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The Indian Info-Rickshaws
DoomDoom writes "CNN is running a story
on how the Indian government is delivering health and educational services on a WiFi equipped rickshaw to the poorest of its citizens. It's a poetical union of a typical third world product with high-tech! Do you still think computing is unnecssary for the poorest of the poor?"
"By using computers, I can improve my knowledge," Sharma, whose parents plan to pull her out of school at 15
Ouch. I complain that I only was able to go to a technical school [putting myself through college now]; at least I got to finish out high school.
It amazes me everytime I read about how hard so many people have it, then I look around and see these hideously overweight people driving SUVs, tossing out food, with a ridiculous sense of entitlement (e.g. "society owes me because I'm special") to that effect.
I wonder if more of us in America will ever wake up and realize how good we have it? Yes, of course, the wealth/technology/etc we have introduces its own set of problems, (e.g. SCO, Microsoft, obeisty, ...) but I'd rather
deal with that anyday than lack of education or starvation.
feh. stuff.
The thing I have to wonder about is:
How is this really effective?
With a single rickshaw, even with decent class organization, how are these skills going to help people get better jobs or do their work better? Especially when they are barely completing junior high school years?
While it is a nice way to spread tech around, I dont see how it makes life better for people than the same amount of money in other educational things (books, teachers, that much money goes a long way).
Not only is cheap computing vital for the poor of the 3rd world, but for us here in America.
If you want to build community here in America, where mass media has supplanted our face to face community, cheap wireless broadband might be vital. Otherwise, you get a hollow corporate teevee community, which pushed hollow corporate consumer values into children's heads. When Americans get online, they can rebuild that community. Cheap computers and broadband are needed in order to distribute video entertainment, which need not be produced by large corporations.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Probably every single one of you reading this post has spent more time in front of your computer today than these people will, at a rickshaw, in a month. And the Indian government wants to "... use technology to improve education, health care and access to agricultural information in India's villages ..."? If they were serious about that they'd create a tiny computer center in each village and instead of sending rickshaws around, send teachers instead.
Secondly:
You're absolutely correct. It is just you. If you're not interested in the article just because it's not about something more interesting (like Scott Peterson's latest hairstyle or the outcome of the six-hour finale of 'Who'll hook up with the mad axe murderer?') then I respectfully suggest that you move along. The majority of people onDrill baby drill - on Mars
I asked. They'd like some housing, food, maybe some clothes and some medical help first. But thanks for asking!
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
It costs that much because you have to have enough money to pay for the lawyers you employ to go after people that speak out against your product.
As to who thinks there are better places to put resources, none other than Bill and Melinda Gates think so. Two of the high profile efforts are and AIDS vaccine and TB efforts, although there's plenty more fronts they're throwing financing at.
I remember an interview with him (can't find it online) where he recalled being at a meeting with dozens of people pitching high tech solutions to Third World problems and him rejecting almost all of them in favor of vaccines. He said it was silly to start laying down fiber optic cable (this was a few years before WiFi) in an area where you couldn't draw clean water from a well.
Now, don't get me wrong. Any effort that conveys health information or basic education to people who need it is, by definition, a Good Thing (TM). Also, this is an indigenous effort of Indians (presumably the Indian government) helping their own, not someone outside trying to find the best place to spend their money. One would assume (and the photos of healthy people in TFA certainly imply) they've already got their vaccination, clean water, and hunger plans already in place, so they might as well experiment with alternate education efforts.
Still, I have to wonder about the long term viability of this project. With India's struggling masses, you have to wonder if the money might be better spent elsewhere.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
When oh when will the /. crew get it into their heads that the rest of the world is not living in filth, squalor and poverty? They have a middle class in India too you know! Jeez! I mean, which is it? Are the Indians robbing us of our god-given, high-skill programming jobs or are they living in mud-huts and unable to read or write? Make up your minds!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
It's not a matter of sacrificing for the better of the world. It's a matter of competing the best we can, so the entire world can benefit. Economics is no longer the dismal science. Economists accept that when people do they do best, in a free market, everyone benefits. If India can do our programming at a lower cost than we can, we should let them do it, and have our more highly-paid workers do what they do best.
