Translation for non-Hindi speakers:
The sign on the left says "Laptop for 1600" (In Rupees, this is ~ $35).
The guy (literally and figuratively "the man on the street") is
boasting "I have downloaded a roti using this, wanna see?"
Roti is a very basic food item and "dal (lentils) - roti" is a
standard staple in most of North India.
This is what a roti looks like:
http://www.food-india.com/ingredients/i001_i025/i006.htm--
Rahul
On Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 10:05 PM, Abhishek Prateek
<abhishekprateek@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry about the spam. I came across this pic and found it too amusing to not share. It's in hindi though.
On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Yaw Anokwa <yanokwa@gmail.com> wrote:
this thursday at change, kentaro will be sharing reflections on his
ten myths work and i'm assuming he'll touch on much of this. it should
be an interesting talk and we'll try to make the talk more widely
available online.
if you have questions for kentaro, please submit them at
http://www.google.com/moderator/#16/e=f0f2f
http://change.washington.edu/2011/10/kentaro-toyama-reflections-on-the-10-myths-of-ict-for-development
On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 06:50, Tapan Parikh <tapan@cs.washington.edu> wrote:
Now that Ive wasted a decent amount of time on this thread, I should
also provide some explanation of why Im so annoyed by Kentaros
argument.
The first time I heard it was at the NYU CATER event in 2009. I
remember thinking that everything that Kentaro said was true, but that
the talk still left me completely deflated and uninspired. The
emphasis was all wrong. I remember noticing that there were a number
of students in the audience that felt the same way. I was worried that
Kentaros perspective was scaring students (and funders, but that is a
different story) away from ICTD, or at least not allowing them to have
fun and to learn while doing it.
The process of creation is supposed to be fun and engaging. The
stories that we tell should be inspiring and motivating; not daunting
and pessimistic. As students and designers, you are *allowed* to fail.
That is how you learn. You dont need to understand all the "myths"
and "chasms" of development from day 1; save that for the critical
theorists (and the policy makers). If you follow the process of
user-centered, iterative design, you will learn those things as you go
along - and you may even find that some of well-established beliefs
arent true, at least in your context! This is how innovation works,
and how designers and engineers are able to do the impossible. But to
do this - you have to believe, and you have to having fun.
My students and I have had a great time designing ICTD technologies,
while learning a huge amount along the way. I havent tried to
proselytize, because I think that the jury is still out on ICTD, as it
is for many other things, which is what makes it an exciting research
area. But I do want to ensure that students know it is OK to believe
in technological progress. If that is a myth, then it is one that is
shared by the entire modern world, which makes it true if simply by
convention.
Finally, pointing all the ways that ICTD (and development) are hard is
not an intellectual contribution - its common sense, and has been said
before, by smarter people then you, or me, or Kentaro. As engineers
and designers, if you want to make your mark, the best you can do is
to create things that actually (and demonstrably) change the world for
the better - b/c thats where all the brownie points are waiting. ;-)
Dr. Glass Half-Full, signing off....
On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 10:11 PM, Tapan Parikh <tapan@cs.washington.edu> wrote:
Thanks for the post Deepti. I think the last line summarizes your argument:
"All one is saying that every development dollar spent on 'technology
for development' is better spent on 'people for development'."
1) In 99% of "development/aid" situations, I agree.
2) Its usually not an either/or. One can (and often does) spend money
on both people and systems/process (that technology enables). As
Kentaro alludes, most successful (ICTD) projects do exactly that. And
the fact that public resource allocation is inefficient (and moreso in
"development/aid") is a systemic political problem, and not a problem
of technology.
3) If his is really a policy argument (as opposed to research), then
thats fine - he should take it up w/ the Kapil Sibals of the world.
Budgeting is a complicated political process, and policy makers can
use all the good advice they can get.
On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 5:47 PM, Deepti Chittamuru
<deepti@ischool.berkeley.edu> wrote:
I can see why Tap would argue that Clay Shirky's piece is a refutation of
Kentaro's claim. But I don't think Kentaro's claim is dislodged by Shirky.
