Delhi, India – May 1, 2006: On Monday, the core group working on the Mission 2007 training commons project met in Delhi to move the project forward.

The idea behind the training commons is simple: develop a common curriculum for basic knowledge centre manager training while at the same time setting up an easy way for organizations working in the telecentre space to share / swap / sell more advanced training materials. The basic materials will cover topics like entrepreneurship, marketing, community development, content and services and computer training (free under creative commons). It’s expected that the online system will cast a broader net, creating a bubbling bazaar of materials covering everything from how to sell insurance in your knowledge centre to setting up a rural outsourcing business to create local jobs (likely a mix of free and paid curriculum).

As first steps, the group agreed to jump into the development of a pilot module on entrepreneurship … and possibly a ‘knowledge centres 101’ module. There will also be a move to quickly set up a system to research and share information on existing curriculum amongst the members of the training commons program. All of this should be done in time for the next Mission 2007 convention, which is scheduled for this coming July.

Organizations in training commons core group include Government of India’s Department of Information Technology, GRASSO, IL+FS, NASSCOM Foundation and WorldCorps. Ambika Sharma, formerly of Winrock and Development Alternatives has joined as project coordinator.