Solutions
- VoiKiosk:
One of the several initiatives to bridge the digital divide in developing countries has been the deployment of information kiosks or knowlegde centers in villages in rural parts of the country.
Such a kiosk typically comprises of a computer with printer, web cam, multimedia system and internet connectivity and is owned by a local enterpreneur. These kiosks provide services ranging from email, chat and browsing to distance education programmes, agricultural services and egovernance services.
However, there are several problems associated with this model. First, end-users do not have direct access to the kiosk. The kiosk operator acts as a mediator since most end-users are not computer literate. Secondly, a lot of the information that is required on a daily basis, especially locally relevant information, is simply not available on the internet. Information such as the schedule of the daily electricity blackout, the local bus schedule, visiting hours of the doctor from the near-by village etc. Thirdly, in some villages in India, people may have to travel a few kilometers to the neighboring village to access the kiosk facilities. Kiosks are also susceptible to hardware failures, and the more than 9 hour power cuts make their use difficult at times. And lastly, the current kiosk models enable a one way interaction where the end-users are mere consumers of information and services.
Moving away from the PC based kiosk model, VoiKiosk presents an alternative platform to create and host such information kiosks in the telephony network. These VoiKiosks are essentially VoiceSites designed to function as village portals. They are managed by a local village resident and are accessible by villagers through voice interaction in their local language over an ordinary phone call.
