Friday, March 18, 2005


Wireless Internet Kiosk in a remote village outside Chennai

At first glance, perhaps the above picture doesn't impress you. Look closer... you'll see a self-contained power supply consisting of a UPS and a car battery, a functioning printer, webcam, speakers and microphone, and a cable leading to a 64kbps wireless link. Now look beyond... you'll see that this equipment is situated in a tiny building in a remote village, about two hours from the nearest major city. Yep - you got it - a fully functioning internet kiosk in the middle of nowhere!

Now what's really cool is that this is part of a project that's being run out of IIT Madras, where the goal is to make these kiosks financially self-sustaining. That means the kiosk owner essentially buys into a franchise of sorts (about Rs 10,000) and then charges for usage according to preset rates. Take this woman, for instance, who runs this kiosk as part of a self-help group that has secured microfinancing from a nearby bank. After being put through a training course, she now serves as the accountant, computer expert, and technician for her little business. She makes about Rs 1000 per month; this is more than she used to earn as a field worker, and this job affords her the ability to keep an eye on her 1 year old daughter at the same time.

So for what do people use the system? Mostly the stuff that we (Americans) did when computers first came out -- games and tutorials (learning computer skills and English), as well as chat and some word processing. The latter category of online communication is limited to a small percentage of the population, however, because it's incredibly difficult to find an interface that allows users to type in their native languages; almost all keyboards in India are in English, and there's no easy method of transliteration.

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