Connecting across boundaries through videoconferencing

Author : Kamal Singh
Date added : 2002-04-15

Brief Project Background

The project started in November 2001, when the British Council planned to set up a Knowledge & Learning Centre (KLC) in Delhi. This was launched in January 2002 by the British Prime Minister. The KLC offers an on-line learning zone, to enable 70 leaarners to connect through internet, with UK and other overseas tutors. It also offers state-of-the-art videoconferencing facilities, and can provide multi-site links. Large plasma screens and internal connections can enable up to an audience of 200 to participate in videoconferencing events. This project is aimed to provide access to videoconferencing to those working on the issues of good governance, human rights, gender equality and diversity.

The British Council is a UK charity, with offices in 107 countries. The first Knowledge & Learning Centre has been set up in the British Council’s office in Delhi - a state-of-the-art facility, with internet connectivity for 70 users, an on-line learning zone, and a videconferencing facility that provides multi-site linking, as well as huge plasma screens to enable up to 200 audience to take part in global events, across boundaries and timezones. This project is about demystifying the videoconferencing experience, and connecting across boundaries those who are concerned with promoting gender justice and equity.

After the demographic divide, economic divide, gender divide the next worry for women all over the world is the digital divide. Will ICTs improve the lives of men and women all over the world, reducing poverty, illiteracy and social discrimination? Will ICTs play a role in being an agent of social change? Can ICT be used to lobby and mobilise world opinion, and impact on social and economic policy? Mitter 1999 and Gothoskar 1999 provide recent evidence from India’s software service sector indicating that traditional attitudes that fail to hold women in high esteem may be less prevalent in the ICT sector of the economy. Is it because those entering the ICT market would have already accumulated several advantages in life, that come from birth, access to education, access to opportunity and a lifestyle that is far superior to that of the 30% Indians below the poverty line?

The Governance & Social Justice Unit of the British Council works on issues of promoting gender equality, through collaborative projects with local partners. Since 1995 we have promoted women’s economic empowerment, political empowerment and access to justice. The range of our work has involved those who work with self-help groups in rural communities, as well as those who are elected representatives in urban communities. Our work with judicial officers on women’s access to justice has been very pioneering and innovative. Working with the police on promoting equal opportunities for women police has broken many hierarchies, and helped set up the first-ever forum for women in police. Our work with the civil service has institutionalised gender training in many state training institutions. Our work with the business and corporate sector has led to special training for women in management. Most partnerships have evolved new knowledge, harnessed existing experience, and provided learning opportunities that have had impact not only on the trainers, but also their trainees, colleagues, families and communities. However, there was very limited use of ICTs in providing a multiplier effect to our work.

When the British Council set up the Knowledge & Learning Centre, we assessed the various ways in which we would provide access to our partners in Governance areas to use the facility creatively to strengthen learning opportunities and impact. One approach was content generation and development in to e-learning modules, to expand access. But a far more meaningful way has to been to connect people across boundaries through the videoconferencing facilities.

Our videoconferencing project identified that none of our partners and contacts had experienced the way it functions, and the potential it offered for knowledge sharing, learning and lobbying for social change. We were all first-timers, which made the project very exciting, as it meant that we were starting an adventurous journey together. I asked to be a fly on the wall when an internal meeting with London was to be held through a videoconference - what did I expect, a film shoot, or a bird coming out of the camera?! And, that too after having used computers since the early eighties! However, the experience gave me the confidence and the knowledge to motivate our partners to use it. I was able to convince them about the simplicity of using this technology as a mode to connect

Project Description: The aim of our project was to use videoconferencing as a creative tool to connect people across boundaries, to share knowledge, experience, ideas and learning opportunities that would impact positively on social change.

The objectives were to identify current and future projects in which to embed videoconferencing as a means of connecting people, to identify appropriate speakers, to provide professional briefing on both the technical and subject aspects, to coordinate with the technical team on connectivity issues, and to assess the feedback for future improvements.

We have organised the following videoconferences since November 2001:

1) First Videoconference on ‘Women in Politics’ between India and Northern Ireland

2) Videoconference on domestic violence, between police and NGO trainers in India, and Metropolitan Police London

3) Videoconference on ‘Equal Opportunities for Women in Police’ between India and UK police, including British Association of Women Police

4) Videoconference on ‘Tackling Corruption’ as part of an International Networking Event on this theme being run at Oxford, UK

5) Videoconference with Asian Women Councillors of London Counties, with Indian resource working on issues of women in urban governance

6) Videoconference with participants of workshop at Johannesburg, South Africa, on networking between Commonwealth human rights institutions

7) Videoconference to launch the research publication on ‘Social and Policy Reforms for India’

8) Videoconference on ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ to promote awareness on links between business and human rights, between India and UK

9) (forthcoming, 19 April) multi-site videoconference amongst elected women representatives and academics, as part of the National Workshop on Women in Urban Governance (19 April)

10) (forthcoming, 19 May) videoconference on Right to Education, between India and Northern Ireland

11) (forthcoming, 11-12 June), multi-site videoconference to run a 2-day module on ‘Mainstreaming gender issues in project design and monitoring’ through the Global Development Learning Network (GDLN).

