Ict Initiatives For The Rural Community....suggestions Required How ICT can change the lives of rural community???

	Ict Initiatives For The Rural Community....suggestions Required - How ICT can change the lives of rural community???
	Discussion by abartar with 5 Replies. Last Update: September 11, 2006, 12:36 am

abartar

I am planning to work on a project where ICT can make difference in the life of community - the poor community.

I am not talking about the people who are tech savy.... it's all about the people who have not even seen the computer in this ICT rich world (probably what we assume). Well for that matter technology is not thier priority... thier priority is obviously to get thier bread and butter....

How can we help this community? How can the technology - ICT in particular change the lives of the rural community....

There are generally two kinds of ICT- enabled development projects: those that are created from within the community by local actors who seek solutions to daily problems, and those that are devised by outsiders with new ideas and good intentions for solving community problems.

The scope is unlimited... so do not restrict on the ideas....

Thanks.

Fri Aug 25, 2006 Reply New Discussion

Pharoah

I know I probably should know this, but what is ICT? Are you doing this in the US, or some other country?
Anyway good luck with the project!

Fri Aug 25, 2006 Reply New Discussion

Mark420

Ok I can suggest this idea I came up the other night clearing out my loft of old toys and bits of Lego my son doesn't play with any more..
I had the idea of an on-line swap shop for toys.you could adapt this idea for many other things..you say that the people are poor in the area you had in mind..this would work well i think..

Ok here's how it would work..You set-up a list of peoples contact details..name..phone..email etc..ask them to fill out a list of things they want to swap such as a table lamp..a hovercraft..a toaster..
Then you make a nice easy to use page on your Asta hosting linked to a Mysql database on your Astia Hosting that displays tables of things that people want to swap..
The person can then get in contact with the person willing to swap and they negotiate over it..

So in the end you can list any item that a person is willing to swap listed and people can search for things they might need..

Lets take this one step further...let me explain the Mark420 favour for favours rule!!
I'm pretty much a techhead..I can fix anything with a plug attached to it! pcs..TVs..phones..u name ill rip it apart and fix it for you.
I fix so many pcs for people I know-I go to their houses or they drop them off here for me to fix.
I never ask anything of these people in way of cash payment (that's against my principles!!) but every person in this world has some skills to offer..

My heating goes wrong..what do i do? phone a plumber from the phone book? no! I remember that I fixed a pc a few months ago for a building contractor and he owes me a favour...
My car is making a dodgy sound and i know nothing about motors...but other guys do that owe me a favour...
I'm DJing in a club on Saturday my girl wants to come..we need a babysitter!! oh its ok I unlocked the girl down the roads phone last week...she can do it..

Imagine on the site you build you could have a list of people with skills to offer on the site to trade against other peoples skills.
Ranking the skills against each other could be hard though..example..I rebuild someone's pc and it takes me 2 hours..how much babysitting time is that worth? how much gardening time? how many hours of a builders time is that?
Once you make a ranking system the people involved are happy with it should work pretty well.

I would love this idea to take off!!
Imagine a Myspace kinda viral promotion so that these kind of swap shop works worldwide..but hey if Ive thought of the idea...theres bound to be sites like this already running...such is life!!!

Fri Aug 25, 2006 Reply New Discussion

yeh

I kinda like what Mark420 is saying. I never lived in a rural community, so I don't know what it is like. I'm not a rich guy either. My parents are kinda uneducated. Anyway, what abartar said about rural community caring about their bread and butter makes perfect sense to me. And one way to do that through ICT is to eliminate the middlemen. And this is where Mark420 suggestion comes into play. Something along the line of ebay would be good. I suggest you to check you the price that the rural community get from their produce and the price that the produce is sold in the open market in the city. I bet you would see a big difference.

Sat Aug 26, 2006 Reply New Discussion

zyzzyvette

I think I'm missing something here... perhaps other rural areas are different from the one I live in, or maybe I misunderstand what you mean by the word rural. Living in the country does not make one poor, and being poor does not make one computer illiterate either. My friend's parents, who are rural but not poor, are very intelligent people. They do not make their living in IT; they are farmers, yet they know more than the average user about PCs and programming. Myself, I am both rural and "poor" (I don't really think of myself as poor, although my family's income is well below average) yet I am taking a college-level programming class. I admit it is not the rule out here to have super-amazing-computer-skills, but neither are we computer-illiterate or less skilled than people who live in the city!

Now that I'm done my undoubtedly-misplaced rant...

I think Mark's idea is interesting, although I have a few suggestions to add. As he said, the barter system raises the problem of comparing value. But people enerlly know what their own services are worth. Think someone's prices are too high? Don't do business with them. People will pick fair prices for themselves once they realize that overpricing doesn't do them any good. So say the babysitter says her services are worth 5 points/hour, and you think computer repair is worth 10 points/hour (these are arbitrary btw, I dont work in comp repair or babysitting so I dont know what a fair value is for either). So you repair her computer and she now owes you 20 points, or 4 hours of babysitting. My second suggestion is probably a nobrainer but if I were to be using this system, I would want to be able to see two things at a glance: who I owe something to, and who owes me something. So a couple lists (one for positive [they owe me] and one for negative [debt]) showing how much is owed to each account I've done business with would be good.

However, the success of any such system would greatly depend on what areas you're trying to target. Not to be harsh or anything, but this system would fail in my community- not because there's anything wrong with it but because we already have a way of doing favors to each other and getting repaid, and it is very flexible, doesnt require a computer, and can be converted for use anywhere in the world.

In a third world country, this might work, but you would have to make sure that the people in that community have access to a computer and most likely, an internet/"community network" connection... I know there have been programs to provide computers to people in these areas but I don't know much about them.