telecentre.org Academy, is a flagship programme of telecentre.org, with key social investors being the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and Microsoft. As a skills development programme that supports actors involved in creating new and inclusive economies in developing countries, especially at the grassroots level, by taking advantage of the knowledge and information both tangible and intangible services for millions of marginalized and poor communities living in peri-urban and rural clusters around the world, telecentre.org was launched at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia in 2005.

telecentre.org's five programme pillars include the telecentre.org Academy, a capacity building arm that aims to develop and deliver courses in support of the learning needs of over 1 million telecentre operators around the world. The work programme of telecentre.org Academy began in October 2006 as a telecentre.org activity, and since then been steered by a Senior Programme Officer, housed at IDRC's New Delhi office. Several partnerships have emerged in support of the Academy programme of telecentre.org, especially at the national level. To date, the 14 national academies that are operational have their own national consortium in support of their work. A number of complimentary initiatives support scholarship, curriculum design and development, and peer-learning at the global level. Telecentre.org has invested over 1.5 million CAD to develop the programme. The ecosystem of telecentre.org Academy developed through the intellectual leadership offered by the Delhi-based Senior Programme Officer makes it easier for the Academy to be implemented as a global programme through its Secretariat housed in one of its partner institutions

As per its commitment, IDRC has incubated both telecentre.org and its capacity building arm, the telecentre.org Academy for a period of five years. These programmes are now being spun off into independent programmes with supportive governance mechanisms in place. While the telecentre.org programme finds its home in the Philippines in the form of a newly established telecentre.org Foundation, the telecentre.org Academy is being spun off into a global programme supported by a Global Secretariat in one of the partner institutions for a initial period of five years beginning 2010-2015. To select a partner institution that would house the Academy's global secretariat, a consultative meeting was organized in Delhi on 17-18 August 2009. Some ten senior officials in the ranks of Vice Chancellor or Pro Vice Chancellor from as many universities present at the August 2009 meeting in Delhi agreed for IDRC and IGNOU to jointly establish a global secretariat under the auspices of IGNOU in Delhi. A letter of intent to collaborate was signed between IDRC and IGNOU to this effect. To fulfill commitments made by these two institutions, a memorandum of grant conditions are being agreed upon for the global secretariat project to commence from 1 January 2010.

The establishment of the Global Secretariat will support the telecentre.org Academy's global programme that currently collaborates with over 50 partners around the world. The Academy programme is primarily aimed at supporting the learning needs of over ONE MILLION telecentre operators, thousands of policy makers, investors, and leadings of existing and emerging networks and poor communities living and working in peri-urban and rural areas around the world in over 20 languages in as many nations.