Results

Based on feedback that we secured from both the Delhi end, and the far end, from the speakers, participants, technical teams and colleagues, we know we are on the right track in the creative use of technology. Some detail about a few videoconferences, will demonstrate the success of the story:

1) First Videoconference on Women in Politics, was chaired at the Delhi end by Dr Najma Heptulla, Deputy Chair of the Rajya Sabha. Other speakers included an MP, a a researcher and a grassroots activists. From the far end, we shared the experience of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, arranged for us through our partners in the the Queen’s University, Belfast. NIWC’s experience of lobbying for peace, and getting women to the peace talks has been internationally acclaimed: their strategies of participation, inclusion and human rights are impacting on public policy after the Good Friday Agreement. Getting two women to the legislative assembly was a major achievement. NIWC’s women include women from across partylines and with a range of experience from academics, trade unions, media etc. We had been trying to get Monica McWilliams to India for the last 3 years: a visit would have required at least 5 days of her time. During a 70-minute videoconference, she spoke for about 20 minutes, and our audience of over 150 at the Delhi end were able to gain so much from her experience.. The proceedings were informal, interactive and balanced in terms of inputs from both sides. How? We could wave to each other, smile and repeat questions - the atmosphere was light and exciting, and we simply felt it was an extension of our room to merge with theirs, and that we were in the same room, had known each other for a long time, and were in a world of our own, learning from each other’s experiences. Feedback from the far end was that they found the Indian experience of women in politics as very challenging, and were impressed with the approaches in training and empowerment that were being pursued in India.

2) Videoconference on ‘Equal Opportunities for Women in Police’ between India and UK police, including British Association of Women Police

This was embedded in the first-ever national conference for women in police. As India’s Home Minister, LK Advani, said this conference was a historic milestone, and pathbreaking event for India. The lead-up process had involved 4 regional conferences, in which over 550 women from across all ranks in police had participated at 4 difference venues in India. The national conference invited 200 women, again, from across all ranks, which meant breaking of hierarchy in a uniformed, discipline force. The UK resource persons for the conference in Delhi had been associated with previous programmes on women’s development. And through the videoconference we were able to share the UK policewomen’s experience in several ways: a) how the British Association of Women Police was formed, its role and its impact b) how some Asian women are addressing their employment issues in British police constabularies c) the training on equal opportunities and diversity that is being introduced for both men and women in British police constabularies. It was exciting to note that one speaker of a UK police constabulary mentioned policing a community population of several thousand, while in India the smallest community population would be more than a million!

3) Videoconference on ‘Tackling Corruption’ as part of an International Networking Event on this theme being run at Oxford, UK. The international group at the UK end was about 35 participants from very senior positions in their countries, including two Ministers. The star attraction from our end was the Chief Vigilance Commissioner, who is internationally reputable, and has started many innovative schemes to combat corruption. Feedback from the far end was that the videoconference was the key highlight of their 5-day event and networking!

4) Videoconference with Asian Women Councillors of London Counties, with Indian resource working on issues of women in urban governance: British Council India has been involved in training over 1000 elected women councillors of urban local bodies in 3 major States in India (Punjab, UP and Rajasthan). A UK resource had been involved in training the trainers who have then conducted the field-level training and developed the materials in the local languages. UK has a large Asian population: we were keen to know about their integration into mainstream British life. We identified some who are pursuing a political career, and discussed with them the issues that had come up several times in the Indian context: coping with a home/work life balance, time management, stress management, media management, financial skills and influencing/lobbying for change in their own councils. The purpose of inviting Asian councillors at the UK end was rooted in our common heritage and cultural sub-texts of women’s multiple roles. Again, the sharing was not only informal, but also very rewarding as several issues were common, and in some cases women at both ends had used different routes and strategies to achieve very similar results.

