poverty, technology and electricity

POVERTY, TECHNOLOGY AND ELECTRICITY

POVERTY

1.8 billion have no electricity (in mainly India, Africa and Asia)

2.4 billion use wood fuels for cooking

OLPC AFFORDABILITY PER COUNTRY

OLPC (aka xo) costs about $180 per person. TCO is higher and has been estimated at about $450 over a five year period (disputed figure)

So far, the governments which have purchased large quantities (not just pilots and not recipients of the G1G1 – Give one, Get one - scheme) of xo’s are Uruguay, Peru and Mexico.

These countries are not the poorest in the world. Income per person measured in PPP$ (purchasing power parity) is:

Uruguay 8653

Mexico 7762

Peru 4670

African countries, as a group, are the poorest along with some Asian countries. The PPP$ values for some of the G1G1 countries illustrates the difference:

Ethiopia 824

Rwanda 983

Haiti 709

Mongolia 1285

These countries are roughly 5-10x poorer than those which have actually purchased the OLPC

COST OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR EDUCATION

Apart from OLPC two other possible information technologies come to mind for poor countries, which are being used for education:

OMPT (one media player per teacher)

mobile phones

**** this is where I need to do some more reading ****

COST OF ELECTRICITY

(need to explain the link between electricity generation and education)

(ie. it could be argued that extensive electrification not necessary due to short term mechanical battery charging techniques)

Energy sources (renewable):

Solar Photovoltaics, Wind, Geothermal, Hydroelectricity

Energy sources (non renewable):

Natural gas, oil, coal, nuclear power

The main worry here is that climate change awareness may be used to slow down the electrification of the world’s poorest countries.

VOCABULARY

genset
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine-generator

REFERENCE

POVERTY STATISTICS

Gapminder

http://www.gapminder.org/

provides some great visual representations of dry stats - africa and and some asian countries such as nepal are far worse than latin america
nepal $1052
peru $4670

energy.pdf

http://www.bus.umich.edu/FacultyResearch/ResearchCenters/ProgramsPartnerships/IT-Champions/Energy.pdf

OLPC TCO (over 5 years)

http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/price/5_year_tco_computers_in_schools.html

it's a disputed figure

wayan vota $2700

tony anderson $437

OTHER TECHNOLOGIES

OMPT (one media player per teacher)

http://www.ompt.org/

mobile phones

http://mobiled.uiah.fi/ idea of Teemu Leinonen might be of interest
the about page gives an overview
http://mobiled.uiah.fi/?page_id=96

ELECTRICITY COST

energy.pdf

(URL cited above)

PEOPLE WHO ARE DOING OR THINKING ABOUT THESE ISSUES

Lee Felsenstein

advocates "one telecentre per village", which I now modify to "one computer per village", or OCPV

http://fonly.typepad.com/fonlyblog/2007/06/one_computer_pe.html

Telecentre operation involves the following capabilities:

....

An essential part of the package would be a source of electrical power. My approach is a 100 Watt system that keeps a 12 V lead-acid battery charged from a variety of sources, with pedal power as the backup. In addition to a robust pedal frame and an optimizing switching regulator, it needs enough microprocessor brains to run a little database system for keeping energy accounts. My experience shows that the people where it's installed will want to use it to charge other batteries as well, so the technology can't forbid that. Think of it as a small village power utility.

http://fonly.typepad.com/fonlyblog/2005/11/ok_wise_guy.html

Lee Felsenstein's design of a system that would serve to bring telecommunications and computer functions to remote villages without power or telephones (in 2000, before the OLPC)

http://fonly.typepad.com/fonlyblog/2006/10/what_is_the_jha.html

Robert Kozma

http://robertkozma.com/index.html

http://www.olpcnews.com/use_cases/business/olpc_xo_economic_development.html

I visited eight community telecenters in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya; interviewed the managers, staff, and community users ...

I found computers in all the centers, but bicycles, books, cell phones, community radio stations, and video tapes were also used to obtain and share information. This information often related to farm practice and productivity: information on seeds, planting, fertilizing, weeding, and harvesting, as well as animal breeding, feeding, and treatment of diseases. Information on current market prices was also highly valued. But desired information also included that on water harvesting, energy efficiency, education, health, nutrition, culture, local news, and even national sports....

Based on my research in other rural villages, I recommended that the Sauri community learning resource center be equipped with a variety of means of obtaining information that was needed by the community. This included books, magazines, videos, and a single computer with access to the Internet....

the center should also use a low-wattage radio transmitter. They should also set up small satellite centers in various locations across the geographically dispersed set of villages that constitutes Sauri and equip them with a radio receiver and a cell phone that villagers can use to call into the telecenter with their questions.

http://robertkozma.com/images/kozma_millennium_villages_report.pdf

NOT YET REVIEWED

KIOSKS INDIA

http://www.nri-home-coming.com/LC/nLogueKioskArticle.html

A day in the life of a village kiosk operator

Written in non-technical language, the article intends to give people a flavour of what access to the Internet can mean in the lives of people in rural India. The world that it opens up for them and the potential it has for bringing significant change in their lives is enormous. The article stays away from issues of connectivity, bandwidth and access devices and instead concentrates on the impact that this can create. n-Logue is a rural Internet service provider dedicated to providing Internet access to villages in India. It was incubated by Dr Ashok Jhunjhunwala and other alumni of IIT-Madras. What is written in the article is based on their work in the District of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, South India.

Jon Camfield

camfield:

In Nicaragua, a local firm called TecnoSol has partnered with an energy corporation, E+Co, to sell photovoltaics, (PVs, solar power cells) batteries, and training to rural farmers and entrepreneurs through a credit scheme. These PVs can cost up to $3,000 for the more powerful (and larger) cells; but for much of rural Nicaragua, there's simply no grid access, and a PV can mean light, water pumps, and even refrigeration for a farm or a store; which can greatly expand business potential (if you're the only place in walking distance with a cold beer, you will meet with success). So this model can scale up beyond relatively cheap cell phones to more expensive objects. This UMich study (PDF) goes into more detail on the Tecnosol/E+Co partnership.


http://joncamfield.com/blog/2008/03/rethinking_the_olpc_distributi.html