Many Americans have this insane fear certain types of jobs going to third-world countries will lead to a tidal wave that will suck away all our jobs and leave us behind. History shows us that this is not the case. Instead, those jobs go away to make room in our economy for new jobs. We get better jobs, they get better jobs, everyone benefits. Those who are fighting to keep the status quo (like the anonymous poster who replied to you) are working against themselves. The Soviet Union should give us ample illustration of why such an attitude is self-defeating. The soviet central planners tried to enforce the status quo. It worked for awhile, but eventually the rest of the world left them behind, and Soviet workers were stuck doing busy-work that was no longer relevent.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
>Here in the UK or in the US the rickshaws would have cost 100s of thousands each and a small fortune to run.
Probably, but because richer economies have to produce more robust products to even be considered for funding. If these rickshaws hit the US market, people like you would be complaining how terrible they are, how the range sucks, how painfully heavy they are, how big of flop they will be, etc.
Also, look at these things, those are full sized PCs in there, not laptops. In an economy where people make ~16k per head per year, who is going to drag around a rickshaw PC? At the very least the more expensive project you decry would be a lighter more energy efficient laptop or even four or five of them for multiple use per rickshaw.
Its real easy just to say "westerners suck, they are so spoiled, fat, and lazy compared to everyone else" when really all people behave the same way given the same circumstances. People in rich economies tend to get fat. People in poor economies tend to be too thin. People in rich economies shift to service industries. People in poor economies work in manufacturing. Products in richer economies are disposable. Products in poorer economies tend to be servicable. And so on.
The US and UK has no shortage of amazing projects when they were at a poorer point in their history. Hell, look at the US's advances in telegraph, rail, and telephone systems back when. Or the power and opportunity the steam engine and the cotton gin produced.
I really get sick of the western bashing and the whole "we've lost out way, lets get back to nature" BS. Disposable laptops, wifi everywhere, etc are signs of progress. Maybe you'd rather be waiting 6 weeks for a replacement power supply on the family 286, but not me.
The only real catch is smart disposal as to not affect the environment. Even poor economies have to work on not letting excess fertilizer get in the ground water or let their farming habits encourage erosion.
Instead by providing a means to allow the people to educate themselves, they and their peers will be able to improve their own situation and thus have a stake in continuing to improve. With the exception of _real_ need handouts do not ultimatly improve a persons, much less a nations future.
Btw I think this from world fact book is relevant:
Educating these people (and thus providing a means) about their own environment will do much more than you give credit to helping those destitute.
I was working in the NGO tech sector in Cambodia for a while and came across a similar project, which also made it to CNN. See Digital Home Mag
Rumor has it that this project only ever sent and received a handful of emails before everyone lost interest.
It turned out that internet is pretty irrelevant to the locals. The only people who got anything out of it were the aid workers who got covered on CNN.
An email connection that is only available once a week at best when the rickshaw comes round is not much value to anyone, especially if you dont know anyone else who has an email address. Teaching spreadsheets and MS Word is not much value in a community which has no computers the rest of the week. If you are reliant on subsistence agriculture like I suspect most of these villages are, you are likely more worried about digging your fields by hand than calculating crop yields. Telemedicine is all very well but irrelevant if you cant afford the drugs or surgery required. There is very little internet content relevant to a rural farmer. Any grand talk of eGovernment are pointless if your local government is not on line.
The best you can hope for is a couple of kids get a glimpse of the outside world and get the ambition and drive to get out and make something of themselves.
The people who set up these projects on the other hand get to pat each other on the back, fly off to nice conferences in expensive hotels where they tell each other about how valuable their work is, and of course appear on CNN.
In my experience as soon as there is a community has a purpose for an internet connection, the free market kicks in and internet cafes spring up like mushrooms. As any traveler will tell you most moderately prosperous 3rd world towns are full of internet cafes full of local kids IMing each other.
A better use of government time would be laying copper (or even fiber) to these villages so they could start with a phone connection, and then use government policy to keep internet connection costs down.
A better use of our resources would be to stop subsidizing our farmers so that the 3rd world poor can compete fairly and work themselves out of poverty.
First of all, lets not turn this into yet another outsourcing related to flame war
Secondly, being an Indian, I can tell you this (and similar technology related efforts) make a big difference. In a lot of different ways. While these projects may or may not fulfill their key goal (whatever this may be), what it does provide is a sense of confidence to the people. A feeling of being cared for by the government. A sense of being looked after. And then, all such gadgets/advancements still generate a sense of wonder in the people. There is a sense of novelty associated to such devices/initiatives.
The point I'm trying to convey is, in the more developed world, such devices or initiatives happen far too often (and maybe even at a faster pace). For a big, poor country, that broke out of the shackles not too long ago (we have been independent only 60 years now), such initiatives bring about lot of self belief and confidence.
http://efil.blogspot.com/