Waiting for the Simputer

Everyone’s eagerly awaiting the Simputer, the low-cost hand-held device that promises to bridge the digital divide. But as the months roll by, eagerness is giving way to impatience. Frederick Noronha puts together a host of viewpoints—from supporters as well as detractors and finds out how far the Simputer is from delivering on the promise and the hype

SITTING IN THE PALM of one hand, this small computing device has generated a mix of hope, anticipation and pessimism that no other hardware product from India ever has. But will the Simputer deliver on its huge promise?

Fighting back naysayers and pessimists, the teams working on the Simputer a simple, inexpensive, multilingual computing device that could help take the benefits of IT to the masses are toiling on determinedly.

But not surprisingly, after well over a year on the drawing boards-and in the headlines the fatigue is beginning to show. For some, the finish line seems close. To others, the disappointment of the Simputer not having reached product shelves by the end of 2001 as promised only provides further fuel to their sceptical fires.

On the Yahoogroups! mailing-list set up for the Simputer project, over a thousand members watch on hopefully. But the inability of techies to explain the issues involved to a non-technical audience, seems to have left everyone guessing what’s going on.

As commercial availability finally happens in a few months, we’ll soon know who’s right. What’s at stake, though, is not just a promised product, but rather a valiant battle to drastically shift the turf in the debate over what role IT should play in India.

Even at this stage, the Simputer has made the point that affordable solutions for countries like India will have to come from countries like India itself. And that Indians have the skill and talent to provide these solutions, if not the optimism. And also that the right vision can play a massive role in taking us that critical inch closer to reaching our much-touted potential.

The story of the Simputer is not just one about its price (though that is of very high importance), and whether it could keep to its promised production schedule or not. There are, in fact, many other vital issues that come up, as discussed in this article.

Lowering costs

In early March 2002, Reuters reported that the low-cost, hand-held computer developed by seven Indian engineers to take the Internet to rural masses would start rolling out in May. Originally expected to cost $200, it would now cost $50 more, Vinay Deshpande, chief executive of Bangalore-based Encore Software, was quoted as having told the international news agency.

Indeed, much of the Simputer fate depends on what price it can be put out at. Its advantages are premised on the fact that it could cost about one-third the price of a PC, and about the same as a colour TV set. If buyers could be convinced of the usefulness of the device, it could reach millions who have hitherto not been touched by computing at all.

According to VINAY DESHPANDE, full-scale manufacturing of the Simputer will commence in July 2002

Dr Swami Manohar, CEO of the Bangalore-based PicoPeta Simputers one of the two manufacturing licensees of the project; the other being Encore Software says that things are now moving at a hectic pace. “The primary challenge is funding. However, we are hopeful of solving that problem. The good news is that, justifying the Simputer licensing model, there are now two companies competing to provide Simputers: PicoPeta and Encore. So there is now a challenge to keep prices down, improve quality and to improve the product and software,” he argues.

PicoPeta’s first field trials, and first funded project, are expected to start any day now in the state of Chhattisgarh. “We will be deploying about 75 Simputers, one per panchayat, in the district of Mahasamund. This project is funded by the South Asia Foundation and is actively supported by the state government,” Manohar says. “Our first production units from Bharat Electronics have started arriving. We still have to do lots of testing, but should be able to scale up soon.”

Guntupalli Karunakar, who has been working on GNU/Linux-based Indian language solutions, argues that the Simputer has potential as a shared community device through its smart-card interface. “But it all depends on the number and variety of applications that can be run on it,” says he.

“One reason that has prevented the Simputer coming into the market early is because major components (processor, memory, LCD display, etc) are not easily available in local markets, and have to be imported. That too, in bulk. So I can’t build one of my own even if I have the money. If the raw materials were available locally, we would probably have had ‘DIY Simputer kits’ if not complete Simputers,” says Karunakar.

Karunakar voices concern over the fact that since there is no immediate money to be seen, existing players really don’t want to take risks, or waste time and money on it. “They either find the product uninteresting, or are waiting for the small players (read: PicoPeta/Encore ) to take it to the critical mass level. If it succeeds, then they will jump in with all their might,” he argues.

