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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.
I could use a few ex-dotcommers to pull my rickshaw around. They'd be getting a pittence, I'd get transportation and it's clean for the environment. Win Win situation ... who wants to sign up?!
This is awful! Now, these newly uplifted Indian masses will take even more of our programming jobs!
Grumble, grumble...populism...communism...grumble grumble!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
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
What always amazes me is how governments in other countries manage to get IT projects finished with tiny budgets. Here in the UK or in the US the rickshaws would have cost 100s of thousands each and a small fortune to run. Look at eVoting for example - i've heard prices of $10000 per machine! WTF costs $10000 to stick an unsecure crappy computer in a box and put some strung together voting software on it? India they do it with some custom build hardware and it costs nothing!
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Slashdot in 5 Paragraphs
It's good to see the Indian government is taking the initiatives to bring modern technology to within reach of the rural community.
In the article, it mentions many Indian villages are poorly wired, telephone lines can go dead for weeks at a time, making wireless technology the most reliable Web connection.
However, what it takes is a willing government to find an alternative, rather than giving promises to improve telephone lines.
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
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
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."
This is so perfectly out of a william gibson novel i want to hurl :)
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No matter how thin you slice it, its still baloney.