Saturday 1 September 2012

Bridging the Digital Divide between India, Bharat and Hindustan

Bridging the Digital Divide: My Vision

My vision is to bridge the Digital Divide, between India, Bharat & Hindustan.
In a nut-shell, my world-view is: India is the affluent urbanized part of My Nation. While Bharat, is the rural landscape of My Nation and Hindustan is the part of My Nation, that is trapped in semi-urban ghettos and slums.

These three names of the same Nation, symbolizes the social divide that we experience every day. I strongly believe that through individual and collective actions we can bridge the social disparity between the haves and have-nots.

One day there will be no distinction between India, Bharat and Hindustan.

Education is the key to eradicate the social disparity. By connecting the urban slums and the rural deprived with Internet, we not only deliver modern education, drive positive social change but also enhance the earning opportunities available to the semi-urban and rural population.

Lets take an example of Organic vegetables, in-spite of best efforts, I have not been able to locate a supplier of fresh organic fruits and vegetables in Noida.  The nearby farmers are not aware of this un-fulfilled need and neither do they have any know-how of Organic Farming. By joining the nearby farming community with the Organic vegetables consumers, we can get the consumers to under-write the risk the farmer would take to get into the un-charted territory of Organic farming,

By connecting the farmer community with the nearest urban consumers, the farmers can directly cater to the needs of the consumers,

 eChaupal initiative is a good example of a for-profit company benefiting the rural population, by bridging the digital divide.

My vision is to create a for-profit business model, to bridge the Digital Divide, that is self sustainable, replicable and scalable.  Here is my first step towards achieving the vision.

An Experimental Digital Bridge 

Vinay Chaddha, conducted an interesting social experiment to bridge the digital divide at Nithari Village, using the RaspberryPI. I blogged about his experiment in my previous blog post

The key take-away from this experiment was that we need to create a revenue stream for the participants to make this initiative self-sustainable. 

Scaling Up the Experiment

While we are planning to replicate this experiment from urban village to a rural village and looking at means to scale it up; we also need to create a business model around it.

Creating a Sustainable Social Business Model

The prime focus of the model is to deliver informal, useful and empowering education.

The Learners

Being an informal learning model, the learner needs to find the knowledge useful and applicable. She should be first willing to learn.

The students must pay a fees, to get the knowledge. However, for students who cannot afford to pay, a full/partial scholarship can be arranged over the social network. With the donor being able to monitor his sponsored candidate's progress.

The Teacher

The key service delivery person is the "teacher". The teacher, could be any person, who wishes to share her knowledge with the learners. The knowledge transfer, is envisaged to be informal, useful and applied. A teacher may be a paid person or a volunteer. The teacher may choose to deliver her knowledge by being physically present or through a virtual presence, say, through Google Hangout. 

The Course-ware

Open Source Course-wares, like OCW, can be leveraged as well as localized contents can be created collectively. 

The Knowledge Delivery Center

The knowledge delivery center, needs:

  • A Stable Power Source
  • A low powered and rugged computing device, like Raspberry PI or Panda Board.   
  • A TV to hook on the compute device
  • Keyboard and Mouse

Optionally, to get connected to Internet:


  • An Internet connection, say through data card.
  • A Webcam, speaker and microphone

Once the Internet connectivity is in place, the Knowledge Delivery Center can act as a Rural Commence delivery center. Connecting India with Bharat and Hindustan. That will be the True Digital Bridge.

Keeping the Interest Alive

Virtual Social events, like competition and quizzes, through Hangout and You Tube  Live streaming can be conducted in Realty Show format, with prices and sponsorship; anchored by any famous person.
   

Bootstrapping the model

The next immediate steps is to make Nithari Center self sustaining, by replacing Vinay by a professional teacher, who is funded through fees paid by the students, sponsored initially by sponsors.

We can post the student's progress on Facebook or Vinay's Blog.

Also, we have ordered a few more Raspberry PI, and looking for a suitable site to replicate this experiment; preferably in a rural landscape.

If, you wish to contribute you can contact Vinay or my self.

Jai Hind.






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