Sticking to the promised sub-$200 price tag can be tough though. “At least not in this year. It’s a chicken-and-egg situation. Unless there’s big demand, Simputers won’t be mass manufactured, which means costs will be high initially for the few kits that get made,” believes Karunakar.

What makes the Simputer special?

But to the basics first: What makes the Simputer special, if at all?

DeepRoot Linux CEO Abhas Abhinav, explains that to appreciate its uniqueness, one needs to understand the Simputer’s main features text-to-speech synthesis in Indian languages, pen-based input (called tap-a-tap), portable palmtop-sized footprint, Linux-powered, open hardware licensing, and the smart-card interface, among others.

“The intended use of these features (and hence the Simputer) is for rural areas. The text-to-speech features, portable size and low power requirements are meant to be of immense use to people in these areas,” notes Abhinav. “Some of the applications that have been suggested are micro-banking applications, rural commerce, and micro-credit applications.”

Abhinav’s view is that the Simputer has an edge over any palmtop. “Palmtops can’t compute in Indian languages and don’t have text-to-speech interfaces for Indian languages. They are also not aimed for the mass market that the Simputer is targeting, and still have a more elitist user community,” he says.

One supporter of the project, not wanting to be named, says we need more experiments like the Simputer because the hardware needs of India are different than the needs of countries like the US. One parameter, for example, is affordability: A $1000 PC is 1/30th of the per capita income of an American but is 2.5 times greater than the per capita income of an Indian! “Some people have asked me if the Simputer is a failure, and I replied by saying that two years is too short a time frame to judge any new technology,” he reveals. “Also, as I understand it, the Simputer is more differentiated at the software level and I think the hybrid icon and speech-based interface is the right way forward for Indian masses.”

Doubting Thomases

There are some who are sceptical about whether the Simputer can deliver. Akhtar Badshah, executive director of the Seattle-based Digital Partners, and an expat of Indian origin, feels this is a product with value. But, says he, “Unless it becomes very user friendly and can attract multiple users it will not work.” Badshah argues that the Linux language has its limitations for interface with other devices and feels that there are other options that can serve the same purpose.

Badshah warns that India has still not demonstrated that it has real capability in producing very good and reliable products in many other fields. Says he: “I think the value of the Simputer is that it focused the debate on the potential of a market that can be tapped. $200 is not low cost and prices of devices are falling all over the world. There are other devices that are available for less than $50 that can also play such a role if adapted.”

S Goswami, technical director of Archeanit in Hyderabad, is even more dismissive. He calls the Simputer vapourware. “Forget about low cost palmtops, the competition will be from devices like agenda vr3 [see agendacomputing.com]. The Simputer got too much publicity too early,” opines Goswami.

Ashhar Farhan bluntly calls the Simputer a solution in search of a problem. Startup engineer Farhan, presently creating peer-to-peer VoIP technologies, has an interest in low-intermediate information technologies. Says he: “It doesn’t fit into any of the standard classifications of a mobile computer. It is not a replacement for personal digital assistants like the palm or pocket PC based systems because it uses Linux which is not meant for instant-on, diskless, graphical interactions of ‘bursty’ nature (for example, flip open, check a phone number, flip it close). It is also not a replacement for industrial strength robust mobile computers like those from Symbol and Intermec. The Simputer will not even last a few hours in harsh environments.”

But, for Farhan, that this product comes from the Third World is really important. “The fact that we have been able to assemble and operate a complete computer of this level is far more of a technology leap than C-DAC calling its networked Sparc boxes a new supercomputer. It is probably the most innovative hardware project we have seen in India. I am full of praise for the technological achievements especially sitting in India. However, I have reservations about the social and business potential of this project,” says Farhan.

Says Nagpur-based paediatrician-turned-PHP programmer Dr Tarique Sani: “After waiting almost a year for the Simputer to appear, I finally opted to buy myself a Palm 505. Need I say more? It has been in the making for too long!”

