Bridging the Digital Divide
India’s growth depends upon making knowledge and information accessible to all, says Suneet Singh Tuli

Profile
Suneet Singh Tuli is the CEO of Datawind Ltd. He graduated with a degree in engineering, and soon realised his passion lay in being an entrepreneur.

Datawind
Datawind is a leading provider of wireless web access products and services. DataWind’s product range includes the PocketSurfer handheld internet device, UbiSurfer netbooks and UbiSlate tablet devices. Datawind has offices in New Delhi, Amritsar, London, Montreal, and Dallas.

The Datawind Aakash, selected by the Government of India for its digital literacy programme, is a 7” Android 2.2 touch screen tablet that has a HD video co-processor for a high-quality multimedia experience and core graphics accelerator for faster application suport.

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India is known for its dazzling performance in IT; however, only 30% of its people - the educated - have access to IT. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has radically changed the way we do business. The Internet has enabled business technologies like e-commerce to open up vast business avenues, and has transformed the whole business world into a global village. Furthermore, ICTs are expected to play a crucial role in the socio-economic development process, and change the pattern of people's economic models and lives.

The potential to exploit the benefits of ICTs largely depends on the access and adoption of these technologies. In fact, the ICT adoption status of an economy is an indicator of its potential to exploit the economic opportunities affordable by the new technologies - more generally, its prospects for the transition to the ‘new economy’.

Asian countries have experienced a rise in the use of ICTs in recent years, though the degree of expansion has varied across nations. Internet adoption in India, a country where over 800 million people have access to mobile phones, is especially slow. There are hundreds of millions of people in India who do not have access to the Internet. This deprives them of reaping the benefits of ICTs, leading to a serious ‘Digital Divide’ between those who are participating in the Information Technology revolution and those who are not.

LAGGING BEHIND
A survey of digital access in the BRIC countries found that India ranked the lowest in digital inclusion. A study released earlier this year supported this claim, revealing that Asia’s third-largest economy, home to 1.2 billion people, is stifled by a lack of access to even the most basic ICT mediums such as computers, Internet, or even mobile phones. Amongst the BRIC nations, India is the only country to be classified as an ‘extreme risk’; meaning that the country’s population currently suffers from a severe lack of digital inclusion.

Only 1.2% of people in rural areas have Internet access, compared to 12% access in India’s urban centres.

CONSEQUENCES
This digital divide has far-reaching economic, social and political implications; more specifically on politics, education, labor market, communications, consumers, health information, community involvement, government, and emergency information.

There are compelling reasons why it is necessary to narrow the Digital Divide, and it is crucial to make sure that those at the bottom of the pyramid don't get left behind. For instance, it is reported that the use of ICT contributed close to 50% of total growth in US productivity in the 1990s. Bridging this gap can be an enormous engine of development for India as a nation, and has the potential for independent commercial use by local entrepreneurs, which may generate employment and economic growth. It will provide better-paid skilled employment, for example, by increasing both demand and ability to pay for better education, health, and other social services. In short, affordable access to technology is a key factor for economic sustainability and improved social conditions.

A SENSE OF URGENCY
Internet connectivity and ICT can enhance India’s social and cultural capital. Social capital is acquired through repeated interaction with other individuals or groups of individuals. Connecting to the Internet creates another set of means by which to achieve repeated interaction. ICTs and Internet connectivity enable repeated interaction through access to social networks, chat rooms, and gaming sites.

India’s Digital Divide is based on insufficient infrastructure, high cost of access, inappropriate or weak policy regimes, inefficiencies in the provision of telecommunication networks and services, lack of locally created content, and uneven ability to derive economic and social benefits from information-intensive activities. To reduce the digital divide requires a ‘systems’ approach, and governments and corporations alike have to broadly attack all of these issues.

SOLUTIONS
India’s Internet penetration has been low due to a lack of affordability - as well as infrastructure - for connectivity. India now has more than 800 million mobile phone subscribers in a country of about 1.2 billion people. If Indian parents believe a reasonably-priced tablet can give their children a better shot at getting an education, they’ll use that same kind of ingenuity to buy it. This tablet is UbiSlate.

Given the limited usage of 3G in India (due to affordability), the existing cellular networks are the best medium for providing access to the Internet. The key is Datawind’s solution of data compression, which works well in these existing low-speed networks, and therefore provides not only the lowest cost solution for Internet delivery but also reasonable quality full-page Internet. This enables consumers to experience faster browsing on existing networks. Additionally, we don’t believe that there is sufficient WiFi penetration in India for a WiFi-only device to succeed. With the embedded GPRS modem, DataWind’s UbiSlate tablet provides anytime/anywhere connectivity at a very low cost. Data Wind is making both the device ( Rs 2,999) as well as unlimited Internet access ( Rs 60) very affordable.

On the government front, it should put thrust towards connectivity provision, content creation, capacity augmentation, core technology creation and exploitation, cost reduction, competence building, community participation, and commitment to the deprived and disadvantaged. Policies should address financial, informational, and technical constraints to purchasing and using computers among disadvantaged families. Implementing tax breaks or loans for educational computer purchases and training programs, and increasing funding for technology-related programs will assist. India’s National Mission on Education - under the leadership of NK Sinha - will use Information and Communication Technology to link 25,000 colleges and 400 universities in their e-learning programs using UbiSlate. Initiatives like these will greatly help narrow the divide.

This is a problem that seems to have always been present in societies, and given the progress that technology is capable of, these so-called have-nots are in danger of falling even further behind than those that have this technology and the technological knowledge that goes along with it. Data Wind believes UbiSlate has the potential to digitally empower these have-nots, who will now vie with their technology-savvy peers in urban India and lift large segments of the country’s rural population out of poverty. Our vision is to enable the next billion Internet users by breaking the affordability barrier on devices and Internet access.