[Reader-list] Bill Gates' fix for India's ills: technology- 171

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear All

Makes me wonder if Mr. Gates could provide us some technology for more
Latrines and  more opportunities for mass Labor but if this spin by
Shri   Mehul Srivastava is to be believed then Mr. Gates could
actually help us in helping ourselves. Going by some accounts
'Technology can alleviate poverty',  it seems.

Warm regards

Taha



http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/business/0,39044229,62056427,00.htm

Bill Gates' fix for India's ills: technology
By Mehul Srivastava , BusinessWeek
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 12:17 PM

It may seem a bit far-fetched and naive, but Bill Gates thinks he has
the solutions for India's biggest challenges. How can the country
solve its healthcare problems, the nightmare of distributing vaccines,
and the shortage of doctors? Technology, he says. Alleviate poverty
and streamline public distribution of food rations? Try technology, he
suggests. How about providing the urban poor with jobs? You guessed
it: technology.

The idea that low-cost technological innovations could transform the
lives of the poor has long been the Holy Grail of India's information
technology and scientific boffins. With their country boasting nearly
7 million people working in one of the most modern IT industries in
the world, Indians seem convinced that one of these days a
technology-based solution will help the country vault over decades of
government neglect.

"India is taking its self-confidence, [the realization] that it is
very innovative, and now saying let's invest in ourselves," said
Microsoft Chairman and former CEO Bill Gates, speaking at a business
forum on Jul. 23 in New Delhi before picking up an award from the
Indian government.

"In spite of the tough times, this country hasn't said let's pull back
on investing in the future."

To some extent, India has been a bit of a proving ground for cheap
technology. Motorola tried producing a US$14 cell phone with a screen
that resembled that of older alarm clocks. It flopped. The Indian
government's attempts to wire the countryside were also a bust. It
tried to bring the Internet to rural areas, but with unreliable
electricity, irregular phone lines, and widespread illiteracy, that
project folded two years ago.

"For whatever reason--the idea came too early, it cost too much, or it
tried too much--these technology solutions have been mostly
distractions," said Anand Tiwari, a professor at the Indian Institute
of Technology who studies the rural-urban digital divide.

Farmers use text messaging
Such missteps haven't discouraged Gates from pushing ahead with his
Indian plans. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest
charitable trust in the world based on assets, handed out a US$1
million grant in early June to Maryland's CHF International to set up
a labor network for the nearly 90 million urban workers. (In one of
India's largest health initiatives, the foundation has spent nearly
US$1 billion on HIV/AIDS prevention and other development projects.)
The idea is to provide some sort of a formal connection between those
who hire unskilled laborers and the laborers themselves.

"These workers have nothing consistent and long-lasting," said Brian
English, CHF's India director. LabourNet, or the network CHF plans to
build, "is a bridge to giving them rights and jobs using cellular
technology to facilitate it", said English, who said the service
allows the workers to get better jobs because it shows them all the
available work in specific markets.

This approach has worked well for others. A Web site called
Babajob.com set up three years ago in Bangalore, India's IT capital,
helps daily wage earners and domestic workers--easily the most
exploited of India's labor force--find employers online, with the Web
site assisting them with references, bank accounts and insurance. The
problem is that Internet access is a hurdle for most workers who have
to visit CHF's offices to register. The group plans to overcome that
by allowing urban poor to input data with more accessible cell phones.

With Web penetration still in the single digits in urban areas and far
less in the countryside, people are looking more closely at mobile
phones, which in India are cheaper to use than almost anywhere in the
world. Farmers in Maharashtra, a western Indian state, use text
messaging-based technology to track food prices in faraway markets,
helping them negotiate with middlemen.

Promise of national ID project
But the reach of almost all of these technology-heavy projects is
limited, small enough that they qualify as no more than pilots. The
most ambitious effort, which began last week, is the Unique
Identification project, which aims to provide 1.2 billion Indians with
something they've never had before--universally accepted proof of
their identity.

Headed by Nandan Nilekani, the ex-CEO and a co-founder of Infosys, the
idea is that an ID card with a microchip or a verifiable numerical
code could curb corruption, help with bank accounts, generate access
to social services, and keep track of the administration of vaccines
and health issues.

"I am really excited about the national identity project," said Gates,
who believes Microsoft would bid for contracts in implementing the
program. "The government has picked somebody with a lot of energy and
intelligence, and the number of applications that can come out of that
are [huge]."

In the end, say critics, the card is just a card. India's problems run
deeper, ranging from a seemingly indifferent government and widespread
corruption to just not enough money to go around. India's investment
per capita on health care is among the lowest in the world, and even
though the current government promises to build as many as 20
kilometers (12.4 miles) of new roads a day, its infrastructure is
still far behind those of its peers.

Instead, the government is also looking in a direction that may seem
backward: In a world enthralled with social networking, e-mail, and
YouTube, it launched a massive plan to upgrade about 1,800 Indian post
offices.

"More people use mail than e-mail," said Sachin Pilot, a minister for
communications and IT. "And even though [cell-phone usage] is rising,
as a government, our priority is to provide access where markets
don't."