On the price front, Sani argues that a $200 price tag could make it affordable to the Indian junior executive, but wonders if it is being targeted at them. “If we are talking about rural India then it will not sell unless the farmer is shown its usefulness. Fishermen around the Indian coast now carry GPS receivers which are just as costly as the Simputer but the usefulness of GPS is immediately apparent.”

Opines Arun Mehta, of radiophony.com, “I’d consider a Simputer where I want portability and Indian language support, or need to use smart cards. Unfortunately, smart cards haven’t picked up yet, and I suspect that has something to do with the high IP costs that go into each card. Technology cannot afford to sit still: what might have been a great design a year or two ago, is old hat today. The Simputer doesn’t have the economic muscle behind it for ongoing innovation at the furious pace devices like the Handspring and Palm are exhibiting.”

“We should first look for a problem, the solution of which makes a serious impact on peoples’ everyday lives, and then find a solution for it, which might involve some hardware design. The Simputer, in some ways, is a solution looking for a problem,” in Mehta’s view.

Says Aditya Sood, founder of the CKS-B (Centre for Knowledge Societies), which is closely monitoring the use of IT for development: “The Simputer is an important stage in hardware innovation and thinking in India. Its areas of greatest application are likely to be in process automation and data collection.” But, he feels, since its conception and prototyping, the Simputer has always been vulnerable to Moore’s law, which currently has palmtops hovering below the Simputer price. “I think this is a serious issue, because minor innovations like regional language voice with English data entry could dramatically cut into Simputer’s potential market,” adds Sood.

From an overall perspective, Sood feels that the major problem has to do with inadequate understandings of rural economy and society, which prevents technical designers from understanding what to design for. “Superior social research conducted prior to technology development, rather than subsequent to technology development is the key. One might call this approach ‘ethnographic design’,” says Sood.

Narasimha Prabhu of iNabling Technologies, the firm that came out with the iStation that was expected to revolutionise e-mail access at a low-cost, views the Simputer as a handheld computer “useful mainly for data collection for field purposes.” Says he: “Customer acceptance of the product is yet to be seen. Uncertainty of the market potential, and the fact that unproven technology was being tried out could have made industrialists a bit reluctant in coming to support this product.”

You gotta have faith

But despite all the problems, there are others who retain their faith and optimism.

Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT-Madras, known worldwide for his attempts at taking affordable telephony solutions to the Indian masses, sees this as an “excellent” tool for urban India, especially with sales and service persons. Even if he sees the Simputer as not being low-cost as of now, he says, “This (the affordability factor) is key and work needs to be done on it”.

“Open design is a big plus. Services need to be developed on it. It will have limited use today in rural areas; but tomorrow it can build up,” says an optimistic Jhunjhunwala. He points out that there is no clear strategy and support from the government side and that different people seem to be pulling the project in different directions.

Prakash Advani of FreeOS.com, the Mumbai-based international network supporting all forms of free Operating Systems, says negatives at this critical point of time could de-motivate the key movers behind the Simputer project. “I think it’s a great concept. It has tremendous potential but needs to prove its metal fast. It’s not important what you compare with it. What’s important is if I have a device which can send e-mail and costs $100 will I pay for something which does e-mail and also allows me to play MP3 for $500?” Advani asks.

Simputer’s main contribution, argues Advani, is the fact that is developed in India for the Indian market. So its developers understand the Indian mindset the best. Localisation would be a great selling point, he feels. Advani suggests that the Simputer team needs to closely monitor the design of Sharp’s Zaurus PDA which also runs Linux. “They can definitely take some clues from there, such as using Quotopia as the platform,” says he.

Hardware innovation?

Given this background, should a country like India then go in for greater hardware innovation? Researcher Bruce Girard has no doubts: “Absolutely. India has a distinct set of problems that are often best addressed with distinct technology. And, unlike many smaller countries, it has the human capital pool and the market to allow it to embark on technology paths that will better serve its needs than those imported from the USA or Europe.”

