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Why Simputer? Why not?
31 October 2002
by Kanti Kumar
The global launch of the Simputer is marked more by scepticism than hope and hype. Ironically, when the news about the Simputer first broke a couple of years ago, it was heralded with much excitement. The media hype raised hopes of development organisations that have been working to bring the benefits of ICTs to disadvantaged communities.
But its failure to retain the interest of designers, manufacturers, the Indian government and venture capitalists, coupled with repeated delays in its launch, has given rise to scepticism about its marketability and sustainability. Recently even its utility for the poor and non-literate people has been questioned and debated.
Let's be clear about one point: the Simputer is not an answer to poverty, diseases or illiteracy. On its own, it cannot feed the poor, it cannot eradicate diseases and it cannot teach the non-literate. No technological invention can claim to be able to do that. Nor is the Simputer the only solution to the digital divide.
Vast potential
But what the Simputer can potentially do is of tremendous value. Pilot projects in Indian states of Karnataka and Chhattishgarh, which are applying it in micro banking, distance education and rural information access, are showing promising results.
In Chhattishgarh, rural schools are using Simputers to receive information via the WorldSpace radio and to learn from consultants across the world. Farmers in Karnataka are using it to learn about the going crop rates; to get local market and fertiliser news; and to send and receive email and voice mail.
Doctors in rural areas want to develop a portable ultrasound monitor that can be plugged into the Simputer. Local government agencies can use it to extend their services to the rural communities. Post offices can use it to service money orders electronically, cutting delays and loss in transit. Local communities, such as village councils, schools, kiosks, postmen or neighbourhood shops can loan the device to individual users for different uses. Non-literate users can browse the Web using pictures and its text-to-speech capability allows the Web content to be delivered in local languages.
Even in developed nations, there are possible applications such as computer access for the homeless and distance literacy programmes. Some even see its potential in peace initiatives, if it is used in information gathering and delivery of services to war victims and child soldiers. Indeed, the Simputer's applications are limited only by lack of imagination.
Community building tool
Most important, the Simputer can help in community building and bridging the social gap. Because the digital divide is not so much about the gap in access to technologies as the social divide between haves and have-nots. Sharing a community resource like the Simputer can multiply the effect of traditional open-air theatres or festivities in countries like India, which foster a sense of community among the rural people. This can get a further boost when its users also become part of the online communities that can be created.
The significance of the Simputer is, however, more to do with its philosophy than its features. Its designers have proved that developing nations can build their own solutions to their problems and need not accept generously doled out pre-fabricated, proprietary and expensive technologies.
The good news is, other developing countries are also now designing similar low-cost solutions. In Laos, a team is designing Jhai PC, a rugged, pedal-powered computing system for village telephony and Internet access. There have been reports about a PDA similar to the Simputer being developed in Sri Lanka that will cost about $50. In Kenya, a fishing community is currently testing the Village PDA, an African counterpart of the Simputer.
Design for the community
The design of the Simputer, as much as in the case of other alternative devices, is demand-driven, based on the expressed needs of the communities which they are meant for. The fact that designers have taken into consideration the actual information needs, language capacities and potential interface preferences of low-literate rural villagers, seems to be a step in the right direction.
Unlike proprietary software and hardware, the Simputer gives freedom of choice to its users as well as to the civil society organisations and software and hardware developers. As a user you are free to adapt it any way you want for your needs. Designers are free to further develop its hardware and software. And NGOs working among communities can adapt it to their communities' needs.
It is this desire of the Simputer people to encourage the creation of intellectual property in IT among the Southern people and organisations that seems to have upset the multinational IT giants and western academics. For obvious reasons, it is a threat to the monopolistic manufacturers who loathe that they cannot control or own the profits earned from the technology and fear that its sharability will cut into their market.
Another reason manufacturers haven't shown enthusiasm for the Simputer could be that they are expected to turn in their extensions to the Simputer design back to the community of developers and designers, which goes against their perception of market ownership and leadership.
Unjustified fears
In fact, the Simputer's unique sharabiltiy and portability have been criticised on the basis of fears that this will make it a focal point for theft in the poor communities. But such fears are not only baseless, they're an insult to the poor as they imply that the villagers cannot be trusted with the Simputers. In Bangladesh, the Grameen Bank has increased economic opportunities for many poor villagers by distributing mobile phones to women who rent them out to fellow villagers. The mobile phones are just as portable and also valuable, yet the programme remains successful. There have been no reports of theft occurring in similar projects elsewhere in developing countries.
People will protect items they value and make sure they're used responsibly, so the dissemination of the Simputers ideally should be in conjunction with well-planned programmes to get them in the hands of people who need them and will take a community leadership role in possessing them.
Community sharing, as conceptualised in the Simputer, is a completely foreign concept to the Western culture, which thrives on consumerism that promotes individual ownership of resources. Is it the reason why even the academics of the developed country are sceptical of the Simputer's potential?
Obviously, it's too early to measure the impact of the Simputer, but its development could well be a watershed in the underdeveloped countries' efforts to overcome the digital divide. Low-cost devices such as the Simputer, Jhai PC and the Village PDA have a special role in speeding up development in the Third World. But what is crucial at this point is their sustainability and it's their useful applications rather than cost alone that will drive their demand and determine their success.
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