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I just learnt that some Indian student at KSG has got a prize for his business model --about $300,000 . His model is to set up internet kiosks all over rural India to teach kids.
My first reaction was that that guy must be an Indian American --and not an Indian per say --since he seems so far removed from the reality in India. And it is easy to get a prize from someone in USA -who don't know any better about the situations in developing countires and if the model seems the in-thing in US context.
It is assumed in US - as far I gather - that Indians are all saintly, holy cow loving, family people.
They haven't really scratched the surface. I used cybercafes only to get info to come to Harvard.
In cyber cafes - school kids also came -as did lots of adults. I think I was among the very very tiny minority who came to learn. Many couples came to have romance (even some degree of sex) inside the semi-covered cabins. I watched things -without any special effort -which I haven't had chance to see in USA--even females performing sex acts. A lots of girls and boys came ---just to enage in romantic or sexual chatting on the net. Even adolscentand ten-year olds could be found giggling over the screens.
The following link about a BBC new article on cyber-cafe sex in India --should present how useful internet has been for education in India.
http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/pipermail/assam/2004-December/008931.html
Ofcourse there is another case of cost effectiveness. As I had sent a news article earlier - a top Indian software company has declared that it can remove adult literacy in India in 3 years only --if it had 1 million computers -- since they have developed some sort of sotware. IBM seems to have agreed to give them 10,000 computers, 3,000 from Japan. ---But a far cry from 1,000,000 machines!!
Bill Clinton came to Jaipur - my hometown in 2001 March--to specially look at a model Indian village- even danced with the women folk there -was a real hit - with photos published everywhere. the female leader was then invited to DC later on as well. But the main thing is that the model village was supposed to have a computer kiosk where the milk sellers could get the quality of their milk tested and even get the accounting done about the sales.
Once Clinton went --the compuetrs are gathering dust.
However, someone has taken interest in these schemes - I wonder about their cost-effectiveness and their scalability (taking them to scale).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4498511.stm
Even in city schools --I think in US as well -- there is concern over the use of internet -- with so much crap online.
Umesh _______________________________________________ Iepcohort2005-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://gse.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/iepcohort2005-list
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