Experimenting with Internet Access in Rural India

How can rural communities gain access to the internet without the infrastructure required to support an internet connection? Even more importantly, even if rural communities were to have access to the internet, how would the illiterate population avail of these services? What is the use of providing internet access that cannot be used by the community it purports to service? Clearly, either internet services need to be supplemented by literacy classes and computer usage tutorials, or there needs to be another, more innovative solution.

This is precisely what Question Box hopes to do (Through NextBillion):

The Question Box is a project from UC Berkeley’s Rose Shuman to bring some of the benefits of the information on the Internet to places that are too remote or poor to sustain a live Internet link. It works by installing a single-button intercom in the village that is linked to a nearby town where there is a computer with a trained, live operator. Questioners press the intercom, describe their query to the operator, who runs it, reads the search results, and discusses them with the questioner (it’s like those “executive assistant” telephone services, but for people who live in very rural places)

Currently, there are two question boxes in operation in the villages of Ethida and Poolpur, both of which are located outside of Noida, Delhi. To read the entire post on NextBillion, go here.