Last October, we hosted the 2nd annual Chornobyl Economic Development Forum conference in Korosten. We invited one of the UN’s Global Compact partners to participate in the conference, and the head of Ericsson Ukraine , Mr. Rasmus Norby, made a presentation about their Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. Mr. Norby had made it clear from the start, though, that he did not want to be solicited during the conference for donations or corporate sponsorship of any projects. No problem, we said.
Mr. Norby and 2 or 3 of his colleagues who also attended the conference stayed until late that evening, enjoying the dinner reception with the rest of the conference participants. He doesn’t speak Russian or Ukrainian, which made it impossible for him to engage in conversations with most of the other attendees (although his Ukrainian colleauges were able to translate for him). Knowing how isolating it can feel to be in a room with lots of people with whom you cannot communicate, I struck up a conversation with Mr. Norby. Trying to find a topic that I thought would interest him, I started to tell him about some of our computer and internet projects in rural villages. One of our biggest challenges and frustrations has been with Ukrtelecom, the state-owned phone company. Their 10-year expansion plan (a) will take an absurdly long time to expand and upgrade phone lines throughout Ukraine, and (b) puts extremely low priority on expansion and upgrade in Chornobyl-affected territories. Nonetheless, we’ve supported a few projects to provide internet connectivity in a couple schools and one or two youth centers. These dial-up connections are usually extremely slow, unstable, and the service is sometimes simply unavailable for weeks at a time (very reminiscent of my days in the Moldovan village Tvarditsa!). I’ve been questioning from the time I joined CRDP why we are investing in old, out-dated, and inefficient/ineffective technology, when the rest of the technological world is converting to cable, DSL and mobile internet connections. None of us in CRDP have any expertise in the area, though, and in a typical Ukrainian fashion, it has been easier to implement a method that everyone is already familiar with. I asked Mr. Norby his thoughts on the subject, and he explained to me some of the newer internet connectivity options, like the already common GSM and the new technology EDGE. One of Ukraine’s leading mobile providers is gearing up to expand their new EDGE coverage throughout the entire country during 2007.
Then Mr. Norby did something that really took me by surprise – he asked me to write up and email to him a brief overview of the village internet project I had mentioned, including the problems with the internet connection. He offered to look into the situation and see if his company and their partner companies could come up with a new solution for these villages. I was pretty surprised, and very pleased. We talked a few more minutes, than went our separate ways to mingle during the reception.
As the evening progressed, the reception turned into a full-fledged party and I didn’t mention to anyone the conversation I’d had with Mr. Norby. A few days later, back in the office, I’d nearly forgotten about the interaction entirely. Then my boss copied me on an email to our communications manager, Mykola (aka Kolya), asking me to work with him to draft a letter to Mr. Norby. I then remembered, and went immediately to Kolya and recounted the conversation. “Ann, you’re the source!” he exclaimed. It turns out Mr. Norby talked to both Kolya and our boss, Pasha, during the reception about the idea of alternative internet connections for our partner villages, and neither of them could figure out how or why he had gotten this idea.
So, Kolya and I started working with UNDP/Ukraine’s Public-Private Partnerships Officer (Elena), and over the course of the next week or so we drafted a letter to Mr. Norby. Then Pasha and Elena had a meeting with Mr. Norby. Then they did some research on service providers in various areas. Then we went to visit a village to see if it would be a good site for a pilot project. And then… Friday we went to the village Dniprovske (about 2 1/2 hours northeast of Kyiv) with 2 guys from Ericsson, and they set up a new internet connection via mobile (cellular) service in the village hospital! This is lightening speed for a development project, from idea to implementation in less than four months.
We chose the Dniprovske village hospital for this pilot project for a number of reasons. First, there is a really fantastic young doctor running this small hospital. He is very energetic, innovative and a go-getter. He set up a website for the hospital, and won some really impressive medical equipment from a grant competition in Russia. He already uses the internet to promote the hospital with potential donors, as well as for medical consultations with doctors in Kyiv and Russia. (He’s been using an incredibly slow dial-up connection so far.) The second positive factor for implementing the pilot project in this village is the that there is a lot of potential to expand the internet service to other facilities in the village – the school, youth center, and village council buildings are all next to and across the street from the hospital.
It’s very exciting to see this idea realized, and we are all hopeful that we can replicate the model in other villages soon.
Anka in Kyiv 