A Report On Community Education Tour to Charikot, Dolakha Department of Computer Science and Engineering Nov 4 Nov 10, 2012 Submitted By: Sushil Shrestha DoCSE Submitted To: Asst Prof. Brijesh Adhikari Project Manager
Introduction: The community education tour of computer science and engineering second year students was done in Charikot, Dolakha. After the feasibility study of the area from the faculties of Department of Computer Science and Engineering, major areas in which the student can contribute was identified. Charikot was chosen as the appropriate area because of different government offices of the district available in this area and the maximum use of computers in this area. For the contribution in the IT sector, we need to have such area which has the basic understanding of the working mechanism of computer and its maximum use. So Charikot was the preferred area which fulfils our requirement. Major identified areas in Charikot premises: Government offices School Hospital NGO Hotels Dolakha Chamber of Commerce and Industry Problems encountered in different sectors: Government offices: Mostly software related problems were identified such as system hang, system format and reboot, creating tables using MS-office, creating a google group, use of power point slide. Schools: Different problems in fundamental course such as Q Basic programming and MS Access were identified. Hospital: Telemedicine device was available in one of the hospital but now working. The device was out of order. NGO: One of the NGO called E Card was found in Charikot. It has its own website created some years ago but lack of maintenance.
Hotels: There were different hotels in Charikot area but they all have a similar kind of problem i.e. lack of their own personal website for their promotion. Dolakha Chamber of Commerce and Industry During our visit to this place, we found Lokta (product made from Nepali paper) which is directly exported to Japan. Besides that they had some problem in computer handling and software installation. Contribution by our students in these sectors: Government offices: Different software related problems were solved by our students through face- face interaction and awareness campaign. Besides that our students delivered lectures on some of the useful softwares that might be useful for the government staffs in their works. Student visited different branches of government offices and solved the problems faced by different staffs. School / Institutes: One group was assigned to provide technical help regarding Computer Training to the The Rising Star School located at Charikot, headquarter of Dolakha District. They were greeted by the members of school, both teachers and the students. The school had pretty good infrastructure considering its rurality. The students there were good enough to teach. Although they constantly needed guidance from a bit experienced one. Different lectures were delivered by our students which focus on the fundamental course. For example crash course of Q Basic and MS Access. Besides that student also aware the participants about the different tools and techniques related to IT. One of the groups also delivered the lectures on open source and its advantages to the bunch of interested youths. The other group worked in Gaurishankar English Boarding School and Manandhar Computer Lab.
Hospitals: One group of students was assigned on installation and operation of telemedicine device. The main goal was to handle the device and make the system active and our student succeeded to achieve this goal. Figure 1Polycom HDX-4000 The Polycom HDX-4000 has been shown in the figure above. This is a device manufactured by Polycom and can be used for video conferencing means. The device has a 5-megapixel inbuilt camera which is capable of receiving video at 720 p frame width. It has a 20.1 LCD screen which can display HD videos. It also has 4 built-in independent speakers for better sound quality. It uses 2-port 10/100 auto NIC switch RJ45 connectors to connect to the internet. The network standards supported by the device are TCP, UDP and H.323. It also has a port which when connected to a computer than screen can be used as a monitor or a second screen. The device also has a user-friendly alphanumeric keypad attached to the screen, through which the user can make calls very easily. Problems Encountered This was the first time we had seen such a device. So, initially it was difficult for us to understand the functioning of the device. The technical staff had no knowledge about the working of the device. So, no help could be received from them. The operation of the device required knowledge of networking standards and protocols which we were not much familiar with. The network wires had not been connected properly that caused the internet to go down frequently. Fixing them took a lot of time. The network required a static IP for two-way communication. When we requested for a static IP with the ISP they tried to charge us some amount. (Convincing them for providing a static IP for free was difficult.) The internet speed was slow for the video conferencing service to run smoothly.
