I have a new article published on African Loft looking at the netECHO technology developed by InternetSpeech.

The article is available at: www.africanloft.com/audio-internet-%e2%80%93-netecho

Extract:
‘With the release of the $20 phone, the ‘People’s phone’, and the massive success of mobile phones over the last decade of mobile phones in Africa, perhaps this latest development has the potential to connect people to the web who would not have access otherwise. People will be able to access the web without the necessity of more expensive technology such as computers…’

One of the hot topics of debate within African development over recent months has been the budget laptops created for the educational purposes of the poor, specifically within emerging market countries.

This article is going to focus on the ‘XO’ also referred to as the ‘$100 laptop’, developed by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative in the US.

Firstly, I want to give a brief overview of the product ideology and specification.

The XO vision is, as quoted from Professor Nicholas Negroponte the project leader (who is on leave from MIT, where he co-founded the famous MIT Media Laboratory):

‘It’s not a laptop project. It’s an education project.’

It is stated that the aim of the project is not to provide computer literacy, but to improve education. Computer literacy will come as a by-product of this, according to the laptop.org site.

The project is not-for-profit, and was funded by multiple corporations including Google, Inc.

An excerpt from the laptopgiving.org website defines the project mission as:

‘…To provide a means for learning, self-expression, and exploration to the nearly two billion children of the developing world with little or no access to education. While children are by nature eager for knowledge, many countries have insufficient resources to devote to education—sometimes less than $20 per year per child (compared to an average of $7,500 in the United States). By giving children their very own connected XO laptop, we are giving them a window to the outside world, access to vast amounts of information, a way to connect with each other, and a springboard into their future. And we’re also helping these countries develop an essential resource—educated, empowered children.’

The XO laptop itself is light and around the size of a textbook with a long battery life. The screen can be swivelled around, which is designed to optimise use for traditional laptop work, gaming and e-books. It can be charged by a variety of means, for example car batteries, solar, foot or the traditional power source. It is designed for durability, with features such as a rubber-sealed keyboard, extra thick casing and ‘bumpers’, and is estimated to last at least five years, after durability testing. Also, the screen is designed to be visible in direct bright sunlight.

Other built-in peripherals apart from the keyboard (which is available in multiple languages), include a game pad, touch pad, speakers and microphones, wireless networking and video camera. Connectors built-in are USB, microphone, headphone, memory card slot and obviously power.

It does not have an internal hard drive, as this was assessed to be the most likely part to break.

The software provided is all open-source, uses a Linux Operating Systems, with support for multiple programming languages, which is designed to allow developers and users the maximum amount of freedom and ability to develop as possible.

It sells for around US $188 plus shipping, although currently they have a ‘give one get one’ campaign.

Now, in terms of the success of distribution of the product, the XO is not doing well so far.

However, the first mass sale of the XO’s was confirmed recently, when Uraguay signed up to buy 100,000 of them. But, Nigeria, Libya and Pakistan, all of whom had pledged to buy the XO on mass have instead turned to the Classmate PC, developed by Intel and Microsoft.

The Classmate PC is the closest competitor to the XO, but has many differences. The most significant ones appear to be that it runs Windows (or can run Linux), has a hard drive, and therefore has ‘real PC’ capabilities (as the Intel website puts it), does not have features such as cameras or gamepads, and has been developed as part of Intel’s World Ahead Program (World Ahead Program website), which also runs other projects such as teacher trainings, digital inclusion programs, the Skool technology development (an online digital learning tool to improve teaching and encourage collaboration between parents and children and teachers and pupils). The Classmate PC costs between US $230- US $300.

There have recently been other low-cost laptops released, in October Taiwan’s Asustek released one priced at £125 and MITAC (also from Taiwan) has announced intentions to release their equivalent soon.

The reasons stated by Libya and Nigeria as to why they are buying the Classmate PC rather than the XO are that they were affected by the increased cost from the promised $100 to 188, and there were concerns over servicing, teacher training and future upgrades of the product.

Due to problems such as this, the XO sales strategies have had to change significantly to attempt to increase sales. The minimum number allowed to be bought has been lowered, and the ‘Buy one get one’ concept was introduced.

