Reinventing "The wheel"..

Now that so many debates have happened over different ICT4D intervention, I could see a trend in success, failure or sustainability of all these interventions. Here is my $0.02 over this topic in here,

Government as a Stakeholder

Time and Time again, it has been a key differentiator for ICT4D in including government as a buyer, seller, benefactor, enabler or a stakeholder in the value chain that ICT intervention creates. The government would have already laid a foundation or has intentions on it and a general rule, a little help from government is always better for a BOP reach.

Timing of the project

We are talking about technology, the one that halves in cost every 18 months. A late entrant becomes redundant while a too early bird becomes just a visionary who is far from reality. 

There is also a difference between technology cycle in urban and rural. I could not figure out the relative span between the two. In some cases, rural technology span has been eternal (Radio has been a key information medium for a span so long  that the initial wave of urban radio came out, spent the time, became obsolete, hibernated and then resurrected through FM frequencies). The irony is that in some other cases, the rural technology cycle is so short considering the late technology adoption making the rural technology span narrow and only as a subset its counterpart.

Incentive to majority of stakeholders

We have known the so called “Spill-over effects” but when there is a negative effect its better interpreted as the “The Intruder Effect”.  Consider this, there is an existing system in place (how obsolete it may be) and there is always inertia to move away from it and it creates ripples right across the value chain. It could be elimination of middle man, unwillingness to delegate responsibility, lack of trust or for worse might be classified as capitalistic.  The delicate way of sharing the pie is really critical.

Not another piece in the puzzle

In urban model leave a better technology on the table and it`s for grabbing. In rural model, An investment should be pushed against the pulling behavior of the urban market. A replication model from urban to rural is like letting it walk in the dark unguided. There are also other mentoring agendas including last mile delivery, adoption process and year round support.

Although with above factors addressed, ICT4D looks better on papers but still it`s a delicate balance. One side there is lower margins and high volume possibilities and on the flip side there is at least an extra mile to travel from the way business has been done traditionally. Yes, there is double side uncertainty but there is one more perspective worth a mention here. Urban markets are stagnating. An average PC buyer is a replacement buyer not a new buyer. It will not be any more a choice to focus on rural BOP but a bandwagon to catch on. But the rules of the game are still the same.

P.S - An interesting and inclusive corporate perspectives on ICT4D have been addressed in the below video (Impatient surfers should skip forward to the 8^th minute and have a glimpse on the myths part). My favorite quote - “Technology magnifies human intent and capacity” and just that.