Social Capital Development
People in the developing world, particularly in rural areas, often miss out on economic, educational, and personal growth opportunities because they are isolated from the social networks that can help them maximize their potential. While migration, television, cellular phones and the Internet have steadily increased exposure to non-local ideas and contacts, translating communication tools into new relationships that enable concrete growth can be a challenge. Even those in urban settings may not have what is necessary to be ‘networked’ effectively; not enough, at least, to generate tangible value as it applies to their own socio-economic status or level of engagement with their polity.
‘Social capital’ can thus be defined as how relationships are leveraged to achieve both personal and community goals, with its index of measurement contingent upon the ‘closeness’ ICTs engender between and among citizens, government, and the players in their own economy. In an isolated community, people will have difficulty generating meaningful encounters with entities outside their immediate circles, directly limiting that which a person can achieve to the very limited capacities found within that community. This limitation results in isolation that constrains exposure and the ability to purchase goods and services at global prices, sell products and services to a global market, and gain the skills required to participate in a global economy.
A rural community, and even more so in a developing country context, is usually characterized as a social network with strong homogeneous links; in other words, a group of people very similar to one another and whose bonds are tightly knit. Social science and economics have demonstrated that most opportunities for growth come through the creation of heterogeneous linkages, the opposite of a traditional closed communities, where people different from each other have an opportunity to share knowledge and trade their respective areas of competency. Development efforts must thus take into account the critical role played by the creation of the communication infrastructure that cements social capital, which in turn drives more advanced, prosperous communities.
Herein lies the unique service offering of Alexius: a working approach capable of incorporating formal and informal social networks within the context of development projects, establishing the vital social linkages (i.e., supplier-client links, mentor-mentoree links, worker-capacity builder links, colleague-to-colleague and friendly competition, inter-production associations, inter-business/organization-government links, etc.) that can unlock the potential for growth and innovation that lies within, everywhere.
Some projects in which Alexius has unlocked the potential for growth and innovation and has helped develop social capital are:
- IT Enterprise Incubator
- Alexius helped develop an IT incubator for Armenia in order to increase economic development.
- Last Mile Initiative
- Overview of LMI.
- LMI Colombia
- Alexius helped expand telecommunications access into rural Colombia, which helps institutionalize democracy and involve people in the nation's economy.
- LMI Ecuador
- Alexius partnered with USAID to deploy a high speed Internet connectivity through the Credit Union network in order to service rural communities.
- LMI Guatemala
- In this project, Alexius created the Oportunet brand, under which micro-telcos operate. Through this, rural communities gained access to telecommunications, which then delivered new social and economic opportunities to those communities.
- LMI Paraguay
- LMI-Paraguay provided internet access to 100 organizations throughout Paraguay, before the private sector brought internet access to them, in order to help them learn how to maximize the community benefits of internet access.
- LMI Peru
- Alexius and partners deployed one of the first micro-telcos in Peru, giving various organizations internet access. After seeing the vast development potential, the Peruvian government allocated more funds to create more micro-telcos in rural areas.
- National Smart Card Retail Payment System
- Alexius helped plan and implement a credit/debit card system for Armenia, allowing for increased business transactions and from that increased economic growth.
- Open Source Centro-America
- Alexius helped set up a regional partnership to increase awareness of open source software and create a forum on management and technology.
- Regional Labor Modernization
- Alexius partnered with USAID to create the Regional Labor Modernization Program, aimed at reforming the operations of the labor institutions in Central America by using ICTs as a change agent.
- Strengthening ICT Access and Use in Education
- Alexius worked with USAID and the Eritrean government to establish computer labs in rural secondary schools throughout the country in order to increase students' access to ICTs and through this, increase Eritrea's human capital development.
- University Curriculum Reform
- Alexius worked with USAID to help update Armenia's university curriculum in order to create graduates fully prepared to enter the workforce.