When these facts are considered, it is no wonder really that Intel is winning. Now that the cost of the two laptops are so similar, countries are clearly going to buy the version that they trust, with big names such as Intel and Microsoft, where they feel secure that the long-term issues with the purchases are covered. There are instantly other issues with the XO that spring to mind, such as - Why are a video camera and gaming pad essential? Surely removing these would have brought down cost. Why does the screen really need to swivel? Most laptops don’t, and they are used for a multitude of purposes. Why are they only expected to have a lifespan of 5 years? To emerging market countries, they would be investing a lot of money, why would these products not be upgradeable and serviceable to make them last longer? Why is gaming considered important, when educational gaming in the developed world is still not particularly successful? And this argument of why there is no hard drive seems to not really hold up, surely a better process would have been to design a hard drive that was more durable (which could perhaps have been dealt with cost-wise by removing other features) .

To go back to the issue of the XO versus the Classmate PC, somewhat ironically, Intel and Microsoft only began development of their low-cost laptop due to their fear that the OLCP project would corner an area of the market before they did. As said in article ‘A Lesson for BoP Technologists: Put the Business Model First’, it is due to OLPC development that there is a focus on lower-cost technology. So, credit where credit is due, there is no doubting that this is a positive step forward. Professor Negraponte does also state that he is not concerned about the fact that the Classmate PC may outsell his XO, because, as mentioned previously, his aim is to improve education, and as his version is non-profit, he won’t really lose out as a profit-driven product would.

However, all this discussion about which laptop is selling better, and what exactly they do is really beside the point. Whilst all these factors are important in terms of the technology itself, perhaps the issues of the environment surrounding, and users of the product, are the crucial considerations needed for a development project of this type.

This leads me to a recent article from the BBC entitled ‘Politics stifling $100 laptop‘ where a spokesperson for OLPC is quoted against Nigeria’s education minister. The culmination of reading the article was that it made clear the fact that the foundation for the OLPC project, and therefore it’s potential for success, is poor.

To summarise the article, the OLPC has blamed politicians for the lack of sales of the XO, which they put down to a fear of change on the part of governments, due to high risk factors. The project spokesperson, Walter Bender, also stated that there is a need for ‘dramatic change’ in education within countries where education was poor. Apparently, the OLPC think that:

‘…Change has to be dramatic. You’ve got to be big, you’ve got to be bold. And what has happened is that there has been an effort to say ‘don’t take any risks - just do something small, something incremental.’

Nigeria’s answer is to question whether putting laptops into schools where there is a lack of even basic equipment such as tables and chairs is the most appropriate step towards education improvement. They say that:

‘We are more interested in laying a very solid foundation for quality education which will be efficient, effective, accessible and affordable.’

At this point, the author has to wonder where there has been any evidence with development in emerging market countries, where jumping ahead past the immediate issues and attempting to solve them by other solutions has ever been proved to work. In fact, it would appear from looking at evidence of technology projects, and also economic projects such as those dictated by the IMF (International Monetary Fund), that this approach has been proved many times over to be unsuccessful.

So, in support of Nigeria’s response to the issue, it is generally acknowledged that much of the education needed within emerging market countries, and especially Africa, is the very basic requirements, such as reading and writing. And obviously, these can be done with paper, pencils and books, all of which could be provided at a much lower cost that laptops.

In conclusion, the author would argue that the approach the OLPC has taken is clearly wrong, (which is being proved already by the lack of sales), and that there is no excuse for why they have done so, as there is so much evidence against this process of making a big change without consideration for the enabling, or disabling factors surrounding it. In short, nothing exists in isolation.

