The Status of ICT in Cambodia

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On June 26, 2014, Cambodia’s MPs approved the National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) for 2014-2018. This ambitious document is the country’s blueprint for economic policy, and since it contains a full section dedicated to ICTs, this is a good opportunity to take stock of the current state of this increasingly strategic sector.

1. Why has Cambodia made the development of ICTs a priority?

Simply because ICTs can have a transformational impact and pave the way to Cambodia’s sustainable development. They can boost the economy both in the short and longer run. In 2009, the World Bank showed that using ICTs enable companies to increase their productivity but also that a 10 percent increase in the Internet penetration can contribute to 1.38 percent of GDP growth. On top of these economic benefits, ICTs can also improve the life of the most disadvantaged by granting them a better access to basic services.

2. How is the Cambodian ICT sector doing?

There is a paradox. Traditional information and communication services are of poor quality. Public postal services are unreliable; mass media do not reach 15 percent of the Cambodians; and only 3.96 percent have a fixed phone line. When you look closer, though, the picture is different. It turns out that Cambodia has been closing its technological gap by moving straight to mobile and Internet. In 2008, 3.8 million people had a cell phone; in 2014, there are 20.2 million SIM cards in circulation, which is a 130 percent penetration rate (regional average rate reaching 89 percent).

The Internet sector is also doing well. Six years ago, fewer than 10,000 Cambodians had a web connection, and it was extremely slow. Today 2.5 million people have Internet access at home, and an additional two million Cambodians go online daily using their smartphones.

3. How to explain this leapfrogging development?

There are two main reasons. First, the coverage is good in most regions, and this is because both the public and private players have invested in the telecom infrastructures — up to $209 million by 2015. Moreover, in the past decade, Cambodia has experienced a 7-8 percent economic growth per year. As a consequence, standards of living have risen, and the emergence of a middle class has attracted many operators. With the competition being fierce, both mobile and Internet subscription prices have been reduced.

4. To which extent have ICTs impacted the Cambodian society?

It took only a few years, but ICTs have already transformed the Cambodian society. On the economic level, they have boosted entrepreneurship: 2011 census showed that the tech industry was among the fastest growing in Cambodia. Moreover, ICTs have had a positive impact on other economic sectors, such as agriculture. In central Cambodia, for instance, Oxfam has been implementing an “e-agriculture” program. By providing rural women with a mobile phone, they have given them a tool to plan when to harvest, integrate with the national market and eventually increase their revenues.

On the social level, ICTs have proven they can be impactful as well, in particular by expanding the access to basic services. In 2014, for example, Women’s Media Center of Cambodia launched a radio show in order to promote maternal care in the countryside. To make sure they reach everyone, they decided to develop an Interactive Voice Response system. And it has worked: in only three months 4,500 people called to get information.

However, the most striking impact has been political as ICTs have helped further strengthen the Cambodian democracy. During the 2013 elections, many voters would check Facebook and YouTube to get not-censored reports. Despite some irregularities, the opposition party obtained 44 percent of the votes. Eventually, Cambodia’s Prime Minister who has been incumbent since 1985 had to agree to share some of its power.

5. Which challenges will the Cambodian ICT sector be facing in the coming years?

Among the many challenges, two stand out in the short run. First there is no consistent legal framework, which affects the industry as a whole. In September 2012, the government established the Telecom Regulator of Cambodia. However, since the Telecom Law has not been passed yet, the rules rely on a collection of somehow volatile and often flouted decrees. The second challenge lies in the current market saturation. In a country of only 15 million people, there are seven mobile companies and 24 Internet operators. Since Cambodians have no brand loyalty, experts believe the market will have to restructure soon, and this may cause some business turbulence in the coming years.

How to Ensure Long-Term Sustainability for a Chuuk Computer Lab

Thanks to funding from the Internet Society Community Grant Program as well as from the Information Society Innovation Fund (isif.asia) a computer learning lab has been established at the Chuuk Women’s Council!

Our goal in establishing a computer lab in the Chuuk Women’s Council (CWC) is with the aim of empowering and connecting, with ICT, the women of Chuuk State, in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM).

The Chuuk Women’s Council is an established umbrella organization for the different women’s organizations across Chuuk State, which promotes women’s leadership, education on health and gender issues, environmental conservation, practical skills-building for employment opportunities, and the preservation of traditional and cultural crafts.

Given the existing strengths of the center and the breadth of the programs already on offer, we believe that the technology of this computer lab will serve to complement and enable this organization that is already extremely successful in its non-technical endeavors.

