U. B. Desai

1
Introduction

• U. B. Desai
• Department of Electrical Engineering
• ubdesai_at_ee.iitb.ac.in
• EPBAX 7414

2
ICT as a Socio-Political-Techno System
Technology
Govt. / Policy
ICT for Development
Community Organization
Industry / Local Entrep.
3
Use of ICT for Bridging Digital-X

• Education Divide
• Health Divide
• Income Divide
• Opportunity Divide
• Improve quality of life
• Many in the upper strata of the society have
  benefited from ICT
• The question today is How can we take this
  benefit to a much larger section of the society
  rural areas and small towns

4
Some Illustrative Examples
5
Example of ICT support for Agriculture
Before

• Village in Madurai
• Ladys finger was turning
• yellow
• Web-cam image was sent to
• Madurai Agriculture college
• They diagnosed it as yellow mosaic
• disease and suggested a remedy
• The farmer was able to save
• nearly one lakkh

After
6
ICT for Veterinary Support

• Goat had a wound near
• its mouth
• Could not eat
• A web-cam picture sent to
• the vet college in Madurai
• The suggestions from the
• vet cured the goat in
• two days

7
Outsourcing to Rural Areas from Urban Areas
8
Rural ATM

• Urban ATMs
• cost Rs.8 lakhs
• Develop a
• rural AT for
• Rs. 40k
• Will generate
• cash flow in
• rural areas at
• market defined
• interest rates

9
Fingerprint Authentication
Use of plastic ID cards smart or otherwise
not viable in rural areas
10

• Examples described are from the work done by
  Tenet Group, IIT-Madras and
• n-Logue
• Such activity is going on all over the country,
  albiet, in small pockets
• At IITB, Prof. Ramamrithm, Prof. Joshi have been
  working on projects involving use of ICT for
  rural areas and have been deployed in Pabal

11
Partial List of Some ICT4D projects in India

• eSeva, Integrated Citizen Services, Andhra
  Pradesh
• Lok Mitra and Jan Mitra Projects from Rajasthan
• e- BillPost and e- Post Services of the
  Department of Posts
• RASI (Rural Access to Services through the
  Internet) earlier called SARI and n- Logue
  Communications
• Gyandoot
• Community Information Centres (CIC) Project
  (Dept. of Info Tech., Govt.of India)
• Bhoomi

• Drishtee dot. com Ltd.
• ITC eChoupal
• Kuppam i- community, Andhra Pradesh
• Akshaya- Kerala Govt's Hundred Percent ICT
  Literacy Project
• Information Village Research Project- IVRP by
  MSSRF
• Swayam Krishi Sangam (SKS)
• TARAhaat
• GRAMDOOT
• M. S. Swaminathan Foundation

12
Partial List of Some ICT4D projects in India

• ICT for Womens Empowerment
• Community Radio- Deccan Development Society
• Community Radio- Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan
  (KMVS)
• Sisu Samrakshak ICT- enabled Child health care by
  UNICEF
• Change Initiatives- Nabanna- Empowering women 94
• SEWA

13
Research Areas in ICT4D

• with focus on Small Town and Rural India

14
Networking and Information Management

• What is the best, network architecture for
  delivering voice, video and data
• Wireless, fiber or copper or combination?
• Intermittent or always on connectivity?
• Mobile or stationary?
• Information management systems
• What kind of information
• Fast access to information at low cost and over
  low bandwidth connectivity

15
User Interfaces

• Universal User Interface for multiple languages
  and low literacy levels
• Speech
• Iconic user interfaces
• Task-specific interfaces
• Universality possible?

16
Affordable Devices

• Affordability of device and network connectivity
  extremely critical for ICT penetration
• Are PCs, Hand-helds the only kind of affordable
  devices?

17
Health Care and Education

• Health Care
• ICT for affordable health care in rural areas and
  small towns
• Education
• Training (CAD-CAM etc.)
• Learning
• Host of projects at KReSIT in e-education

18
Power

• Affordable and Reliable Power
• Solar Power
• Locally generated power with local distribution
  as opposed to centralized distribution system
• Low power electronics

19
Microfinance and e-Commerce

• Microfinance
• Micro Credit
• Micro Transactions
• Micro Payment
• What kind of models will be applicable
• e-Commerce
• How to exploit the ubiquitous cellular technology
  for microfinance?

20

• e-Governance
• e.g. Bhoomi Project digitization of land
  records
• e-Banking
• Already available for urbanites with reasonable
  incomes
• How can this be extended to low income groups and
  rural areas rural ATM is step towards this

21
Business Models

• New Business Models
• for sustainable use of ICT in rural and small
  town India, as well as urban India
• e.g. we have the lowest cell phone tariff in the
  world 2 cents per minute, based not on
  technology but clever business models which has
  very low OPEX
• Grameen Phone in Bangladesh
• n-Logue
• e-choupal

22
Services

• Services
• Which are the services that will be of interest
  to rural population
• Price of crops?
• Price of produce?
• ???
• Boils down to developing right content. Easily
  said than done.

23
Entertainment

• Affordable Entertainment thru ICT
• e.g. showing VCDs is very common in rural kiosks
• Financially lucrative
• Issues of providing quality entertainment on low
  bandwidth network

24
Some Issues

• Is too much money (Govt. and private) being
  diverted towards ICT4D at the expenses of real
  social cause and infrastructure development (like
  water ways, electricity, food distribution etc)?
• How is ICT affecting gender equality in urban,
  semi-urban and rural areas?
• Is there a lot of hype in ICT4D which will fade
  with time?
• What has been the real impact of ICT for rural
  folks?

25

• Questions
• Comments
• Thoughts