Relevant Links:

White African blog post - Nigerian eLearning Program for OLPC and Classmate PC
African Loft article - Novel Concepts Are Great, But…
nextbillion.net article - The Tradeoff Between Growth and Innovation at the BOP
Ashhie.wordpress.com blog post - Low cost Laptops for emerging markets: OLPC, Classmate and others
Info on 2 Taiwanese low-cost laptops
Article from San Francisco Chronicle - Emerging markets in BRIC nations are focus of technology firms
The Classmate PC portal

Following my post about the West African conference on Satellite broadband, and the recent launch of Nigeria’s first satellite, where I looked at the aims of the conference, the main one being that satellite broadband is apparently considered more cost-effective than other forms, I have just read this post by David Muwanga on AfricanLoft regarding broadband infrastructure development for East Africa via an undersea cable. In the article, a member of IPS, the Industrial Promotion Services, one of the backers of the project, states:

‘The estimated cost of satellite bandwidth on a monthly lease ranges from $1,700 to $6,000 per megabit/second per month. The same bandwidth on the SEACOM cable will be approximately 20% of current costs.’

Now, clearly this contradicts the information that supports the satellite conference which is be taking place today.

What concerns me is not really that I don’t know the answer as to which is going to be cheaper, but that there is such apparent confusion (or disagreement, or lack of communication…) about the matter within the companies who are developing these projects.

Clearly, there is no immediate problem with having both modes operating at once, but which one is going to be cheaper? Not just in terms of immediate cost, but in terms of long-term costs, with issues such as maintenance, further development and speed considered?

Google have placed a representative in South Africa, in preparation for the launch of ‘Google South Africa’ next year.

According to the representative, Stafford Masie, Google recognise that Africa will soon be using the web to a much larger extent, and they clearly want to be a part of it. Apparently, they also believe that the mobile phone use can be productive for them, with the release of Android, Google’s open source OS for phones.

Although currently it appears that Google is concentrating on South Africa in particular, the effects that this could have will surely spread further afield, and will perhaps encourage other foreign companies to consider spending more time and money on African development of technology if they believe it will be profitable, as well as encouraging the development of African-based companies.

It seems that this move is one of the more promising, if a company like Google believe that it is worth their time investing in Africa, then it seems that maybe there really is going to be further positive development of technology and communications. Maybe it will also encourage appropriately developed technology, if representatives are actually being posted to the continent where they will gain inside knowledge on what the area needs.

Along with the satellite broadband that has been launched by Nigeria’s new satellite (see my post on the satellite conference in West Africa), perhaps there will be a viable solution to affordable Internet in the not too distant future.

It will be interesting to watch what Google are up to over the next few months until Google South Africa’s release.

Relevant links:
Google’s Android OS
Matthew Buckland’s blog post

The third West African Satellite Communications conference is taking place from tomorrow for three days in Abuja, Nigeria, hosted by Global VSAT Forum and UK-EMP.

Businesses from many different markets will be participating, where they will discuss many aspects of the potential of Satellite communications, especially relevant due to the May lauch of Nigeria’s first satellite, Nigcomsat-1. This satellite is geostationary, and can actually cover all of Africa, not just the Western regions. It is stated that broadband through satellite is much more cost-efficient means of access to the web, and has apparently already reduced costs greatly.

Interestingly, the key question to be considered at the conference is ‘Does broadband satellite make sense for West Africa?’ and one of the key areas of discussion is ‘appraisal of the application of satellite communications to the connectivity needs of the public and private sectors.’

This seems a potentially effective conference, where there is being consideration applied not only to the technology itself, but to how it is going to be used, and whether it is the right solution to the problem of connectivity. This is seemingly more positive than the Connect Africa summit, where there did not seem to be much analysis of why the technology is being implemented, and how exactly it can be used appropriately (please see my previous post on the summit).

I will await the results of the conference, and will look closely at the outcomes to see what the next steps in this development are to be.

Relevant links:
My digital life article
Global VSAT Forum
Conference overview from Satellite Signals Ltd

The Connect Africa Summit was held a couple of weeks ago in Rwanda. Over 1000 people took part, and it seems like the results are potentially quite promising.

The driving force behind this Summit, which is one of a series planned across the world, is the need to speed up the development process to attain the goals defined at the World Summit on the Information Society in 2003.

