Thank you, Aditie, for giving us a look at a plausible scenario in rural India. Frankly I do see Taran's work as investigating such scenarios as he travels, and I am eager to hear what he finds. Perhaps he will find some places where a simputer would be appropriate, and others where it would not be so.
But if we have enough information, we might be able to find flexible enough answers. Here is another scenario to consider, this time in Mexico. The background: The group I am involved with, floaters.org<http://floaters.org>, has historically focused on those who are *least likely to have access. Living in Arizona as we do, various group members have developed a small number of volunteer- and donation-based technology integration projects in Mexico. Here is one finding: Unless we can offer solar-powered technology, or better infrastructure, home-based computing is not going to work in some areas, even in a city. The scenario: If you live in a small home, with no running water perhaps (I mention this just to give you something to visualize), and if the only electrical outlet is that attached to a bare light fixture hanging from the ceiling, then the chances of frying your keyboard (or worse) are high. You'd really have to replace your surge protector often, more often than would be practical. The answer for now might be a shared device requiring little maintenance, in a place sheltered from dust. And perhaps users could also store smart cards or flash drives there. Solar powered devices would be nice, but you'd still have the problem of dust, even more where the floor is earth - remember, there are cultural reasons as well as economic reasons for dirt floors. So a place to store your computing device would be important. And - these problems represent just one scenario and not even a complete picture at that! What about local ethnic rivalries, for example, which we have also run into, to our own astonishment? I think success is more likely when users have been given enough information to help design their own solutions that will work for them and their communities, and then have been given the support to do so. Taran, please let us know if you visit the Cunas, and what happens there with the technology. Sandy -- Sandra Sutton Andrews, PhD [EMAIL PROTECTED] Digital Media and Instructional Technologies Arizona State University & The Floaters Organization Now in Arizona and Mexico On 5/29/05, Adite Chatterjee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Try to visualise this > scenario: > > A farmer in remote Rajasthan who can just speak his mother tongue and > perhaps a smattering of Rajasthani-accented Hindi acquires a Dell > laptop - thanks to his son who is living in the US. His son teahces > his father the basics of how to use the computer...By the way, the > father will be only too happy to use it in such a case because he is > not your typical villager (his son is in the US, he is obviously well > off) and for him the computer is a status symbol. All his neighbours > would drop in to chat with the old man only to see this wonder called > a computer...Anyway to continue with the story, a few months later the > computer stops functioning and he has to call up the call centre which > is based in delhi/bombay/chennai/bangalore. You cant imagine how > "divided" the two worlds are - the call centre executives are not > trained to handle customer complaints from rural Indians.Period. And i > don't blame them, rural Indians are not their core customers. After > some hot words and total confusion, old man would forget about getting > the computer serviced - status symbol - or not and it would be stored > away in the 'showcase' in his drawing room, occasionally dusted like > the other souvenirs that his son has brought home from the US. > > The whole point of giving this fictitious scenario is to demonstrate > how implausible it is for a market-driven company to offer service to > customers who are clearly not their priroity customers. However with a > company like Simputer, this is their core target and one assumes that > they have created the systems to cater to this market. > > Adite Chatterjee > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
