Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become a cruzial part of the infrastructures of modern society, and a lot of people are now realizing that the ICT-level of a society and all the resulting competences its inhibitants obtain, already are dictating the quality of life in all spheres of existence. At the same time it is clear that the necessarry ICT-development does not come by itself in rural areas like Djursland, because a small population has to pay the heavy expenses for infrastructure caused by the big rural distances.

DIIRWB had on this background called upon key-individuals in the ICT-development on Djursland for a coordinating strategy-workshop Wednesday 11-06-2008. Based on an introduction from the institute the workshop should seek to develop a common, shared and comprehensive ICT-strategy between public adminisration and -authorities, institutions, businesslife and community initiatives, which can secure a development of Djursland into a exemplary good ICT-countryside-community. The initiative from the institute is based in a comprehensive innovativ preparatory work in the EU-supported BIRD-project (Broadband access for Innovation and Regional Development) with partners in the countryside in all the countries around the North Sea. The workshop actually concluded the Djursland part of the transnational project into a future ICT-strategy for the rural Djursland. 

Many good initiatives has already been carried out on Djursland by different players, but according to the institute more has to be done in the future to create the best framework for the population and to match developments in the big cities. During the meeting the institute therefore proposed to join powers to implement the following supplementing concepts in a shared strategy:

1. Triple-play service - data, telephony & TV - has to be made available all over in the countryside through optimisation of the capcity of the 10 wireless landscapenets on Djursland.
2. A portal for every village has to be established to give the villages a mirror providing all-round news and local  activity-calendar etc., all assambled and easily accessible in the already through many years existing Djursland-portal.
3. Local and regional net-TV has to be developed together with Grenaa- and Ebeltoft city-antenna communities and other players, including the wireless landscapenet oranisations to involve and provide for the rural population.
4. Electronic archives must through digitalization of the 10 district archives, give free access to our history from everywhere, through the Djursland-portal.
5. Fre wireless Internet access, made available through a pattern of hotspots - first in the mid-town of Ebeltoft and Grenaa, and eventually everywher throughout all of Djursland - must make access to and exchange of information possible, whereever you might be all over Djursland.

The participant in the ICT-strategy-workshop agreed that initiatives in these areas of effort, and as conclusion the workshop asked the institute to go on with these visions and prepare an initiative for implementation of a shared and all-comprehensive vision for a good rural ICT-community in the Djursland region, created in a coordinated cooperation between the 10 wireless landscapenets, other ISPs, the 25 Networking Djursland partners from the EU-supported The Baltic Rural Broadband Project, the Local Action Group and all other possible players in the Djursland-community.

DIIRWB (Djursland International Institute of Rural Wireless Broadband) was established in 2006 to give on to other rural people the lessons learned from establishing the Djurslands.net. DjurslandS.net has made access to broadband on the peninsula Djursland - a rural area of 60 times 50 km - so cheap that everyone can afford to be connected and use the Internet. To day DjurslandS.net is decentralised into 10 local landscapenets, which all together provides each of about 7000 households, firms and institutions with wireless Internet access at 4 to 10 megabit bandwidth for only 1/3 of the average commercial city price - all expenses considered over 4 years. Actually 1/4 of the 82000 inhibetants of Djursland have to day there Internet access and -competances through this initiative, as a household of cause can connect several computers.

More information can be obtained here:
DIIRWB: http://diirwb.net
Bjarke Nielsen
Educational leader
Mobile: 60250001
founder@DjurslandS.net
 

• Rural Internet at 1/3 of City Prices - lessons learned from the DjurslandS.net experience 
• Networking Djursland - lessons learned from developing ICT-society on rural Djursland
• DIIRWB - teaching the world the lessons learned creating ICT-society on rural Djursland

These best practices will be part of a collection of best practices from the projects participians, which are all located around the North Sea.

In the next days the DIIRWB staff will hand out posters to customers in the local shops and other places in the villages - to further extend the knowledge of the courses.

Besides the cources for less computer experienced people, we also start a netbuilding-course for beginners and partly skilled netbuilders. This is a workshop with a lot of practical experience.

Click here for poster.

Link to the presentation of Djurslands community-networks and DIIRWB at the conferences homepage - click here…

Posters etc:

The Wireless networks at Djursland consists of about 250 radio nodes, each giving wireless access for households, institutions and firms in a distance up to 5 km. The radionodes are linked together with high-performance wireless links. Through a number of such links a connection from the individual node is established to fiber-accesses to the global internet (marked at the map with white dots).

Click here for pdf-file.

This poster at the exibition at the “Bridging the Broadband Gap” conference set up the headlines for our stand. Pointing out the important message: by involvment of the local volunters it is possible to bridge the Broadband Gap. It is, however, not a trival task as people in the community must acquire a lot of different skills and qualifications to make this to happen.

Click here for pdf-file.