Never mind the technology, where’s the learning?

The United Villages project is about providing two billion people living in rural areas of the majority world with an email address, a phone number, and web access, but the likelihood of sufficent infrastructure to reach remote parts of India, Cambodia and other countries is a long way off. While in the minority world we might be concerned with the last mile, United Villages formed a company called First Mile Solutions which for about $1.00 per user, rural communities that have never seen a newspaper can do things like email, browse the web, and have their own voicemail box. It uses two major trends that are driving ICT costs down, WiFi and digital storage. Villages are provided with WiFi, and a bus, truck or even motorbike visits them on a regular basis, sometimes up to six times a day. Emails and content are cached, and transferred to the vehicle’s flash memory device. This is then transported to the nearest point of contact with the internet, usually a satellite dish, and uploaded. Watch the CNN report here:

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