High Bills and Kids Are Smarter Than We Think

Technology forms the solution for our problems. That is in one sentence what I think links the readings this week. Whether that technology is innovative and cheap (aka frugal) in GE Models businesses in India, or new technology that opens op access to new streams of information (Beyond voice and Finishing the Job) or old and new technology that enables sustainable ways of living (In the Arabian Desert, A Sustainable City Rises). It is the idea that technology is overall a good thing, instead of the bad thing that it is sometimes considered nowadays. (This idea is very well verbalized by Hans Rosling in his TED talk the Magic Washing Machine)

Personally, I support this view. It was one of the reasons that I studied Mechanical Engineering in my undergrad. However, I also felt that technology alone is not enough. I think a good innovation is a balanced set of innovative technology and smart use social structures. In this post I would like to share an illustrative example:

Source: http://green.camara.ie/business/why-give-to-camara/news/


Yesterday evening I met a professor from CMU at a couchsurfing event (already incredible right?) We started talking and I found out he had started three completely new academic science programs in Gabon. He told me about the completely different culture. He told the following story: The university wanted fast internet for the students. So they bought a very expensive super-fast internet connection for which they had to pay a lot of money per month. Great investment. However, the appointed internet official at the university was a friend of the director. Really friendly guy but he knew absolutely nothing about internet technology. The result: a huge bill, but almost no internet for most of the times. Sometimes they had internet for maybe an hour but than it stopped again. Of course, they tried to change this. But the local culture of appointing friends was just too strong.
The lesson I drew from this: Before looking into more technology, we first need to have a plan on how to deal with this cultural aspect.
- But how? How would you deal with this if you were there?

Secondly, I wanted to make a small remark on an assumption that is made in the article Finishing the Job. The author argues that often you can only use internet if you are literate. As one of the group members of Earn and Learn, I agree with this. As long as it is about adults.
I believe it may work differently for kids. Indian researcer Suguta Mitra started doing simple experiments an reached this conclusion: Children in Rural learn english and learn to use the internet.. by themselves! In groups without a teacher and without any literates. Check it out:



For me, these two examples show that we have to get out of our ivory towers when we are designing or stating advices. But the difficulty is: How to do this when cannot just send everyone to the other side of the planet?
- Do you have suggestions how we could make a more context-aware approach possible?