the real technological revolution

In 200 years, little has changed in the dominantly pastoral Haitian landscape where ill clad workers stand under a relentless sun in grazing fields or rice paddies. In the last several years, though, with the introduction of cellular phones, one might see the almost surreal sight of a field worker chatting on a cell. The implications of technology and portable devices are enormous in countries with inadequate infrastructure. This phenomenon cries out for more effort focused on how to fully employ the potential for local businesses and development efforts.

Technology has only just started to impact all aspects of life and work in the developing world. As I witnessed in Haiti with cellular phones, newer technology fills in where older, infrastructure-heavy technology failed. Most Haitians, for example, do not have land phones and probably never will. Over decades, TELECO, the conventional phone company, formerly run by the Ministry of Public Works, Transport, and Communications, managed infrastructure that has served only thousands of over five million potential customers. In the last few years alone, Digicel and Voilá (Irish and Haitian cellular providers, respectively) started building towers, setting up “charging stands” in town centers (since most Haitians have no electricity), and offering free minute deals; now millions can have a phone.

Much more effort needs to be focused on how wireless communication devices have begun to change communication and, as the isolation for many people falls away, the nature of culture in Haiti and similar countries. Equally important for the developing world are the impacts on local government, businesses and non-profits. In just years, cellular phone towers did to a mountainous island what wired communication, in decades, never could.

Laptop computers could have similar potential, though perhaps on a smaller, or longer-term, scale. They are much easier to transport, re-sell, donate and, by virtue of the battery, use in areas with unreliable electricity. There is real potential, though with many challenges, for projects that employ the same ideas as America’s “Laptop for Every Student” and the global “One Laptop Per Child” project.

New, smaller satellite dishes or possibly emerging ultra-low-cost and small wireless portable TVs will offer yet more potential for technological innovation to bring information and opportunity to the developing world – and critically to perhaps help advance educational and economic efforts in remote regions. Indian farmers, for example, have been using satellite technology in recent years to emulate farmers in the developed world, to track product prices in the market, check the weather, and learn more about other farming techniques.

The potential value of harnessing the new, portable information technologies deserves much greater attention. For this reason, more effort need be focused on what types of affordable technologies might be encouraged, and disseminated, and on low-cost services to support and expand the capabilities of these tools to help advance humane causes and economic development around the world. What has happened thus far is only a beginning, but has illuminated the potential of this profoundly important opportunity.

During Hurricane Dean this year, the Haitian government, refusing to acknowledge a potential natural disaster, would not put announcements out on state-run radio programs about evacuation opportunities for people in risk zones. Digicel, however, seized the marketing opportunity and sent out text messages to all its customers, offering updates on the tropical storm - for a fee. This last point, of course, drives home exactly the need to find creative, low-cost and perhaps subsidized ways to advance such technology.