The FoRKless revolution...

[Gordon Mohr]

Adam Beberg writes:
> On Mon, 19 Nov 2001, Rohit Khare wrote:
> 
> > There are already four and a half billion people on the planet with
> > no telecommunications service whatsoever. That's my goal to
> > alleviate, and mine hasn't gone anywhere, bubble or no.
> 
> Get them parasite-free water first you silly geek. And where will they get
> the electricity exactly?

For a dose of optimism about the ability of tech to reach and
and improve the lives of "the other 5 billion", check out the
following Economist survey from a week ago:

    http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=841842

Sadly, besides the intro article, all the drill-down articles
(on agriculture, medicine, communications, schools, winning policies,
simple new inventions, and culture/politics) are subscription-
protected.

But trust me, they're all informative and upbeat.

Some excerpts from the communication article:

# Amid all the attention paid to developing countries' lack
# of Internet access, some people feel that more fundamental
# problems are being ignored. Ted Turner, an American media
# boss, observed last year that there was no point in giving
# people computers when they had no electricity.
#
# He may be wrong. 

...discussion of the $200 Simputer... that computers can
be shared and can quickly pay for themselves...

# In several fishing villages on the Bay of Bengal, for
# example, an Internet link-up allows a volunteer to 
# read weather forecasts from the US Navy's public website
# and broadcast them over a loudspeaker. For fishermen who
# work from little wooden boats, knowing that a storm is 
# looming can make the difference between life and death. 
# The internet also lets them know the market price for 
# their catch, which helps them haggle with middlemen. And 
# they can download satellite images revealing where fish 
# shoals are.

...Indian software industry... offshore English-speaking
customer-support lines... Internet tracking of meningitus
epidemics in Africa... explosion of shared mobile-phone
services in Bangladesh and Uganda...

...telephone took 24 years to reach 5% of American homes,
whereas Internet has already reached 6.7% of the world's
population... Internet use growing faster in less-developed
countries than in developed countries...

...Internet a boon to scientists and researchers in less-
developed nations, who can now track and collaborate on
cutting-edge research elsewhere...

--

The piece on simple inventions making a big difference
leads with the "Hippo Roller", a sort of wheelbarrow for
transporting water, which can make the traditional task of
fetching water much easier. See:

 http://www.technews.co.za/hippo/Roller.htm

Looks like the Afghans would find these rollers useful, 
too.

- Gordon