Rajen Varada's Page

Organization

UN Solution Exchange ICTD Unit

Website of the Organization

http://www.solutionexchange-un.net.in

What is your role in this organization?:

Knowledge management

Your email address

r.varada@unesco.org

Tipo de organizacion/sector

Research

What does your organization do? (100 Words Max.)

Overview
Solution Exchange, an initiative of the United Nations Agencies in India, is harnessing the power and passion of Communities of Practice to help attain India’s development objectives and the Millennium Development Goals by connecting the nation’s development professionals and enabling them to share, learn from each other, and collaborate.

While "expert" knowledge is often well documented, valuable tacit knowledge gained through practitioner experience is typically lost or ignored. Furthermore, practitioners can not always access knowledge they need, such as whether a particular idea was tried before or where to turn when facing a bottleneck. To harness this knowledge pool and help development practitioners avoid reinventing the wheel, the United Nations offices in India created Solution Exchange – a free, impartial space where professionals are welcome to share their knowledge and experience. Members represent a wide range of perspectives from government, NGOs, donors, private sector and academia. They are organized into Communities of Practice built around the framework of the Millennium Development Goals. Through moderated e-mail groups, members interact on an ongoing basis, building familiarity and trust, gaining in knowledge that helps them contribute more effectively – individually and collectively – to the nation’s development challenges.

Today eleven Communities are up and running: Maternal and Child Health, Water, Gender, Food & Nutrition Security, AIDS, Decentralization, Education, Work and Employment, Microfinance, ICT for Development, and Disaster Management. Since starting up in April 2005, membership has grown dramatically – between 80 to 90 a week – and currently stands at over 21,000 subscriptions (12,000 members subscribed to one or more Community) from across the country.

Competences Areas

e-Learning, e-government, Digital Inclusion, Open Source Software, Policies and Regulation, Technological Volunteering

Are you involved in a project and which one? (100 Words Max.)

The UN SE ICTD unit is the knowledge managemnt unit of the UN in India. The project works at varius levels promoting collaborative knowledge building for the development sector focussing on the MDGs.It is a platform for collaborative projects through technology platforms and face to face workshops on key issues. The ICTD team is currently work in on universal accesabiity standards, Toolkits for standards in Public Private Partnerships in e goverment., ICT in education and promotion of FOSS.

Why are you interested in the Digital World Forum ? (100 Words Max.)

To learn from memebrs and to share the Indian ICT for development experiences

How did you know about this Web site?

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