Mobile Phone wins over PC, but the PC needs to catch up…. For all our sakes.
Inclusive Growth!
ET readers, CNBC viewers and Business School students know it well that India is mobile-phone country. Penetration and sales of mobile phones far exceed those of personal computers. It is literally as though the mobile phone has tapped into a deeply latent need of Indians to chatter away with their dear ones. On the contrary, the serious PC- while indeed making headway in the Indian market- lags far behind in terms of its impact on the lives of Indian families, especially lower-income and rural ones.
Consider this: during my two days in Latur district’s villages, I barely came across anyone who used computers or saw schools where kids had access to PCs. BUT: every youth and woman volunteer I met had a mobile phone, whose numbers were well publicized, and were the accepted means for fellow villagers to reach out to them.
However, as a result of this dichotomy, there is a great deal of spoken communication among the volunteers, NGOs and villagers, but the programs are overall weak in terms of documentation, information access, tracking and reporting.
To plug this key gap, the PC needs to catch up with the mobile phone… for the sake of development.
Growth-for-All will soon embark on an ambitious program to get corporates and others to chip in with used PCs which can be deployed in village schools and community centers. Watch out for more information.
August 28th, 2008 at 5:59 am
The greatest invention of this Century, according to me, is the Mobile Phone, which has made person-to-person communication possible. A PC works with some hardware, and instanteneous communication through e-mail is possible. Some of the high-end Phones have also e-mail facilities. A PC should be made affordable for middle class homes and Village Schools. Availability of Electricity in villages and small towns is very erratic. How about a device, say a rechargeable Battery, which can operate the PC. Can the TV Screen also be used in sending and receiving e-mails ? There was a talk going around that Communication should converge. A TV Screen can be used as a Phone, interactive communication device and e-mailing device. With the ingenuity of Sam Pitroda, this should be possible.