Tomato (http://www. Observatories. Net/BRED. 6/tomato.
PH) This is the lead article of a forum on the role of information and communication technology in global development. A ten-year-old boy named Dinnerware looked up for approval after carefully typing the word "Alaska" into a PC. "Baht cache! " I cheered-?Nerdy good. " It was April, 2004, and I was visiting a "telecaster" in the tiny village of Rearward, three hours from Iambi.The small, dirt-floored room, lit only by an open aluminum doorway, was bare except for a desk, a chair, a PC, an inverter, and a large tractor eatery, which powered the PC when grid electricity was unavailable.
Outside, a humped cow chewed on dry stalks, and a goat bleated feebly. As I encouraged the boy, I wondered about the tradeoff his parents had made in order to pay for a typing tutor.Their son was learning to write words he'd never use, in a language he didn't speak. According to the telemeter's owner, Dinnerware's parents paid a hundred rupees-?about $2. 20-?a month for a couple hours of lessons each week.
That may not sound like much, but in Rearward, it's twice as much as full-time tuition In a private school. Such was my introduction to the young field of CITED, or Information and Communication Technologies for Development.The goal of CITED is to apply the power of recent technologies-?particularly the personal computer, the mobile phone, and the Internet-?to alleviate the problems of global poverty. CITED sprouted from two intersecting trends: the emergence of an International-development community eager for novel solutions to nearly Intractable socioeconomic challenges; and the expansion of a brashly successful technology Industry Into emerging markets and philanthropy.