In planning the computer lab, we looked at five key ways to assure long-term sustainability:

  1. Computer Hardware (Rugged, Portable, Low Energy Usage, Good Performance & a Webcam)
  2. Software (Office Software, Typing Aid, Basic ICT Skill Modules, & Virus Protection)
  3. Internet Access (WiFi, Bandwidth)
  4. Training (Basic ICT, Email, Web Searching, Office Software)
  5. Support and Maintenance (Shares, Onsite, Software/Hardware Repair & Remote Troubleshooting)

With our solution requirements and guidelines, a plan was developed and agreed upon with project partners. The support for this computer lab was linked to the PISCES project that during 2012 deployed solar powered wireless connectivity to Chuuk. Building on the connectivity and the capacity built during the PISCES project, the ISIF Asia program has supported 2 consecutive grants to iSolutions to connect schools and improve the solar powered infrastructure available.

It is our hope and intent that this computer lab at the Council’s facility, accompanied by trainings in how to make use of the technology and the Internet, will greatly enhance the existing CWC offerings and will empower Chuuk’s women to use ICT’s communications and information capabilities to enhance their own quality of life and improve their own communities.

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The CWC has an existing room within their facilities designated to serve as the computer lab: where the sewing classes currently take place!

Thanks to the mobility of the laptops comprising the lab, they will be able to utilize the room as a sewing room in the mornings, and as a computer lab in the afternoons, with the added bonus that the sewing machine bases can very conveniently serve as “desks” for the laptops.

Alternatively, the laptops can easily be brought to any room within the CWC to be used for training, education, or any ICT skill based needs that will help the staff accomplish their tasks.

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We started on-the-ground in Chuuk by preparing the laptops at iSolutions, a small company co-founded and directed by project partner TR Mori, pioneering community Internet access through the only cyber-café and computer repair center in Chuuk.

Many of the iSolutions staff helped out with standardizing the programs (listed below) loaded on the laptops, password-protecting them, and installing Reboot Restore RX on each of them for virus protection/removal upon reboot.

We selected Intel Classmate Laptops for the lab, because they are quite energy efficient (important on any small island!), have a speedy processor and long battery life, and are wrapped in a ruggedized and durable housing—not an insignificant point, given that they will be moved each day to create the computer lab/return to a sewing room.

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The programs/features installed included:

  • Windows 7 OS
  • Web Browsers (Chrome and Internet Explorer)
  • Office Suite Software (Open Office)
  • Communications Software (Skype)
  • Rapid Typing
  • Multi Media (webcam software and a multimedia video player)
  • PDF viewer
  • GCF Learn Free
  • MicSem Videos

Once the laptops were ready, we headed over to the CWC for a meeting with the staff, to talk with them and inquire what they had in mind for the computer lab. They were all quite interested in the technology, and were eager to improve their own computer skills.

We asked them what they hoped to be able to do with the computers, as well as spoke about the possibilities for the women who live in more remote locations to be able to use the technology. They expressed that because of the strong person-to-person networks they already have in place, any local chapter of the CWC, from one of the Lagoon Islands for example, could request a training session to take place. They believed this would prove very popular.

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In the meantime, we got started on helping them develop their own computer skills that afternoon. They eagerly jumped in, using the Rapid Typing program, listening to music, using the video camera, and trying out Open Office.

We returned the next day, set up the lab, connected the laptops to the Internet, and held our first training session in the brand new CWC computer lab. Since our “students” had already used the laptops the day before, they were not timid to try anything.

Since we had Internet connectivity today, we surfed to the web, and the two women who didn’t yet have email addresses were already attempting to use Facebook (where they soon discovered they’d need to obtain email addresses in short order)! We tried out the Rapid Typing program again, and then it was time for some multi-media: We watched some videos from MicSem and GCF Free Learn—which proved to be very popular and entertaining.

When I said goodbye to them, they all called out goodbye back, but they hardly even looked up as our team left, they were so engrossed in using the laptops, and certainly not ready to stop after a few hours! That was fantastic.

We are working on editing a video that we made about this experience, so watch for the video to be posted. We also anticipate a return visit in November of this year and to reporting back on how and for what the learning lab is being used.

In the meantime, we also looking forward to hearing more about developments at the CWC’s computer lab in real time; how the staff are using the laptops/lab, when the training sessions for community members will start, and even more exciting developments I couldn’t possibly predict!

Written by Dr. Laura Hosman, assistant professor at Illinois Institute of Technology. Read her blog here.