rural IT

Have you heard of Cyber Moor? If not come to our free seminar on rural broadband in Beverley in March – contact me for more details.

In essence Alston (Cyber) Moor in Cumbria was “flooded” with computers through this initiative to tackle many of the challenges it faces in terms of its isolation. The article below about this Indian super-cheap tablet, which aims to revolutionise the viability of their rural settlements, made me think about the work in Cumbria – its far sighted rationale and how digital and social exclusion go hand in glove. It reveals:

“India unveiled a cheap tablet computer today, saying it would deliver modern technology to the countryside and help lift villagers out of poverty.

The computer, called Aakash, or “sky” in Hindi, is the latest in a series of “world’s cheapest” innovations inIndia.  Developer Datawind is selling the tablets to the government for about 45 dollars (£30) each, and subsidies will reduce that to 35 dollars (£22) for students and teachers. Datawind says it can make about 100,000 units a month at the moment, not nearly enough to meet India’s hope of getting its 220 million children online.”

It would be really interesting, to look, further down the line, at the impact of this facility and to see if it really has made a difference to rural sustainability inIndia. In our recent work closer to home in Haworth we met a man who runs two successful businesses from his i-phone so it seems with IT anything may be possible!