Digital Divide in Developing WorldCan India overcome it?

ashok jhunjhunwalaashok@tenet.res.in

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• How can they stand up and be counted?

• How will they get access to resources, health and education?

• How will they be able to compete?

• How will they bridge the distance with their urban counterparts or those in the developed world?

These are the faces of the 5 billion people in the developing world who have been left

behind

3Rural India has700 million people

• Can technologies make a significant difference in lives of such people?

– Can it bring to them health & Education

– Can it significantly enhance their incomes?

• in 600,000+ villages (about 1000 people per village with per-capita income of 40 cents per day)

– per capita GDP of $200 per year

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135 million rural households

4Can the Efforts Scale?

• Creating 100 or 1K or 10K kiosks make no impact to Indian Rural Areas

• To Scale one requires– Technology– Sustainable business model and – an Organization which thinks and acts Rural

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• In India, fibre connectivity to most county towns (talukas) provided by State-owned incumbent

– Fibre has capability for infinite bandwidth

• 85% of villages lie within 20 Km radius of talukas– Typically 300 villages in 30 Km radius

300 villages

Wireless systems can connect most of these villages

• Technologies are continually evolving

• Costs keep going down

• Bit rates keep increasing

Technology

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– Jointly developed by the IIT Madras and Midas Communications

– Provides simultaneous voice & dedicated Internet connectivity of up to 100/200 Kbps Always-on for each user

– Enables a wide range of services suited for rural needs even at bandwidths of 64 Kbps

• In future Connectivity requirement of up to 1 Mbps to each village can be served by terrestrial wireless

• OFDMA … WiMax– Early WiMaX not cost-effective

and not sufficient bit-rate

– Exchange and tower in town• up to 35 Km radius coverage• works at even 55ºC• low power requirement (1 KW)• extremely low start-up costs

Technology

To PSTN

To Internet BB-corDECT WiLL

Cost about US$ 150 per line

2 million lines deployed

7Business Model:Use Local Entrepreneurs to drive ICT

• Entrepreneur-driven operator assisted telephone booths(STD PCOs) introduced in India in 1987– Today in urban areas:

• 950,000 such PCOs covering every street of smallest town• generate 25 % of total telecom income• 300 million people use these PCOs

• Lesson for Rural: – To serve Rural people with incomes

less than $ 1/day, aggregate demandand let Entrepreneurs drive it

Aid/ Grant does not scaleSuccessful Enterprises can scale to all villages

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E-kiosk in a village

• n-Logue Communications: a Rural Service Provider

– Gets an entrepreneur in every village to set up a kiosk

– Enables setting up of the kiosk infrastructure • including multimedia PC with web camera, printer,

power back-up, software, training, 6 months unlimited Internet at a cost of just US$ 1200

– Partners with the Government, NGOs, private enterprises, schools, hospitals to offer various services through the kiosk

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Local entrepreneur

– grade 10 graduate: need not have seen a computer

– effectively communicate and network in the community

– Provides telephony, Internet access and various services to the local community

– Channels information needs of community to application and content providers

– Needs to earn US$ 90 pm providing• telephony, stand-alone computer services

and Internet services

10Kiosk: Bouquet of Services

– Education & Vocational training

• Learning typing, Computer education & E-learning

– Photography, entertainment and movies

– DTP work, Email/voice & video mail

– e-Government– Tele-medicine & Vet Care– E-Agriculture– Crafts– IT based Services– VoIP

Difficult to make kiosk economically viable with single service

11Education: Customised ICT Courses for Various Age Groups – in Local Language

12Remote Teaching: Tutorials

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Eye Care

The Problem – India has more blind (9 million) than any other

country– Screening Eye camp most common method of

outreach• held at best twice a year in the same place

Till recently Eye Ailments that could only be detected this way…

An Eye Camp conducted in a TN Village

15Remote Eye Care using Video-conferencing

• Allowing the patient and counsellor to interact

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17General Medicine followed

• Online consulting with local doctors– General Practitioners, Paediatricians and

Gynaecologists

Remote Medical diagnostic kit (ReMeDi) consisting of BP, temperature, ECG measurement & stethoscope at just US$

250

Video is great, but can I get temperature of the

patient…

19Digital Studio – Low cost Photography

ID cards

Passport Photographs

20Web- Durbar: DM talks to multiple villages on video-conferencing

21Saving Crops and Agri-consultancy

AfterBefore

In a Village in Madurai, the Lady’s Finger (Okra) cropwas turning white

The problem was sent to the experts at the Department of

Rural Extension, Madurai

Agricultural College and

Research Centre who diagnosed it as “Yellow

Mosaic disease”

Saving to farmer – $3000

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The Vet is on the Net ...

• This goat had a wound near its mouth and could not eat for a week

• The advice from the doctor cured its problem in 2 days

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Agriculture

AnimalHusbandry

Agricultural Processing

Industry & Handicrafts

IT-Based Services

Trade & Commerce

Rural Micro-Enterprises are the Wealth Creators

• Micro-enterprises need– Finance– Knowledge, Training &

Support• Quality control,

packaging

– Buying, Selling & Logistics– Risk Sharing

• Can CommunicationsEnable these ?

24Crafts can be a bigrevenue earner

• Produce made using Local Material – Provided quality is maintained

• and packaging is the key• Packaging Material Rural Industry

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Embroidery for life: begins training by teaching…

how to use frames …

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NameTraining levels

Latha Christina Tamilarasi

Lessons

Practice

Explorations

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And finally delivery to a city based entrepreneur

Work co-ordinated through a Internet kiosk

28IT Based Services for Urban Areas

• India has excelled in providing IT based services to the West– required computer, connectivity and skilled personnel– has earned money and respect for India

• With Computer, Connectivity and hard working persons who can be trained– Can Rural enterprises provide Services to Urban Areas?

• CAD / CAM skills• Presentation / Power point skills• Web Design skills• Graphic Design skills

Can they be harnessed for IT based services?

29Rural Children create computer drawings for greeting cards

All drawn on a PC

30Taking Banks to the villages

• Microfinance loans too expensive– OK for trading, not for micro-enterprise

• Rural low cost ATMs at kiosks– Works with PC and connectivity at kiosks– Uses finger print authentication– Works with soiled notes– Remote Electronic Safety lock– Breakthrough pricing at $ 1200

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Dare to Dream

Current Rural GDP in India = $ 150 Billion

For a Population = 700 million people

GDP / Person = $ 200 per year

DOUBLING per-capita Rural GDP

$ 400 per person per year

Rural Prosperity

TeNeT Groupand 1200 engineers in 14 companies

incubated by TeNeT behind these effortscorDECT WiLL, ATM, ReMeDi, CK-Office, iSee, iKoN RAS,

Minnow ISP, Bluebill, CygNet NMS

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34N-Logue’s Operation Today

• 32 districts of India– TN, Maharashtra, Gujarat

• e-kiosks in 2400 villages– 80% breaking even

35To Sum Up

• Internet can empower Rural India– Education, Health Care– Livelihood

• Agriculture, micro-enterprises

• Technology can impact lives provided there is a big enough vision behind it– Dreams of Doubling per-capita Rural GDP

• Large number of innovative technologies and applications need to be developed catering specifically to Rural areas