Information and Communication Technologies and Advanced Media Innovations in Teaching, Training and Skill Development for Entrepreneurship and Empowering of Rural Women

Information and Communication Technologies and Advanced Media Innovations in Teaching, Training and Skill Development for Entrepreneurship and Empowering of Rural Women

Aknowledge, values, behavior and lifestyles required to achieve sustainability. There is a common international context of rapidly changing globalized economies, communications and human cultural perspectives, where knowledge is a key resource, and where the need for skilled workforces and active citizens is making increasing demands on education at all levels. Using applications of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for poverty reduction and for the economic empowerment of poor women and men in rural areas have been experienced world wide. Tele-centers are making tools available for villagers. It can provide rural people with information related to their business, reduce the costs of money transfers, and put microfinance within the reach of poor men and women. Tele-center is a public facility that offers shared access to Information Communication Technology Applications. The purpose of this talk is to introduce the Rural ICT activities in Iran and specially reviewing the results of Socio-Economic Impacts of Rural Tele-centers in Iran, in order to find how Iranians use these facilities for poverty reduction and for economic improvement of poor women and men in rural areas. While getting the essential knowledge to those who need it most remains difficult and expensive, much optimism has been generated as a result of the increased growth and sophistication of new electronic information services. Even in remote rural areas, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are offering new options to deliver knowledge and information to villagers directly and indirectly through knowledge intermediaries.  Evidence shows that even small efforts to put rural telecommunication policy on the national agenda can have significant results.  In this chapter, author state a brief history about complementary of agricultural, industrial and information revolutions in history of humankind, and importance of rural development and human development and situation of women  specially rural women in these processes, a brief history of Telecommunication and Internet and comparison between face-to-face education with Technology-based education, concepts of sustainable development and rural development, importance of ICTs in re-shaping of human societies, concept of empowerment of rural women, situation of women and girls in Iran specially in rural regions, gender and agriculture in information  society, loops of household production in rural regions with emphasis on women works, model of empowerment of rural women through employment, different approaches and rationale for supporting women's entrepreneurship in different schools of development and growth, a brief statement of some national and international projects that have focused on ICTs  for rural women in different countries and continents, potential strategies and approaches for improving access of women to ICTs, five areas that need to be targeted in any ICTs project to create an environment where women stand to directly benefit from ICTs as much as men, state situation of rural women in Turkey in accessing to ICTs in their development  affairs, livelihood information cycle in rural regions, important informational needs of rural people, system elements of implementing  ICTs for diffusion of innovations in rural regions etc. In the author presented conclusion and recommendations from discussions in situations of women conditions in rural regions.

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