Technology and Community Development: The Telehaz Experience in Hungary

On June 5th IREX hosted Matyas Gaspar, the founder and visionary behind Hungary’s world-renowned telecottage movement and the president of the Global Telecentre Alliance. Speaking to an audience in Washington DC and Internet users participating online, Mr. Gaspar shared his first-hand experience in founding and sustaining the telecottage movement and its effects on governance and socio-economic development in Hungary.

Gaspar’s talk imparted sound advice about telecenter administration and working with teachers, students, and development practitioners. Gaspar provided insight on best practices regarding the ownership and management of telecenters. He demonstrated an analysis that concluded that the optimal model for telecenter was when governments host centers, communities manage activities and private investors maintain operations in order to ensure public access and consumer-driven quality and service provision.

Gaspar spoke towards another chief concern – sustainability, emphasizing telecenters’ need to utilize their broad utility in order to increase support from public, private, and civic interest groups. Mr. Gaspar advised that centers’ costs be defrayed after governments’ initial investments by transitioning funding to public grants and consumer dues.

Gaspar emphasized the ability of telecenters to enhance governance and community. Based on Hungary’s experience, telecenters permit the decentralization of government, simultaneously improving village services and federal coordination. Decentralization and improved communication also strengthens democratic and market practices, which bolster the very mechanisms needed to fund telecenters. These lessons and others are captured in greater detail in IREX’s online forum that ran concurrently to Gaspar’s presentation.