Girard contends that successful technologies developed for use in India will also help other less-industrialised countries which share the same infrastructure problems but only have access to technology designed for the conditions found in Europe and the USA.

Engineer Farhan strongly believes that India needs to go in for more hardware innovation, his critique of the Simputer approach notwithstanding. Says he: “I would personally like to see a completely GPLed microprocessor design that is scalable (like Sun’s Sparc), open and free (like some legacy processor cores), and small (RISC-based, so that ordinary university students can afford to get some silicon out of their pocket money).”

Arun Mehta sees it differently. He is upset by the “unfortunate attitude” in India which expresses itself in some variation of the question, if this is such a great idea, how come nobody else is doing it? Says he: “We seem to mistrust home-grown technology. Second, I suspect most innovative projects promise the moon when they’re trying to get funding, and get there only by the time you have version 3 or thereabouts. Our projects often don’t have the financial backing for the long haul. Also, the market in the country is small, and unless we immediately look to marketing at a global level (which needs tremendous marketing muscle too) we’re out of the picture.”

“If a project like the Simputer were to fail, it would put development back across the hardware front in India, because people would extrapolate and say that hardware development in India is doomed to fail. It’s an absolute must for home-grown companies to venture into hardware innovation, in India,” contends Mehta. Some are already doing it like Web-ezee, Sasken, I-Nabling, and now HP Labs.

FreeOS.com’s Advani argues that India should encourage more hardware design development but doesn’t agree that the country has the facilities to do high quality manufacturing. “We should outsource to China, Korea and Taiwan,” he says.

India definitely needs to go in for greater hardware innovation. “Hardware innovations are what stand between highly usable computers and affordability,” says Abhinav of DeepRoot Linux. “Again, the extent of hardware innovation is limitless. In the long run it is this that will increase the value of a product not software alone. To make a jump in technology affordability and applications, hardware innovation is one of the best ways India can adopt. We don’t have a dearth of applications or need or market it’s all about price and the value of the product at that price.”

Global Internet Policy Initiative managing director Eric S Johnson argues that innovation in India has much to lose from “the lack of an infrastructure that would encourage an increase in communications capacity.” Instead of the government trying to “milk the communication sector for revenue,” opening up of local loop (wired or wireless), the 2.4-GHz frequency, VoIP, intercity dialing, mobiles and the like would yield rich returns, he states.

Has the product been over-hyped? Sydney-based media theorist and Net critic, Geert Lovink is one of those who disagree. “Compare this coverage with other IT news items. I would say that there has not been enough press at all. Simputer is not just a company or a specific computer. It is first and foremost an idea. A concept which needs as much press coverage and criticism as possible,” says he.

Abhas Abhinav of DeepRoot Linux says the favourable press has been well deserved. “They at least got the focus shifted to low-cost computing for the masses. And for that matter, their objectives were also clear and remarkable. As much as their work,” says Abhinav.

Closely watched

Even within South Asia, where neighbours are often not friends due to political differences, the Simputer experiment is being closely watched. M Khalid Rahman, editor in charge of Dawn Sciencedotcom, the weekly feature magazine of the daily Dawn, Pakistan’s largest daily newspaper, is upbeat about the Simputer.

Says he: “I think the Simputer is basically a poor-man’s computer, and it provides all the basic functions of a computer while giving the price edge to the users.”

Rahman argues that in all the SAARC countries, a special branch of “affordable” technology should be dedicated to developing affordable applications and innovations to suit the pocket of the common man.

The Simputer, says he, is a “landmark achievement, opening new vistas of affordable technology”. As Rahman points out, we in the subcontinent have certainly been falling short of the promise of a number of IT-for-development projects because “our governments fail to think objectively, and our entrepreneurs are mainly interested in making money by all (fair/unfair) means.”

Swedish journalist and researcher, Kerstin Lundell, recently in India to study IT-for-development projects, says the Simputer seems like a very good tool for a traveller in rural areas. She says its promised low cost would be one major attraction.

