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Case study : BusyInternet Accra

BRIDGES.ORG
January 2003

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BI Accra, implemented by BusyInternet International, is an incubator for ICT companies that gives local businesses and the general public affordable and reliable access to ICT. BusyInternet revamped an old two-storey building and created Internet access halls that house 100 flat-screen personal computers and 15 wired offices. The building has a VSAT Internet connection and 1 megabyte of bandwidth -- which costs US$8,000 a month, plus a yearly licence fee to the government of US$2,000 -- a back-up power system, and an internal network. The centre is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and gets about 1800 visitors per day. It provides affordable service that makes it sustainable and also offers social services at low or no cost to those visiting the centre for HIV/AIDS and "Internet-for-Beginners" workshops. It's skill building programme on use of ICTs to local people is crucial in enabling people to use ICTs for communication. It is a good case study of private sector enterprise involvement with social and health programmes.

Bridges.org toolkit

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This website links to online guides and resources on subjects such as getting free or low cost computers, hosting websites for free, assessing your community's readiness for ICT and training documents to improve ICT skills

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