A Visit from Katia Fedotova

We had the pleasure to host Ekaterina (Katia) Fedotova, Executive Director of the Information Dissemination and Equal Access (IDEA) project. IDEA is an NGO that provides ICT skills training to underserved communities in Russia. IDEA has been implemented through Project Harmony International in cooperation with the Microsoft Unlimited Potential program.
Listening to Katia speak, there is little doubt that the project owes much of its success to her dedication to the cause. As Executive Director, Katia has personal connections with each one of the coordinators of the 60 centers in eleven time zones around Russia. The primary focus of the project is to serve the end users, so although they are supported by Microsoft, whose interest is to target employability issues, IDEA is quick to support user needs in participating communities.
Through the IDEA project, the focus is to provide ICT skills using Microsoft products – from basic skills in Word, to producing resumes, helping with job searches and business writing, and teaching netiquette.
Eighty percent of the IDEA supported centers are situated in libraries, where pre-existing resources can be used –the facility, utilities, computers and staff are paid for by the government. IDEA’s focus is upon training, with flexibility to support local needs and conditions. Trained users obtain certification that they have completed the Microsoft course, which helps them to get jobs. All courses are provided at no cost to the user.
IDEA collects evaluation data, which can be viewed on their website. This provides access to user data, with information on courses taught, users trained, instruction hours, and target audiences, to name a few.
What makes this program unique, particularly in comparison to other countries that we have studied? One important aspect is that a vast majority of the countries where we have done research do not perceive libraries to be primary access points to ICTs. In Russia, libraries and universities provide the only public access to ICT (some for pay and some free). This is not due to computer access at home or at work, 71% of Russia is not online. In Russia, cybercafés (or Internet cafes) are morphing into gaming centers, whereas in most of the countries we studied pay-for access to ICTs predominately occurs in cybercafés. Libraries are ignored in most countries for a multitude of reasons – lack of support for users other than scholars or students; lack of access to current content (often due to lack of ICTs); lack of local language, and hence relevant content; lack of training for both users and operators/librarians in ICT usage. This makes Russia one of the few countries in which the government truly prioritizes public access to ICTs (primarily through libraries), and has policies that support it.