Lessons

We are happy to share the lessons we have learnt as below, and for anyone wishing to take this route we would emphasise the following:

1) Clarity and focus
Why are we doing it? How will it add value to the current work or project? Are we offering a unique, novel and new learning opportunity to our participants? Is the purpose clearly spelt out, to speakers at both ends, so that it is a mutually beneficial experience? We do not wish a ‘talk down’ approach: both sides must gain in some way from approaches and experiences of the far end. By all means, if the facility is easily available, do try it, do not hesitate to explore it - but don’t do it, just for the heck of it. Without a clear focus, we run the risk of our partners saying their time has been wasted.

2) Be cost conscious:
By June 2002, over 1000 men and women will have participated in our videoconferences through our facility, and connected with about 85 professionals from the far end (mostly UK). A simple cost-benefit analysis shows that international airfares and other costs associated with bringing overseas visitors to India is very high, and this medium has offered us an alternative. However, be cost conscious for every component: there are hidden local costs attached to getting the speakers to the venue.

3) Manage the time efficiently
We have enhanced our skills in time management: as each minute of connectivity costs money, we have cut out all the traditional frills of long welcomes at start of events. We reckon that about 75 minutes is the maximum for one session: sometimes due to variation in accents we need to ask speakers to repeat what they have said, sometimes connectivity may temporarily break (don’t forget we are relying on technology across seas and distances here!) which may temporarily disrupt the proceedings. Also, the event requires dedicated attention spans, and any adult will not have long attention spans!

4) Off-line materials are important
By all means, participating in the videoconference is still a unique and novel experience for almost all in Delhi. We have indeed asked at the beginning how many people have already experienced it, and so far none of our participants have! This is encouraging. But we think we owe them more than just a visual interaction. Therefore, we have invested time and energy to produce appropriate information packs, related to the theme, and also information on the speakers. This also helps generate a good range of questions, and as an after-event product such off-line materials have good shelf-life. We send these to those who are not able to attend, and have encouraged them to come to the next one! Feedback shows that our partners value this kind of material.

5) Feedback is important
As the technology is new, our experience is new and limited, we lay a lot of stress on feedback from participants, speakers and others. This is the only way we will be able to make improvements. Feedback also helps us create new opportunities. For example, we would like to develop some on-line training initiatives, and the feedback from the videoconferences has helped us put together a network of people who will support us in taking this idea forward.

6) Follow-up
There are two ways we are taking follow-up initiatives. One is that we are recording the videoconference from both ends: this has potential to be made into one, smoothly edited product that can be screened in future interactions on the theme with different groups. The quality of recording on CD-ROMs is very good, and easy to replicate. We do not want to lose the opportunity of using the rich content in other ways, and are following up on repurposing the content in different ways. The second follow-up strategy is person-related. If we have an audience participation of up to 50 or so, we are able to locate at least 3-4 who would like to be involved in future videoconferences, either continuing on the same theme, or with suggestions on new themes. We are thus creating a network of like-minded professionals, who are willing to give us some of their time, and skills, to move forward from videoconferencing to other on-line linking, specially in the building of communities of interest.

Development Impacts

Videoconferencing is a great medium to connect people across boundaries - specially busy people, who will not be able to make field trips due to time constraints. Historically, women have lacked access to technology - some say, they are hesitant to try out new technology, we think this is a myth, and given the opportunity women would also make use of technology in a creative manner. We would like videoconferencing to be made as simple as opening of a tap to get water, or making a telephone call - our stress is to enable women’s access, so that they can network to gather their synergy and lobby for change. We see this technology as linking them in various ways. While videoconferencing may be the first-time access for developing such links, we plan to extend this in to further on-line learning opportunities that can be made available more widely. Connectivity and bandwidth will improve in India in the next few years, and we would like women from all over India to be part of this new world in some way or the other, so that they can influence the policy that affects their daily lives. The medium offers a new way of documenting oral history and using traditional knowledge and wisdom in different ways. This technology will also help us take forward our work on business and human rights, the key to which is triple bottomline reporting, ie not just the economic bottomline, but also the environmental bottomlline (on which there has been some progress in the last decade or so) and the social bottomline (on which a lot of work needs to be done yet all over the world).

Project Information

Organisation : The British Council
Total budget in US$ : $15000
Country of activity: India [IN]

Are there any partners involved : yes
What is partners role?: All the work done by the British Council's Governance team is in collaboration with local partners. We identify with our partners those areas of mutual interest where UK can share knowledge, experience and innovation. However, the British Council does not prescribe that experience as the only way of doing things. As a collaborative initiative, the partners' role is to adapt, modify and culturalise to the Indian context. our partners also identify the people and support structures necessary to make the collaboration successful. They invest their time, labour and knowledge to make the partnership a truly collaborative one, for mutual benefit.

Contact Information

Kamal Singh
kamal.singh@in.britishcouncil.org

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