The key point seemed to be that it has been established that ICT must take the lead in development of Africa as a whole, and that broadband is the next big step in this process. The opinion that this can be successfully implemented by a estimated date of 2012 is drawn from consideration of the growing mobile phone market, which is currently surpassing any other country in terms of growth rate (and has been for several years), and had nearly 200m subscribers in Africa at the end of last year.

Funds and Aims Promised:

An estimated total of US$55,892,750,000 has been promised.

US$50b from mobile operators who have committed to increasing connectivity to interconnect all African cities, and strengthen the connection to rest of world, with 90% coverage of the population by 2012.

Over Euro100m of grants, along with over Euro200m of loans from the European Commission to develop projects that have multi-nation impact, either through cross-border projects or country projects that will develop the continent as a whole (this fund is intended to be added to at the end of 2008). This project mentions specifically the use of ICT.

The World Bank Group has not committed to, but has talked about the likelihood that they will increase their US$1b per year to US$2b per year by 2012, which is a fund aimed at development of the private sector.

The Africa Development Bank has committed nearly US$65m towards infrastructure development (and is intending to spend 60% of its resources on infrastructure in the next few years).

These outcomes seem very positive in terms of infrastructure development, and helping to achieve the 2015 goals. However, it does raise a concern that appears to me to be potentially critical in terms of the overall development of Africa through connectivity, which is - whilst it is very positive that there is clearly to be plenty of money and technical progress in terms of this development, what exactly is the connectivity to be used for?

The one target relating to this is one of the 10 connectivity goals from the 2003 Summit which states:
‘encourage the development of content and to put in place technical conditions in order to facilitate the presence and use of all world languages on the Internet’.

This goal seem quite ambiguous in terms of what content they are referring to. Who is going to develop it? Who is it going to be developed for? What are the aims of this content? How are they going to find out what content people want? The list of questions goes on… I have not yet found (and someone please send me links or information if you have the answers to this) any information as to what software or hardware is to be developed specifically to accompany this newfound connectivity.

My concern lies with the fact that technology is only as good as the applications that it supports. People don’t buy a computer because it has the fastest processor, they buy it because that fast processor can make their software run faster.

It is also concerning that this drive may fall into the same trap as many other drives for African development in the past. A factor that could be linked to the cause of these could be the assumptions made by the people, governments and corporations funding or developing the projects as to what is needed to encourage development, whereas perhaps the reality, as seen by the end users of these projects, is very different.

So maybe in the case of African connectivity, the first question should be – What do we specifically want to be able to do that we can’t do now? (And by this, I don’t mean ‘access the internet’, rather, ‘farmers want to communicate directly with buyers in developed countries’ for example). And then secondly - What will enable us to do that in terms of technology?

Otherwise the risk is that perhaps the huge amount of money and time will not be used to their maximum potential, and the goals set out in 2003 will be achieved in theory, but not in practice.

There does appear to be some evidence that corporations have in some cases recognised this need – Nokia’s head of mobile division was quoted last month saying that they see the key as the content the phones deliver to the potential users.

“We are looking as a company as to how to facilitate and participate in creating content that is actually relevant for the consumers in emerging markets… the biggest barrier in emerging markets to people using the mobile internet was lack of interest.” (Kai Oistamo, Oct 2007)

However, if the Nokia 2626 is anything to go by in terms of what Nokia think is appropriate development of technology, then this company policy may not amount to much in practice…(I will be writing a post overviewing emerging market handsets shortly, where I will go into more detail on the phones themselves).

However, another concern regarding this huge investment in infrastructure comes for a conversation I recently had regarding African infrastructure development with a retired managing director for global infrastructure investment at CDC. With regard to developing infrastructure for Africa, he said:

‘There is lots of evidence that unless a country is spending 4-5% of its GDP on infrastructure development, they will not sustain any increase in GDP per capita.’

And I would question as to whether many of the coutries being provided with this infrastructure do spend this amount? If they don’t, it appears that any development projects will be futile, as in the long-term, how will they be able to achieve the aims of overall development in the country?

Relevant links:
The Nokia 2626:
Tech Digest article
pocketpicks.co.uk article
The Connect Africa Summit:
allafrica.com article
International Telecoms Union (itu.int) article