upon the knowledge and financial contribution of each partner. Preference will be for meetings held as a virtual meeting using the Internet.

Ａ. Board of Directors

The Board of Directors will be selected from resource persons and representatives of Development Partners based on the following criteria:

(i)                  responsible for a substantial contribution of knowledge contents to eCommunityLink.

(ii)                sponsor a grant facility for social entrepreneurs through eCommunityLink website.

(iii)               Host a eCommunityLink affiliated Website in a local language or languages.

(iv)              Have a recognized reputation in a development related field and/or ICT related to social entrepreneurship.

The Board of Directors will determine and approve the following:

(i)                  Amendments to the Instrument of Incorporation and By-Laws

(ii)                Annual Business Plan and the Budget

(iii)               Financial Statement

(iv)              Editorial Policy

(v)                Privacy Policy

(vi)              Selection Criteria for grant facility and allocation criteria of grants among Development Partners, if any

(vii)             Selection of the Chairman of the Board and CEO

(viii)           Appoint an Auditor

B. Chairman of the Board and CEO

The Chairman of the Board and the CEO are accountable for the management of the eCommunityLink, and determine all managerial and administrative matters other than those assigned to the Board.  He/she will appoint the head of the Secretariat.

C. International Board of Advisors

International Board of Advisors will advise to the Board of Directors on the Long-term management strategies, development of contents, editorial policy, promotion of the website and in other related areas.

D. Executive Committee

The Board of Directors will select up to four Directors as Members of the Executive Committee, and can delegate tasks to the Board of Directors.