Shirky says he does not seem to understand why we should be careful when
attributing agency to social media/communication tools while everywhere else
it is attributed routinely and everyone understands perfectly well what it
means. I don't think Kentaro would argue that a quirk of the English
language is the danger. He would rather argue that repeated use of such
language if and when it leads to mistaken attribution of agency would be
dangerous. His argument presumes that such mistaken attribution of agency
is occurring in the context of ICTs especially in the development and public
policy sectors.
I had a version of this conversation recently with Kentaro and here is what
I believe he would say. Again, this is my understanding of what he would
say, it does not necessarily capture his beliefs very accurately. I write it
as a conversation simply because that is how I remember it in my own head. A
lot of the examples below are drawn from my understanding so if they are
wrong then it is my fault and not his. :)
Kentaro: While it is perfectly fine for you to use such terms, it is the
belief that these tools are somehow causing good that is distracting. It
does not matter if the lay man believes this but it starts getting dangerous
when resource allocating public policymakers or folks in the development
sector start believing that offering a laptop/mobile phone based game to a
teacher-less child or to a teacher who does not know how or even what to
teach will be more effective than investing the same resources into training
teachers in terms of increase in literacy in a community.
In a war after all it isn't the weapons but the strategy (how you use them)
that wins the war. Every single general in history will attest to that.
There have been instances when an enemy with superior weaponry (technology)
has been defeated by people with better strategy and more will power even if
the latter had less advanced war technology.
If you have to choose between training soldiers and building out your
technological prowess, then choose to focus on your soldiers and on war
strategists, etc., Technology after all is only meant to enhance a soldier's
ability to fight the war, if he is himself not effective what will a super
high-powered gun do for him? except probably lead him to shoot himself in
the foot...
But the concern is that what the generals already know, the policymakers and
people in the development sector might not remember.
When teacher's do not know the absolute basics that they ned to teach, do
not have the motivation or self-efficacy to turn up everyday in a class
which is nearly empty to teach children who are hungry; If mothers are too
unwell to give birth to healthy children and the children grow up to be
malnourished, then it might be a better idea to focus every resource you
have on building self-efficacy and motivation amongst the teachers and to
offer them teaching skills, instead of overhead LED projectors; it might be
better to offer community health workers motivational and self-efficacy
interventions and skills to educate women and their families rather than to
offer them mobile phones and cool apps.
It does not mean the cool apps don't help or that the overhead LED
projectors don't help. They do, but are less value for the resources spent
on them. Furthermore if you did manage to improve the self-efficacy levels
of a teacher or the educational/motivational skills of a community health
worker then he or she would find a way to get the LED projector or the cool
mobile phone app.
Technology isn't the hardest part to get while doing development work but
the skills and knowledge necessary to do the work are difficult to acquire.
So if you have to choose between putting in a million dollars into either
buying mobile phones for community health workers or into training them to
enhance their persuasion skills or their knowledge of the healthcare issues
and solutions, then choose the latter.
Only if you believe that you already have an effective force of community
health workers/teachers/ human rights activists/whoever is helping should
you be spending the money on accessorizing them so to speak with
technology.
Technology can help you do whatever you do more effectively, powerfully,
efficiently, etc... whether it be good or evil. It is a magnifier of human
intent and capacity. But you have to know what to do for technology to help
you do it better, more widely, more powerfully, etc... Twitter cannot help
you spread the message far and wide and effectively mobilize people if you
do not know what message you have to send to mobilize people.
This argument is about whether it is more important to teach people what to
do or improve people's ability to do it. The latter (improving how they do
it) presumes the existence of knowledge of the former (what to do and how to
do it)... mistakenly so in my opinion. As of today I would argue that the
biggest challenge in the development sector is helping people - teachers,
community health workers, etc., - figure out what to do and how to do it.
Only after achieving at least a minimum level of knowledge, self-efficacy
and motivation does it make sense to explore how we can help them do it
better.
Some people seem to argue that simply having access to the right technology
will help people figure out what to do or how to do it and that is the main
issue of contention here. Technology is about how to do it better, not about
what to do or how to do it. So I argue that we (folks in the development and
public policy sector) should first focus on teaching what to do and how to
do it before we begin investing resources in figuring out how to do it
better.
Deepti: Yeah but if I do not have the money to build a full force of
effective workers (in whatever development area) would we not be better off
at least "magnifying the intent" of the few good teachers, community health
workers, etc. that we have?