The device now runs properly. The video calls can be made and easily from the community hospital to any other similar remote devices in the world and vice-versa. With the help of this video conferencing service, now the local doctors can take the help from experts around the world. This can be very useful for the community as expert healthcare can be recieved easily. The local people don t have go to to urban areas to get better consultation about their health. We hope that the installation of this service will play an important role in improving health conditions of people of Dolakha district. NGO: Two groups were assigned in NGO. One group focused on updating the webpage of E Card (NGO). The other group focused on creating a website to promote the tourism in this area. The website entitled Destination to Charikot. So to perform this project student gathered different information of Charikot. This group was engaged in information collection for the future development of website. The students were assigned for the task of upgrading the existing website of ECARDS, started working as per their requirement. In order to make the website more attractive, they used a default CSS template from www.styleshout.com and made amendments to suit their needs. The officers at ECARDS loved the new look of the website that we showed them. However, the key to the registered domain of www.ecardsdolakha.org had been kept with the person who designed the previous website and that person had gone abroad. So, they could not upgrade the new look of the website into their existing domain. Due to the unavailability of the key of the domain registered by ECARDS, they consulted with the officers at ECARDS, and suggested them to register a new domain over the existing domain. However, due to the limitation of time in the project, they could only help them to give a new look to the website. Also they agreed with the parties at ECARDS, that they would soon complete their project and give a better look to their existing website. The officials at ECARDS were convinced with the option of registering a new domain and the group will soon be helping ECARDS in that sector as well. And so, with this their Community Education Project came to an end.
Snapshot of the webpage: Fig: Snapshot of old website
Fig: Snapshot of new updated website
Fig: Team members
Snapshot of the website for tourism promotion in Dolakha
Hotels: Some students were engaged in website development of hotel. For this they met the particular owner of the hotel and discuss for the appropriate design and content for the overall development of the project. Dolakha Chamber of Commerce and Industry One group focused on the development of the website which gives main focus to Lokta for the global market and promotion. The other group focused on giving training and solving the problems faced by the staffs during computer handling. The group consists of seven members. They had given a project to develop website of Dolakha Chamber of Commerce and Industries (DCCI). They stayed there for five days. During those five days they deal with some problems and solved it successfully. Lokta is a medium sized industry in DCCI. It produces various products from Lokta plant like hat, bags, box, copy etc. The head of that organization Mr. Suman Khadka told us that they have very much problem in promoting their products. Only some organization in Nepal knows about Lokta products. So in order to promote the products he told the group to develop a website for that industry. He also told that designing a website of DCCI is in the master plan of that industry. Fig: DCCI website template
Fig: Team members with DCCI Officers The other group was engaged in providing training. After finding the problems the group was divided to tackle their problems. They had to teach specially only two persons there. Their approach to their problems was: They taught them how to install the operating system and we also provide them some of the antivirus. So, they could make their computer free from the viruses and they can install new OS which make them independent and not rely upon other experts which would cost them time and money. They also teach them to share the files and printer from two computer using network cable and also through wireless using a router. So, they can save there time just sharing files and they also can use only one printer which makes them there works cheap. Now, Using the Router they can share internet only from one ISP and they can use password in there wireless internet account by which they can operate there internet very fast and now they are planning to increase the bandwidth of the internet from same ISP. Using Social Networking sites they can share their photo, videos and many events with their friends and closed ones. They are also able to add new friends to their contact list and they are also able to keep their profile secret and private from the others. From their help now they can solve their problem related to hardware without consulting the expert and can save their money.
Similary Some knowledge about the graphic designing software like Adobe PageMaker and adobe Photoshop was also provided by the group. Some session was about the e-governance and e-business was also given by the group. Conclusion: Overall the tour was a grand success. The exposure of our students in different sectors helps our students to cooperate and deal with different kinds of people. In addition to that some of them got opportunity to work on real projects. We also got an appreciation letter from all the sectors for the contribution done by our students.