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Articles: Development | Chairman Speak
- Mr. Sekhar BC
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This is not a theoretical belief. At Microsoft we passionately believe in realizing India’s potential and we are investing in the right direction to make this a reality.
Let us take the example of Rural India. There is a huge number of Indians who will not be able to participate in India’s growth curve unless they have access to information.. There is empirical evidence to prove this is true.
A year ago we committed ourselves to the goal of giving every Indian access to a connected computer by 2010. We launched an initiative called Project Saksham that aims to setup connected PC kiosks in at least 200,000 villages. Now the easiest thing in the world is to drop a kiosk in a village. But unless one really thinks this through it will well be that in three months time when you come back, the PC would have stopped working and gathered a thick layer of dust.
So one really has to think through issues of sustainability and plan very carefully. One has to think about how to create a hand-held user interface because of high levels of illiteracy and fear of computers. We have found women from self help groups who make the best kiosk entrepreneurs. We had to think about how to give these women the business training and computer skills to become successful entrepreneurs. One has to think about issues of power and connectivity. The inability to access technology in local language can be a big hurdle. To address this, through our Project Bhasha, we made Windows and Office interfaces available in 14 languages. It is also important to identify and work with ISVs to deliver services and content at the kiosk that can be monetized allowing the emergence of an economically viable ecosystem.
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