The Ndiyo Blog

Ndiyo aren’t the only people trying to open up access to IT to places where people cannot easily afford it currently. One such project that’s been getting a lot of attention recently is the One Laptop Per Child project. Their aim is to help educate children in the developing world by making an affordable low power laptop. Although the hardware gets a lot of focus, they’re also developing a new software environment called SUGAR tailored for learning. SUGAR provides a very minimal environment that allows users easy and unobstructed access to the programs they want and has built in collaborative features. If successful, SUGAR would be a good way for very young children to use computers without having to learn the cumbersome user interface found on computers today.

Here at Ndiyo we thought it would be nice to see the SUGAR software running on a Nivo terminal. A classroom with a single PC and many Nivo terminals could prove easy access to the SUGAR learning environment. Getting the SUGAR system up and running was quite easy, and the result can be seen below:

Rob Longhurst, the president of DRASTIC and a good friend of Ndiyo, has great experience in providing connectivity to the unconnected.

There’s a wealth of useful resources on the DRASTIC site. Many of these will be of particular interest to those deploying VSAT systems, but there are broader topics discussed here too. He recently started looking at how long it takes to download some of the web’s most popular sites for those with low-bandwidth connections, for example - survey results here.

Rob has also put much more effort than most into working out what factors make an internet business, such as a telecentre or internet cafe, viable in the developing world. Last year he completed a Master’s thesis on the topic at Sheffield Hallam University, with particular reference to a large VSAT-connected project with which he was involved. Recommended.

A new book, published by Johns Hopkins University Press for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), [reviewed here] investigates links between ICT growth and economic growth and suggests ways to enable more poor people to access ICTs. In a collection of case studies, the book explores the relationship between ICTs and development in Bangladesh, China, India, Ghana, Laos, Peru, and East Africa.

According to the review…

The authors show that:

• ICTs cannot be developed without strong institutions to encourage private investment.
• While some countries have introduced policies to encourage the private sector and new service providers, many governments resist reform.
• Public intervention in ICT provision is required for areas and people that cannot otherwise be served, even under the most efficient market conditions.

There are innovative ICT projects leading to more efficient delivery of health and education services but gaps still exist in the use of ICTs for the delivery of public goods.

Realising the potential benefits of ICTs in developing countries requires:

• deregulation, competition among service providers, free movement of technologies and subsidies to improve access
• incentives to increase Internet use and create a critical mass of ICTs
• recognising the three Cs: connectivity, capability and content. There is little point increasing penetration if ability to use new tools lags behind and relevant content is not provided in useful forms.