Marketplace of Ideas: Role of Digital Technology in Rural Settings

"People need support and motivation to understand why it is worththeir time and money to acquire these new tools and learn how to usethem."

In this article, Sandy Pentland discusses how MIT's Media Lab project, LINCOS, attempts to improve the role and sustainability of digital technology in developing countries. "LINCOS stands for 'little intelligent communities'. It was developed as a joint project with the Costa Rican Foundation for Sustainable Development, with the goal of being a prototype for the 21st century community center. Built on used commercial containers this ... telecenter provided a mobile solution that can bring ... educational material, medical advice, business communications, and the arts to every family by use of wireless communications technologies.

The LINCOS approach relies mainly on the communities ability to organise it self around the telecenter and the services it provides. Different units in different communities have shown the LINCOS' flexibility and capacity to respond to different needs and situations, and in most of the LINCOS settings services related to education and communications have been of great demand. In terms of hardware, software and pedagogical approach, the LINCOS project has been quite successful.

However in most cases sustainability has become a serious problem, as after a few months the organisational weakness of the community it serves starts to reflect on the unit's economic sustainability. To overcome these sustainability issues and to have a higher impact in the community we must also introduce a change in the relationship between the unit and the local business community as well as in the way we introduce these digital technologies in the community."

Click here for the full article online.

Click here to learn more about the LINCOS project - available in English and Spanish.