Business | Technology

Technology for Development: Obstacles & Solutions

I don’t know how, but Techies for Development found my blog. Surprising, because for someone that has extensive experience in the field, I’ve largely avoided looking at technology for development. Still, this blog is a good wakeup call and started an interesting thought process.

In choosing not to join the loud debate on Technology for Development I’ve held that technology for its own sake is useless, a view often ignored by western commentators, with the OLPC a perfect example. In the context of development, what is useful about technology is not what it is but rather what it can do.

Why the Digital Divide

I have, however, given substantial attention to why technology hasn’t reached the poor, and why the proverbial ‘digital divide’ exists. My brief experiences show that it is both a chicken-and-egg problem, and one of multiple dependencies.

It is a chicken-and-egg problem because providing service to the poor is a precondition for making money from it. And making money is a precondition for someone creating the service or developing the underlying infrastructure. Service provision to the underserved has not yet proven to be profitable, and private capital has thus been shy of funding technology provision. That is why telecom coverage is only 35% today, and why Microsoft Windows is available in Estonian (with only 4 million speakers), but in only 14 Indian languages.

The problem is further aggravated because success in this segment requires many players to come together. Consider market information systems, few of which have worked partly because they operate under systemic constraints (e.g. commodity pricing) that reduce customer satisfaction. However, another reason for their inability to get critical mass is that they require many providers to be simultaneously available on the system.

The needs of the poor are diverse and include insurance, healthcare advice, credit and weather forecasts. Getting high volumes requires many clients, but that requires getting all these services in on the act simultaneously.

Even infrastructure, a prerequisite to service provision has this problem. Here too, many pieces of a workable pie have been traditionally missing. Successful service requires a delivery platform. That platform requires some network provider or vendor. But rolling out that network and operating end-user devices requires electricity.

Solutions?

Its not a lost battle, however. In fact, some initiatives have shown the way, in particular ITC’s eChoupal. But those projects are notable for going against the logic of short-term financial returns to focus on building critical mass over the long-term.

Elsewhere, a lot of other missing pieces are being put in place. Techies4Dev point to Green-Wifi, an interesting project that solves two infrastructure problems together. Then there’s the Ultra-cheap PC from China, that may not help the farmer, but will certainly expand PC adoption, helping at least urban users expand Internet penetration.

For rural users, there are even wider initiatives going around. The Indian government’s rural electrification scheme while plagued by quality concerns, at least hopes to remove the lack of power. Add to that the TRAI’s Universal Service Fund (USF) and impending use of WiMax, and we may finally eliminate most infrastructure barriers.

All that will remain then is to figure out what people can do with technology, and then communicating with them.

© 2006 The Discomfort Zone.