Dear Colleagues, Thanks for all the input, both on this forum and privately.
I agree: financial sustainability of IT products in rural areas means either 1) government or supragovernment subsidy or 2) profit-making. If 'profit-making', this profit can be taken by an individual entrepreneur or by a community (itself or an association within it or a cooperative) or government institution (like a school) seeking profit. Jhai has experience in all these forms in small applications in various programs (coffee, high school ICT, Jhai PC, weaving). They all can work (or fail) with people in remote rural villages, we find. Our database is small, so I choose not to draw conclusions on which form is better. Our experience is that the key thing is that the process must be 'owned' in an empowered sense by the people of the village who use it. 'Profit' is what is left over after all outputs, including, I should think fixed costs, replacement cost, MAINTENANCE, and running costs, are covered. We have developed a tool (with farmers, local entrepreneurs and Stanford MBA/engineering students) that can be modified infinitely for particular situations. If you want it, write me and I will include you in our distribution of our next Jhai Update. I'd give it to you, now, but it includes a small application that I was given by a Stanford student who is now in Singapore and I have to find out how you might purchase that part. Running cost includes electricity costs. In remote areas generation has to be done by alternative means. In the (probably) short term alternative electrical generation will be more relevant everywhere, but especially where money is in short supply. This is due to the increased demand for petroleum and the soon-to-be fall off of supply. If one uses lead acid batteries, then questions of disposal of them becomes an issue of sustainability. In fact, years ago I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with an inventor who holds most of the patents for passive solar. He told me that one should look at all components' elementary forms and ask oneself what would happen if everyone in the world adopts this? What happens environmentally and what happens in terms of costs. I think this is a good idea. In all cases, if the community or enough individuals within a community does not want the thing, then they won't use it. This means market research. Market research cannot be overlooked. To get good market information from a remote, poor village, in my experience, is not a simple thing. It requires trust, otherwise the cultures of dependency will lead to people saying 'yes' to almost anything that has any chance of improving their standard of living...with a high probability that whatever is given becomes junk. I totally agree with Sam Lanfranco. A) You have to choose your shots. B) small NGO's have certain advantages over large NGO's: it is much more likely we won't be selling cookie-cutter solutions and much more likely we actually know the people we are working with. These beliefs are central to why Jhai Foundation will do a roll-out of the Jhai PC by a method that over time reduces our inputs to ground-level programs because it reduces the need for us by programs. We also won't go into manufacturing or the publishing business. If you would like to see our business plan, please write me and I will add you to our Update list and include the business plan again in our next Update. Our plan is organized around two things: 1) our willingness to work initially with grounded programs in carefully distributed locations; and 2) our committment to devolution, open source, and open design protocols as key factors of our work. I found Jim Forster's comments particularly useful in this way: you have to know your customer and listen to her. I also think his outline of how capitalism works is apt, although I would quibble here and there because, as we know, the devil is in the details. But so what? And, of course, I know he would agree that monopolies are by nature quite inefficient. I personally find the key piece of business knowledge is that relationships are nearly everything. You have to keep good books, you have to be transparent as possible, and you have to constantly seek improvement...but relationships rule. I'm not naturally good at relationships. I'm a combat Vietnam veteran and I grew up very hard. So I focus on relationships and how to make them better. I focus on my deficits as a way to be more aware of myself and I build as much as I can on my gifts. Both are helpful processes in encouraging and following good quality relationships, I find. And, as much as possible, really daily, I cultivate my spiritual life. And when I have to make a choice between getting to know a poor person or getting to know a rich one, I try to give preference to the poor person. I simply find that more fun. I also find that when I refuse to always choose the soft, easy way (which would be to hang out with relatively rich people, like me), my life becomes more full. I hope this helps. yours, in Peace, Lee Thorn chair, Jhai Foundation 921 France Ave. San Francisco, CA 94112 USA www.jhai.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1 415 344 0360 ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by USAID's dot-ORG Cooperative Agreement with AED, in partnership with World Resources Institute's Digital Dividend Project, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org and http://www.digitaldividend.org provide more information. To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. 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