Says she: “It’s marvellous that anybody tries to make a new computer outside the big established corporations. Swedish companies have tried and failed a couple of times. The big mainly-American manufacturers are so overwhelmingly dominant.”

“I think many majors have had a wait and watch approach to the sector, as it is only coming into its own right now. The major issue, though, I think is whether anyone has the presence, reach and standing to stand behind a new platform coming out of India. If this comes about, I think it will be a fantastic success story,” says Aditya Sood.

“Basically, I think it’s great and I WANT it to work...,” says one US-based researcher, who has been following the potential of this IT-for-development project for a long time now. With sceptics cynical and optimists ever-hopeful, it’s anyone’s guess how this promised wonder-product from India will shape up.

Frederick Noronha is a Goa-based freelance journalist with a keen interest in IT-for-development.

He can be contacted at fred@bytesforall.org

Waiting eagerly, waiting in hope

BANGALORE: The Simputer Trust is the trustee of the Simputer Project. This is a registered non-profit trust with the broad goal of harnessing the potential of infotech for the benefit of the weaker sections of society. As of now, two companies have the Simputer manufacturing license. The first group is composed of four scientists from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) who have formed their own company, PicoPeta Simputers. The second is a group of three from Encore Software, headed by Vinay Deshpande.

The idea of having multiple licensees was to allow as many players as possible to join and develop different versions of the products, based on an open hardware and software model, and avoid creating a monopoly.

PicoPeta currently has only one version of the product with a monochrome display, 32 MB RAM which is priced at Rs 15,000. The company is sub-contracting Bharat Electrical Ltd. (BEL) to manufacture the product, which is due for release end-March 2002. The company is targeting educational institutions and government departments.

Encore Software has taken a step ahead of the PicoPeta group by making several enhancements to the original product. Vinay Deshpande, chairman and CEO, Encore Software, says, “We have made some changes in the products to cater to market demands including international styling, boosting the memory from 16 MB to 64 MB with an additional 32 MB of flash memory. We have increased the battery life by switching from 3 AAA cells to 2 AA cells. This will give users longer backup time (more than 8 hours) and it costs less as well.”

Besides, the company has an expandable cradle into which you plug in the Simputer with interfaces for Wireless LAN, GSM, floppy/hard disk, printer and video camera. It also has a compact flash slot. Taking a leaf out of Nokia’s book, Encore plans to have shells with several colours to suit each individual’s personality.

There will be two versions of this product one with a monochrome display priced at Rs 15,000 (including 20 percent excise duty). The same product with a colour display will be priced at Rs 18,000 including taxes.

Encore had initially planned to launch the Simputer in November 2001 but things have got delayed. Deshpande says, “We plan to release the first lot of 1,000 units by early May this year. Full scale manufacturing will commence from July 2002 but I can’t give the manufacturer’s name at this point of time. We have 50-100 pilots of this product in the market already. Our target audience comprises large institutions, enterprises, e-governance and NGOs. We are not going to the retail market. We have invested Rs 1 crore into the product development.”

Meanwhile, Encore is also working with two organisations one in India and one in Italy to turn the Simputer into a very low-cost reader for the visually impaired. The video camera is used to scan text, which is then converted to a machine-readable form by optical character recognition software. Finally, text-to-speech software converts that text into audible speech.

On the issue of the delay in the Simputer hitting the market, Vinay Deshpande, states, “In a project of this size and complexity there are bound to be delays. Several changes have been made in the product since its initial launch and this has also been a contributing factor for the delays.”

Akhtar Pasha

Bytes

BATTLING ILLITERACY

Maj. Gen. B G Shively <bshively@pune.tcs.co.in> recently wrote in to explain how used computers could be effectively utilised in adult literacy projects in India’s rural areas.

Shively, who works with Tata Consultancy Services, is involved with the community works that the company undertakes. “Being a knowledge-based company, we are working on adult literacy projects in different languages. We have made use of the primers from the National Literacy Mission/State Literacy Missions and developed a multimedia programme,” he explains.

