I would also say that in my experience, Technology is both an amplifier and aspirational. Beyond mere amplification, an important distinction should be made between an amplification of current "ways of doing business" and dramatically new ways of doing business that are a result of a tipping point that the technology allows us to reach.

Are ipods, itunes, and the digitalization of music strictly necessary for us? Does it make sense for our society to spend billions on that while there were perfectly good ways of listening to music? My take is that it is an irrelevant question - we live in such a world. We live in a world where people (given a choice) aspire to own the newest and greatest, and where ICT enables new modes of business/interaction/service delivery in the real world.

The democratization of technology, the widest possible adoption, though, requires a price point and a set of features /form factors / experiential benefit that - on balance - are sufficient in their aspirational bounty and their tipping "pointiness".

This new $35 device, with a touchpad, seems like a great move - and a huge opportunity. More moves in this direction would include a better battery, solar thin film on the reverse side for easy recharging in the tropics, hardened for outside field use (water proof against rain storms/ dust proof against the road), and lower price.

The poor pay more for their services (water, power, information) than the rich on a per unit basis, and so shared access models and lower cost technologies that dramatically lower the barriers and increase the availability is a - on balance - a net positive.

- James Dailey

SEATTLE

On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 7:36 PM, Tapan Parikh <tapan@cs.washington.edu> wrote:

Ive never understood Kentaros point here, or at least why its delivered with such pessimism.

Its strictly a glass half-full, half-empty kind of argument. Of course technology does not achieve its effect in isolation. Of course you need all the rest of the things Kentaro mentions. But an "amplifier of your intent" still sounds pretty awesome to me. This is what Steve Jobs was trying to do for us, and what we are trying (successfully or unsuccessfully) to achieve for the poor and marginalized through ICT4D. Im not saying that computers are the best or most appropriate technology, but the potential is there, and that is why we are working to achieve it, and why it is still research.

I find Joyojeet's critique much more interesting. Are computers truly amplifiers, or are they strictly aspirational? Said another way, is high technology perceived as an end in and of itself, or do we understand its true machinations*, and use them for some other higher purpose - the highest being to learn, and through the process become better people, or a better society. I am sure everyone who has worked in ICTD has directly observed "gadget lust" in our partners, users, and without doubt, in ourselves.

Summarizing my point, the important question is "are u the one riding the horse, or is the horse riding you?". The jury is still out on this for ICT4D, as it is for the rest of the World, IMHO.

* For the philosophy and German buffs, see Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology".

On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 6:55 PM, Yaw Anokwa <yanokwa@gmail.com> wrote:

rahul,

i would encourage you to check out
http://www.kentarotoyama.org/research. i think his work on
technology as an amplifier and the ten myths of ict4d will be quite
insightful.

