Cross-Country Learning Exchange: Managing and sharing content for development, the Synology way

Managing and sharing content for development, the Synology way
Sengerema, Tanzania, July 5th – 9th, 2010

'What do hospitals in Tanzania, training institutions for young entrepreneurs in Ghana, and
schools in Uganda have in common?' One thing is the need to store information and share
content, often in environments marked by constraints in staff technical capacities as well as constraints in stable supplies of electricity.

Sengerema District Hospital in Mwanza Region, Tanzania, is one such institution. The hospital is integrating the use of ICTs to support its health activities. They are applying ICTs to strengthen their health management information, to enable telemedicine and also to enable continuous professional development for institutions that form part of the hospital, notably the School of Nursing and the School of Clinical Officers. Sharing health-related information between the different hospital institutions has been a challenge, and managing the technical infrastructure required for such initiatives has not been easy.


On the other side of the continent, in Wa, Upper West Region of Ghana, Brother Gracious leads a team working with ICTs to support their vocational training school for young entrepreneurs. ICT training and use is integrated in the businessmen development skills programme for local youth. ICT is also used to manage the organisation's electronic documents and files, and link the school and its students to the world outside Wa via email and the internet.

Enter the Synology DiskStation technology. Various programmes supported by IICD have been building experience over the last year in using the Synology's network attached storage solutions (NAS) to support them in their work. Apart from the hospital in Sengerema and the Producer Enterprises Promotion Service Centre (PEPS-C) in Wa, other organisations such as Computers for Schools Uganda and the Nkozi Hospital in Uganda have also been using the Synology DiskStation (DS209) solutions to manage local area networks and access content in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

Most take to the solution for it's user-friendly administration tools and user interface, others for the opportunities it provides for minimising bandwidth usage while still being able to offer up-to-date data to the users of the network. Regardless of how it is being used - to provide information, to offer courses, to exchange information (e.g. between hospitals), to arrange for automatic updates via the internet, or to address connectivity problems – IICD partners using this solution tend to work in relatively isolated
environments, since there is little other local expertise available on these solutions.

From July 5th to July 9th, 2010, IICD brought technicians from programmes in different countries together in Sengerema, Tanzania, in order to learn from each other’s experiences in applying the technology for different development-related purposes, exploring valuable features, and becoming more proficient in installing and administering the system. IICD's Capacity Development officer for Zambia and Ghana, Gaël Hernandez , facilitated the workshop, which included participants from Ghana, Uganda, Burkina Faso and Tanzania.

Participants found that the workshop helped to build confidence in the use of the Synology solution, as well as inspire by sharing experiences and ideas on how it could be deployed. Participants suggested to follow-up with discussions on using the content sharing solution to support agriculture activities, or on how it can be used in telecentre environments.

Still to result from the meeting is a practical technical manual based on the partners' experiences of installing and administering the solution in different environments. The manual will assist technical staff working in development-related organisations to assess how the solution can be used in their organisation, what the technical requirements are, how training can be conducted, etc., and will also include case studies on how it is currently being deployed by IICD partners for education and health sector purposes.

Why is this appropriate technology?
The IT managers for these diverse development programmes find the solution appropriate for their contexts for various reasons, for example:

• the actual users of the system (health workers, school teachers, vocational lecturers) do not need high level technical or skills in order to work with it like is needed with most other server solutions. You need somebody with higher level technical skills who will configure it, install applications, and make it fully operational, but once it's set-up (5 min.) and you have the content running (30min), it's very easy to use;
• it is good in unstable electricity environments: it uses only 12V to run, hibernates when not in use, and remains robust if there are power cuts because of the UPS, and it has other good energy saving features like being able to schedule when it automatically switches on and off;
• it has a lot of easy to use built-in functionality, so it can be used in a variety ways, for audio and video, streaming, enabling access to content locally, keeping emails local in a network without using costly bandwidth, etc.
• almost everything is pre-configured, and it improves over time when new firmware with additional functionalities is downloaded;
• and, not unimportant in a sub-Saharan African setting, it adjusts the fan speed in accordance with the room temperature.

One challenge in using the technology for development-related work is that it isn’t yet widely available, and has to be shipped in from Kenya, Namibia or Algeria. But in overall evaluation, it does what it says it does, and, as the participants found out from each other, it does a lot of useful stuff and is seen to be good value for money.

For more information on the workshop, contact Gaël Hernandez
For more information on the use of technology solutions in IICD's programmes, contact Saskia Harmsen