In short, 400-450 commonly used words are selected and using a ‘puppet show method’, stories, music, and pictures, the multimedia programme is developed in a way that it is made interesting for adult learners.

Says Shively: “We have focused on people from 20-50 years of age, who have missed schooling and are speaking some dialect of their mother tongue. Starting from simple words to phrases, one graduates to reading sentences.”

For now, the focus is on reading, as “writing dissuades adult learners.”

Gradually, people pick up writing, as their children take an interest in teaching them how to write their names or how to sign. “In about 40-50 hours of learning, people start reading posters, their ration card or children’s report cards, bus routes, cinema posters and (basic) newspapers.”

For this, the project has made use of the company’s used computers, and more than 400 PCs have been donated. “Since the requirement is large, we are in a need of computers to spread the programme to Bihar, UP, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, MP and Rajasthan,” says Shively.

Reading of a project to bring in once-used computers for use in schools by the Computersforindia.org coalition and the Goa Schools Computers Project (www.goasudharop.org/gscp) the possibility of using a similar model has also excited these code-warriors against illiteracy.

Here’s wishing that more Indian IT firms would take up their social obligations with the same amount of ingenuity that has gone into writing their world-class code... and also that the government would be more liberal when it comes to granting permissions for projects that could really change our future.

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ICTs FOR DEVELOPMENT

Aditya Dev Sood is a 2001 Fulbright scholar, and is completing a doctorate at the University of Chicago.

After researching a

range of issues, he has shifted his attention to Information and Communication Technologies.

Sood’s booklet, “A Social Investor’s Guide to ICTs for Development” is a fascinating guide to a number of projects in progress across India.

The 50-page publication is available from aditya@cks-b.org or adsoon@vsnl.net. You can also find links at www.cks-b.org

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IDEAS FROM NEPAL

This is not really from India, but from just outside our borders. The lessons are relevant nonetheless. These articles discuss the potential for e-commerce in Nepal, and make some specific recommendations regarding potential e-commerce projects in the country. The authors conclude that they “were struck by the degree to which e-commerce considerations in developed nations were valid in developing nations.” Check out www.isoc.org/oti/articles/0401/press.html.

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AN INFO BANK

Someone said: “The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge.” If this is the case, then the idea of having an “information bank” really makes sense.

The Nayudamma Information Bank contains information about, and easy access to, technologies that come from the South, and are meant for the South. (Some prefer to call these areas the ‘developing world’, even if we continue lagging behind.)

It provides contact names for all the technologies described. This is a way of sharing and updating information on technological advancements for international development. This ‘information bank’ has been named after the late Dr Yelavarthy Nayudamma, a man who is credited with dedicating his life to demonstrating how science and technology can and should be used for human benefit. Check out the website at www.idrc.ca/nayudamma/index_e.html

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EARLY DETECTION SOFTWARE

The George Foundation has worked on an expert diagnostic system, Early Detection and Prevention System EDPS2000, for preliminary analysis in the absence of a trained medical practitioner. This is an IT aid to help rural situations where there is no doctor. EDPS2000 is designed to enable early detection of diseases and nutritional deficiencies among the rural population. The software consists of a database of disease characteristics and conditions, and the logic to diagnose symptoms. Check out www.tgfworld.org for more details.

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GETTING KEEN ON DEVELOPMENT

GKD (Global Knowledge for Development), the mailing list which focuses on how ICTs can be harnessed for development, usually has a significant number of postings from India. Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/

To post a message, send it to: <gkd@mail.edc.org> To subscribe, send a message to: <majordomo@mail.edc.org>. In the first line of the message type: subscribe gkd

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IT FOR THE SIGHTLESS

Chetan Sharma who is the founder of Datamation Consultants and the Datamation Foundation in Parpatganj, Delhi tells about the use of IT to help the visually impaired. The Datamation website is at www.datamationindia.com

ICTs (information and communication technologies) can indeed help people with a visual impairment. One training tool, called JAWS, was developed by a group of visually impaired people in the US. It is a screen-reading software package whatever is typed or appears on the screen is read out orally in a robotic voice to the blind.