yaw

On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 18:16, Rahul Banerjee <banerjee@cs.washington.edu> wrote:
> Yes, I agree that this is simply another hardware platform on which
> people can build stuff. It is a solution enabler, not a solution in
> itself. However, this price point means that one can deploy solutions
> for cheaper than with existing hardware.
>
> I think we all agree that *solutions* built on top of hardware
> platforms change people's lives -- cheap hardware simply opens up such
> possibilities to interested parties who want to build solutions, but
> don't have enough money for expensive hardware.
>
> I would like to emphasize this point -- the best ideas can come from
> anywhere. Once you let such a cheap device loose into the wild (so to
> speak), I'm certain that several talented people will come up with
> good ideas and implement them. What remains to be seen is how many of
> those are useful and improve people's lives significantly.
>
> --
> Rahul
>
> On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 6:02 PM, Clint Tseng <cxlt@cs.washington.edu> wrote:
>> Yes, but your argument is centered around how the technology is better. I
>> don't think I have to point out who we're echoing when we say that
>> technology alone is not enough. We could make the Galaxy S2 or the iPhone 4
>> cost $10 and it simply wouldn't make the kind of difference you'd hope for
>> (eg, much at all).
>> The App Store is not available because you have to pay Google licensing fees
>> to put it on your device, which would have driven the cost up.
>> Touchscreens are nice, but I don't think any of this will truly matter for
>> the populations we're talking about until we see voice technology like Siri
>> develop to the point where you don't need to care that you're talking to
>> technology. At that point, perhaps it's worth revisiting the distribution of
>> generic technology to remote regions and untrained users without caring
>> about what their actual needs are. For now, it's still much better to
>> actually do the footwork to figure out what people need and give them that
>> than to try to hand out or sell general purpose computing devices and hope
>> to make a difference.
>> $0.02.
>> -Clint
>>
>> On Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 3:16 PM, Rahul Banerjee wrote:
>>
>> Against a cell phone, the tablet's screen is a compelling argument.
>>
>> However, I don't know if really poor people (who are mostly
>> illiterate) would go for a tablet over a *television* -- I've observed
>> that even people living in illegally constructed shacks next to train
>> tracks always have a DTH antenna dish sticking out from the roof. My
>> belief is that:
>> 1. TV's are dead simple to operate -- turn them on and they work. If
>> you can't navigate your magical tablet's touchscreen, you have a
>> magical paperweight.
>> 2. There's decent infrastructure in place (in India) to get a
>> direct-to-home subscription. I've been to some pretty remote places in
>> India (places that are accessible only using off-road vehicles and are
>> completely cut-off for three months during winter) and nearly all
>> these houses had dish antennas. AFAIK, 3G-based data plans aren't that
>> ubiquitous yet (you could only get them in certain cities in India
>> last time I checked -- about 2 months ago).
>>
>> The battery question is an interesting one -- I read a review which
>> stated that the battery life is two hours. I've observed in urban
>> slums that (illegally) hooking up wires to overhead electricity supply
>> cables (a dangerous practice, to be sure) is common. I'm not claiming
>> that this is the norm everywhere, but financial pressure often
>> eliminates batteries anyway :)
>>
>> I'm going to keep on harping on the "poor but intelligent/talented
>> student" angle. These are the people who'll benefit the most from such
>> a device. Imagine being able to read textbooks on this! Btw, I also
>> discovered in the review that the App Store / Marketplace is disabled,
>> which is *not cool*. Maybe they don't expect the target users to have
>> connectivity, but this severely limits the platform. There are a ton
>> of free apps out there which the users cannot get, and now custom
>> delivery platforms will have to be built for every project (I'm
>> thinking of textbooks, telemedicine, the fieldwork apps like the
>> Verbal Autopsy stuff, etc)
>>
>> I've rambled enough here. My summary would be that this is a giant
>> step forward, but the poorest of the poor (think indigent poverty)
>> won't magically lift themselves out of poverty using this one device.
>> However, it does generate lots of exciting possibilities for
>> "slightly-better-off" segments and it can be an enabling device for
>> several projects on a shoestring budget.
>>
>> --
>> Rahul
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 1:00 PM, Fritz Meissner <fritz.meissner@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Just brainstorming a hypothetically compelling reason: consumption of
>> locally-made movies, which I'm given to understand currently happens
>> wholesale on cellphones in India. Would the move to tablet form, i.e. bigger
>> screen and (one would hope) better sound, make for a massively improved
>> experience?
>> The Aakash could be a better investment than a TV / DVD player, given the
>> greater capacity and reusability of USB or SD cards compared to DVDs. Of
>> course, the TV has a bigger screen, but it doesn't run on batteries. How
>> much would a TV cost?
>>
>> Fritz
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 3:15 PM, Jerome White <jerome@cs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>>
>> However, there is a "rural/poor" segment that could afford this: those
>> making between 5 and 10 thousand Rupees a month. In fact it's what some
>> spend on a mobile phone. However, with the mobile, there is very compelling
>> reason to make such an investment. A similarly compelling reason, from their
>> perspective, to own this device isn't clear to me.
>>
>> But, at least we've got another device to help us generate publications :)
>>
>> jerome
>>
>> On 06-Oct-2011, at 4:11 PM, Fritz Meissner wrote:
>>
>> How much is $35 to the poorest of the poor? I recall an economics study
>> that paid Indian workers the equivalent of a monthly salary, I think that
>> was 50USD... 35USD is beyond cheap in the West but perhaps still not
>> affordable in that context.
>>
>> OTOH if the tablet is locally made, perhaps just the work that the
>> manufacturer provides will be beneficial.
>>
>> Fritz
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 1:32 AM, Joyojeet Pal <joyojeet@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I agree with Yaw on this -- sure, it is great that this technology is so
>> cheap, and one can argue that similar such efforts have brought up new
>> technology innovations (Netbook etc) and various other benefits, what is
>> deeply problematic is the idea that this will solve the issues of
>> development in India, and Indian minister Kapil Sibal's announcing the
>> project as being some kind of a dig out of exclusion
>> (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/india-announces-35-tablet-computer-to-help-lift-villagers-out-of-poverty/2011/10/05/gIQAPT8PNL_story.html)
>>
>> If you look at UNDP's latest HDI report on India, you may find that
>> someone should find this claim at least quixotic, given that the country
>> ranks 119th in the world for what ranks are worth. India as a state spends
>> among the lowest on education (3.6%) and healthcare (1.1%) and has an income
>> inequality problem that is by all measure growing yearly, gender inequity is
>> 0.748 (on a scale of the 'best' at 0.212 and 'worst' at 0.814). the average
>> Indian spends 4.4 years in formal schooling.. the list goes on and on.
>>
>> i'm not saying this is not a significant achievement, my concern is
>> tying this to development in such a way, in fact specifically in the
>> perception that this could be the state's part in providing development in
>> india. i think it hurts the cause of folks working in this space at the very
>> least.
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 7:03 PM, Yaw Anokwa <yanokwa@gmail.com> wrote:
>> the hype around this tablet is terrible.
>>
>> i think it's great to have cheaper technology, but android tablets,
>> even cheap $35 android tablets, will not lift villagers out of
>> poverty. i wish it were that easy...
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 15:49, Rahul Banerjee
>> <banerjee@cs.washington.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Sorry for the spam, but I couldn't resist sharing such wonderful news:
>>
>> http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/India-announces-35-tablet-computer-for-rural-poor-2203509.php
>>
>> (Actually, the government is subsidising its price (which would be
>> closer to $50), but it's still pretty amazing that something like this
>> exists at all)
>>
>> --
>> Rahul
>> _______________________________________________
>> change mailing list
>> change@change.washington.edu
>> http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> change mailing list
>> change@change.washington.edu
>> http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> change mailing list
>> change@change.washington.edu
>> http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> change mailing list
>> change@change.washington.edu
>> http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> change mailing list
>> change@change.washington.edu
>> http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> change mailing list
>> change@change.washington.edu
>> http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> change mailing list
>> change@change.washington.edu
>> http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> change mailing list
> change@change.washington.edu
> http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
>

_______________________________________________
change mailing list
change@change.washington.edu
http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change

_______________________________________________
change mailing list
change@change.washington.edu
http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change

--
James Dailey
skype: jdailey