The one hundred dollars computer
Computers at $100. Get your hot computer!
That's what Novatium is going to do in India, offer cheap computers, according to The Business Standard. Their vision is nothing if not daring:
These computers are supposed to be able to run Windows and Linux, thus offering possibilities to all kinds of enterprise. Their price, though, and what these computers offer in terms of a wider acceptance of computing in everyday life is what makes this exiting.
Check CNet's story and you will find the president of Intel India talking about a pervasive presence of computers in all villages, using alternative energies.
And from then on we go to the next movement, which is a government program to provide computers to villages through what is called an Akshaya Center, which is designed to give PC training to one member of each family in a village.
The Akshaya plan is an ambitious one, attempting to get at least one person in each of the 6.5 million families that they intend to reach.
The program has three areas: skillsets, access to technology, and content development.
Of these three the last one seems the most interesting, profound and prone to cause the biggest change. It is not only enough to have access top technology, but also the possibility to develop own content, to publish ideas and to make those ideas relevant to the people within the state.
The program, as it is now, calls for content developed in a centralized fashion, being provided. But once you reach the amazing critical mass of 6 and a half million Keralites connected and aware of their technical capabilities, how long do you think it will take them to develop a revolution not unlike the blogger Brasil thing? If I were Anil Dash, I would be running to Kerala.
On the open source front, the simple idea of having accessible linux computers running in a whiole state would bring a de facto standardization, a common set of skills, and a suifficiently high density population using a common distro to easily erase any obvious wrinkles that might pop out, as well as taking advantage of the amazing prowess that India has on all matters computer.
Content. Accessible computing. Massive connectivity. Training.
Critical mass.