Doors of Perception weblog - "High-tech beads for the natives?"
Anthony Townsend
March 12, 2007
High-tech beads for the natives?
You know what? I just don't think Sunnyvale, California is the right
base from which to save the world with Tech.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Architecture for Humanity have
announced a $250,000 competition for the design of technology centers
in the developing world.
Dan Shine, director of the AMD's 50x15 Initiative, says "the creative
designs developed in this competition will contribute to our
ambitious goal of connecting 50 percent of the world's population to
the Internet by 2015."
Had the organisers spent more time in South Asia, or in Africa,
they'd be aware that six million mobile phone accounts are being
opened each month, just in India, right now, today, without the
participation of a single "technology centre".
The explosion in cell phone usage is even more pronounced in Africa -
from just one million in 1996 to 100 million users today, and rising
exponentially.
AMD's 50% figure is likely to be reached years before 2015 because of
the smart ways poor people share devices and infrastructures.
Shine says that the prize will be for the design of a "sustainable
technology facility and community center which incorporates a
centralized building equipped with internet connectivity solutions
designed to enable an entire community to access the transformative
power of the Internet".
That's two uses of the word "centre" in a single sentence. The words
"old" "western" and "paradigm" spring to mind.
AMD's new competition is as misguided as the $100 laptop project.
It's based on an outdated model of individual device ownership that
may seem normal at the TED conference in Monterey, but has little to
do with daily lives of the people it's supposed to benefit.
The press release concludes that "we are challenging the creative
world to design innovative structures".
That challenge, too, is misguided. Amazingly innovative structures
are already emerging in Africa and South Asia. As Aditya Dev Sood
told us last week in Delhi, mobile communication is revolutionizing
economic and social life in rural India, spawning a wave of local
entrepreneurs and creating greater access to social services.
Amazingly, poor people are managing to do this without the
participation of the "creative world".
Check out the new study by The Center for Knowledge Societies (CKS)
commissioned by Nokia.