Cloud for digital inclusion, skills and employability
We have just developed Skillage (http://skillage.eu) an elastic, cloud-based service on Microsoft Azure. Its aimed at helping people to understand their ICT employability skills, and is available in 20 languages(and a few more in the pipeline). Its also on Facebook and formatted for web enabled smartphones. Its now had well over 11,000 uses in first couple of months.
The key point for us (http://www.telecentre-europe.org) as a digital inclusion organisation is that we have been able to create this system quickly, very cost effectively, and with a really high level of functionality. Would this have really been possible before the cloud? An issue for me is that other NGOs haven't really grasped how the cloud could transform their services. NGOs need to have guidance on how the cloud can transform opportunities for them.
Group audience:
Comments
Do you see that such a cloud
Do you see that such a cloud could go a level further by offering services? And can you expand on examples of what other NGOs can do with a cloud approach?
I think that clearly NGOs are
I think that clearly NGOs are still only now discovering about the benefits of cloud for back office applications, and many probably think the cloud as a web platform is mainly for business. Much education is required from the cloud industry itself (who I suspect are targeting business as their primary audience through their marketing), but also policymakers who NGOs/Third sector do look to for guidance.
Specific examples would certainly include
1) Office applications
2) shared/collaborative workspace/file storage
3) web platforms (for education/ learning apps, for social/professional networking within target audiences, for mobile app development)