“JAWS helps the blind people to learn to type in not more than 10 to 15 days after using the software and obtaining relevant training. Support in Braille is also available,” Sharma recently told the GKD (Global Knowledge for Development), an interesting mailing-list supported by the World Bank.

Says Sharma: “The Indian National Association for the Blind (NAB), Bangalore, has been using JAWS to offer visually challenged persons an entry-level programme to become familiar with computers. MS-Word, Excel, PowerPoint, e-mail and Internet are offered under the aegis of a 180-hour programme duration.”

Textbooks are transcribed into Braille. NAB’s basic IT literacy program is affiliated to the National Institute for Information Technology (NIIT), which conducts a certification test; and upon successful qualification in the test imparts NIIT certification, notes Sharma.

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VIEW FROM AFAR

Dr Kenneth Keniston (Ken to friends) is the Andrew Mellon Professor of Human Development and Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s India Program. More importantly, Prof Keniston <kken@MIT.EDU> is a long-time India friend, and has been consistently encouraging IT-for-development projects that hold the promise of a better tomorrow for the common man in this part of the globe.

So, when Prof Keniston gives his views, one can’t but take note. Recently, before leaving back for home, he pointed out that India abounds with “pilot projects” intended to demonstrate the usefulness of ICTs for ordinary people, and especially for those who live in poverty.

Such projects are demonstration projects funded by international, national, and local governments, or by non-governmental organisations, often from outside India. As he points out, in some cases, with enormous resources, they succeed brilliantly in showing that IT can be of use to ordinary people, especially in poverty-stricken areas.

“Such projects, however, almost never form part of any larger plan that includes thoughts about how they might be replicated on a larger scale. Externally-funded

projects which cost Rs. 2.5 crore, or another case about $400,000, or another, $200,000 per year, are clearly justified and useful,” says he.

But Keniston warns that the “danger”, however, is that they become Indian Potemkin Villages the village especially established in Czarist Russia to demonstrate to foreign visitors how contented were the Russian serfs. “The problem was, of course, that there was only one Potemkin Village, and tens of millions of oppressed and discontented serfs,” as he puts it.

Keniston’s views came at a lecture that is to be published as a working paper by the Bangalore-based National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian Institute of Science.

Ken argues that “India does or could lead the world in creating both the technologies for reaching ordinary people and the grass-roots social experiments that could teach both India and other nations how to use those technologies for the common good.” He is upbeat about projects like Dr Jhunjhunwala’s in Chennai, the Simputer, machine-translation at the IIIT in Hyderabad and Gyandoot all of which show a potential to work without huge subsidies. And probably replicate themselves too, if they’re lucky.

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HOLE IN THE WALL

One of the tragedies of the IT-for-development campaign in a country like India is that we don’t get follow-up reports of innovative experiments in the field. So everyone is left guessing.

Remember Delhi’s hole-in-the-wall experiment, which showed that even illiterate, non-English speaking slum kids could take to computers like fish take to water.

An amazing story, by any stretch of the imagination. Dr Sugata Mitra, the scientist behind this project, had done a brief write-up on the project for a technical journal, which probably would have not got noticed beyond technical IT circles. Mitra is the head of the Centre for Research in Cognitive Systems (CRCS) of NIIT

But, once the story emerged it did make news. What has happened to it since? Enthusiasts of the IT-for-development bandwagon are left guessing. One fascinatingly-written piece on the project, put out about two years back is located at: www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/mar2000/nf00302b.htm

NIIT does maintain a website on the project at www.niitholeinthewall.com

India Computes! is presented by Frederick Noronha the co-founder of BytesForAll, a voluntary, unfunded venture focusing on how IT and the Internet can benefit the common man, particularly in South Asia. Join the BytesForAll mailing list by sending a message to fred@bytesforall.org with “SUB B4ALL” as subject, or check out the website at www.bytesforall.org.