Jul
21
Adapting technology to rural settings in Africa
Filed Under teknolojia by Mucheru | Leave a Comment
I attended a talk titled “Confessions of a Nerd Herder” given by someone who had been a Program Manager in Microsoft Research for twenty years or so. The talk itself was somewhat disappointing – he painted too rosy a picture of MSR, making it out to be a utopia where brains walk unbriddled; where only the brightest of the bright get hired and ,once there, they go about changing the world and saving puppies.
The most interesting thing I took out from the talk was the question “How would you design a computer for people who can’t read?” The idea is not novel. It sounds like the kind of design question you would get in an interview. But taking this after the Hamming talk on great ideas, I translated it into a challenge – how would you design a computer for the developing world, for Africa in particular? Sure enough, there are many people in African can and do use computers in their present incarnation. However, the overwhelming pool of potential users is locked out as a result of poor infrastructure (power and communication) as well as the fact that barely any software or content is currently provided in African languages. Working within these constraints gives an interesting challenge. Read more