Low-Cost Computers for the People
Rachel Anderson, Benton Foundation

From a communications-saturated vantage point here in North America, sometimes it's easy to forget that the majority of the world's population has never made a telephone call, let alone used the Internet. In many developing countries, the very cost of a computer can amount to more than the average worker's annual salary. In an attempt to surmount the prohibitive cost of this increasingly essential piece of IT hardware, researchers in the developing world have begun to take matters into their own hands by designing low-cost computers that address the particular needs of their nations' more disadvantaged populations.

The Brazilian government recently announced a project that will make stripped-down desktop computers, known as "Popular PCs," available for about $300. Developers were able to save on licensing fees by using free, open-source Linux as the operating system instead of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows. Also using Linux, but moving away from the desktop computer model, engineers in India have designed a hand-held computer that will enable rural populations to benefit from information technology -- even if they don't have the ability to read. Both of these initiatives illustrate the increasingly innovative approaches employed by developing countries to bring their citizens into the digital age.

Popular PCs

Ivan Moura Campos, chairman of the Internet Steering Committee of Brazil and the mastermind behind Brazil's Popular PC project, explained in a recent interview in Wired News that countries like Brazil will never bridge the digital divide if they depend solely on technologies imported from wealthier nations. "We realized this was not a First World problem," he explained. "We were not going to find a Swedish or a Swiss company to solve this for us. We would have to do it ourselves."

Brazil is unquestionably Latin America's Internet access leader. A recent study by eMarketer (http://www.emarketer.com/welcome.html) found that the nation is home to 40% of South America's Internet users -- despite the fact that only 5% of Brazilians actually have Internet access. Late last year, as part of broader efforts to increase access to information technology, the Brazilian government commissioned university researchers to design the cheapest possible machine for accessing the Internet.

In response, researchers from Brazil's Federal University of Minas Gerais have created a prototype of what's being called the Popular PC, or Computador Popular in Portuguese. The Internet appliance, which lacks a floppy drive or a hard disk drive, features many of the attributes one would expect in a moderately-priced PC: a 500 MHz-equivalent processor, 64MB of RAM, an Ethernet card, a 56K modem, 14-inch monitor, sound and video cards, serial and USB ports, a mouse and a keyboard. Consumers will also have the option of buying inexpensive hard disks and other peripherals for their computers.

The first shipment of Popular PCs will go to equip schools, libraries and health centers to access to the Internet. The state-run bank, Caixa Econômica Federal, has agreed to provide loans to low-income households to purchase the computers, which will be made available to them for about $15 a month over the course of 24 months.

While some critics have argued that Brazil has more pressing social needs than providing computers for the masses, the government has made it a priority to help low-income Brazilians reap the social and economic rewards of the Internet. It has announced that it will invest $400 million this year alone to expand Internet use in Brazil. Through its Universal Access Plan, the government is seeking to subsidize the deployment of telecommunications infrastructure to impoverished and geographically-isolated areas. Additionally, Brazil's postal service has launched a program call Porta Aberta, or Open Door, that provides the public free access to Internet kiosks in post offices throughout the country's largest cities.

A Little Computer Can Go a Long Way

In a country like India, where nearly 50% of the population is unable to read or write, simply providing access to computers and the Internet just isn't enough. That's what motivated a team of Indian scientists and engineers to create a way for people with limited literacy and computer skills to take advantage of the wealth of information on the Net. The team has developed a small, powerful computing device called the "Simputer" -- short for "simple inexpensive mobile computer" -- that reads out the text found on Web pages in a number of India's many native languages.

Field test with the first working prototypes of the Simputer, which will cost around $200, have just begun this month. Slightly larger than the popular Palm handheld computers, the Simputer has a built-in browser, email software, a text-to-speech program for several Indian languages and an MP3 player. The machine, which should be available for sale by March 2002, runs on widely-available AAA batteries.

A group of socially-committed academics and technologists from India's computing industry came together to form the non-profit Simputer Trust, which is offering both the software and the hardware for the appliance as open-source technology. Their vision is to create not only a computer, but also an "evolving platform for social change" throughout the world that will help bridge the digital divide.

They are particularly excited by the possibilities of exposing India's vast rural population to Simputer technology. Indian farmers, for example, could use the devices to check local weather forecasts or the latest market price for various produce. Simputer's creators also point to its potential as a tool for accessing online governmental and health-care services.

For the 99% of Indians that do not currently have access to the Internet, one of the most useful features is the Simputer's "smart card" port. The computer's low price still exceeds what most Indians can afford, so its creators devised a way to let many individuals share a single machine by each using their smart cards to activate their personal accounts. Simputers might even appear in country's ubiquitous public telephone kiosks, where an entire village could take advantage of Internet access.

While global technology companies are not racing to get their products into the hands of people in less developed countries, it is good to know that there are some grassroots efforts underway to bring digital information to the masses. The experiments in India and Brazil might even demonstrate the commercial viability of developing low-cost computers for mass consumption.

At the Digital Dividends conference in Seattle last fall, C.K. Prahalad, a professor of business administration at the University of Michigan, called for participants to rethinking the way people view the lower economic tiers of societies and the need for new business models to address them.

"How can you go from [looking at] the poor as an intractable problem, to the poor as a market and a source of innovation?" he asked.

Source: Digital Divide Network