After all building effective human abilities even in a fraction of the
workforce in development is so much more expensive and slower than being
able to magnify the abilities of those who are already effective. Wouldn't
the latter be more value for each dollar spent?
Also wouldn't the very deployment of technology be an intervention in
increasing skills, knowledge and self-efficacy of the community health
workers/teachers/whoever else even amongst those (admittedly the
majority) community health workers/teachers/whoever else who aren't very
knowledgeable, self-efficacious or motivated?
Even for those who aren't very great teachers/community health workers,
etc., wouldn't simply having access to technology increase - if only
slightly - their levels of knowledge, self-efficacy and motivation?
Kentaro: Just access to technology does not reliably lead to an increase in
knowledge, self-efficacy and motivation and one cannot depend on the hope
that technology might have such a side-effect when one is spending a billion
dollars developing and deploying it. Also if there is such an increase in
knowledge, motivation and self-efficacy, it is only marginal. Why spend so
many resources to only have a marginal impact on vital issues.
This is like investing resources into inventing super-efficient surgical
tools that facilitate quicker healing times for patients undergoing brain
surgery when there aren't enough good surgeons to go around. Agreed a
patient bleeding into his brain will benefit from shorter recovery periods
after brain surgery but he will benefit even more from having access to a
superb brain surgeon. So if you do not have resources to do both (train
surgeons to treat the bleeding brain and invent great surgical tools), if it
is a question of whether to allocate resources here or there, then you are
better off focusing on the creation of better surgeons than the invention of
better tools.
Also the market does have a way of finding out what works best and
eventually developing whatever is most useful. We do not really have to
spend public or development dollars on building better mobile phone
interfaces or apps. We are better off spending public money on building
human capital.
Furthermore if the human capital is knowledgeable enough, self-efficacious
and motivated enough they will identify and obtain the technological tools
they need, whereas going the other way -from access to technological tools
building knowledge and self-efficacy- round is much harder.
As to your first point about whether magnifying the intent of a few good
teachers isn't as good a way to spend resources as increasing the number of
good teachers, especially since the former is easier and less expensive to
do than the latter - No it isn't.
For such a strategy to be successful in improving the over all levels of
education, health, etc., you still need a minimum number (critical mass?) of
good teachers, community health workers, etc... We do not have even that
minimum number of great teachers, community health workers, etc., and hence
every "development" dollar that you spend on designing or deploying a
"useful" mobile phone app is a dollar that you are taking away from doing
more useful things like building better human resources.
Nobody is saying that technology does not help, the argument is about how
much it helps. Does it help enough to justify spending on technology
"instead" of spending on people doing development work? Is it so effective
that it can do as much as a great teacher or a very effective community
health worker? If not then one is better off spending on improving
teachers, community health workers, etc... at this stage. All one is saying
that every development dollar spent on 'technology for development' is
better spent on 'people for development'.
-d
On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 3:21 PM, Tapan Parikh <tapan@cs.washington.edu>
wrote:
This could be a very entertaining conversation if I wanted to play devils
advocate for a bit, but unfortunately deadlines loom.
So Ill say yes, you are absolutely right, but your argument could be used
just as well as a defense for the hypothetical folks that Kentaro appears to
be railing against. I dont think anyone sensible (that I've run across
anyway) has argued that technology is instrumental for development to occur,
at least on an individual basis.
The economists have looked for causality at the macro-level, but recent
events have led many prominent economists (Keynesians, granted) to suggest
that large parts of that sub-discipline are irrelevant to the real world.
Anyway, Ill close by saying that whether words determine reality, and
whether modern classical macro-economics is completely bogus, are both
hugely interesting unsolved questions that I dont have time to engage with
today, or before tenure for that matter. ;)
On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 11:55 AM, Sunil Garg <sunilgarg@gatech.edu> wrote:
Where is the refutation?
Just because the English language wants us to frame things in a certain
way doesn't mean that's the reality.
-Sunil
On Oct 17, 2011, at 2:34 PM, Tapan Parikh wrote:
Clay Shirky rebuts Toyama much better then I ever could:
http://crookedtimber.org/2011/10/10/guestpost-communications-tools-agency-and-anxiety/
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
_______________________________________________
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