Technology crafts for the digitally underserved
-
0:01 - 0:06Frugal Digital is essentially a small research group at C.I.D.
-
0:06 - 0:08where we are looking to find
-
0:08 - 0:12alternate visions of how to create a digitally inclusive society.
-
0:12 - 0:14That's what we're after.
-
0:14 - 0:16And we do this because we actually believe
-
0:16 - 0:20that silicon technology today is mostly about
-
0:20 - 0:21a culture of excess.
-
0:21 - 0:24It's about the fastest and the most efficient
-
0:24 - 0:26and the most dazzling gadget you can have,
-
0:26 - 0:29while about two-thirds of the world
-
0:29 - 0:33can hardly reach the most basic of this technology
-
0:33 - 0:36to even address fundamental needs in life,
-
0:36 - 0:38including health care, education
-
0:38 - 0:42and all these kinds of very fundamental issues.
-
0:42 - 0:46So before I start, I want to talk about a little anecdote,
-
0:46 - 0:50a little story about a man I met once in Mumbai.
-
0:50 - 0:52So this man, his name is Sathi Shri.
-
0:52 - 0:54He is an outstanding person,
-
0:54 - 0:56because he's a small entrepreneur.
-
0:56 - 0:58He runs a little shop
-
0:58 - 1:00in one of the back streets of Mumbai.
-
1:00 - 1:03He has this little 10-square-meter store,
-
1:03 - 1:05where so much is being done.
-
1:05 - 1:07It's incredible, because I couldn't believe my eyes
-
1:07 - 1:10when I once just happened to bump into him.
-
1:10 - 1:12Basically, what he does is, he has all these services
-
1:12 - 1:14for micro-payments and booking tickets
-
1:14 - 1:18and all kinds of basic things that you would go online for,
-
1:18 - 1:20but he does it for people offline
-
1:20 - 1:22and connects to the digital world.
-
1:22 - 1:23More importantly, he makes his money
-
1:23 - 1:26by selling these mobile recharge coupons, you know,
-
1:26 - 1:28for the prepaid subscriptions.
-
1:28 - 1:32But then, in the backside, he's got this little nook
-
1:32 - 1:34with a few of his employees
-
1:34 - 1:37where they can fix almost anything.
-
1:37 - 1:40Any cell phone, any gadget you can bring them, they can fix it.
-
1:40 - 1:43And it's pretty incredible because I took my iPhone there,
-
1:43 - 1:45and he was like, "Yeah, do you want an upgrade?"
-
1:45 - 1:48"Yes." (Laughter)
-
1:48 - 1:50I was a bit skeptical, but then, I decided
-
1:50 - 1:54to give him a Nokia instead. (Laughter)
-
1:54 - 1:59But what I was amazed about is this reverse engineering
-
1:59 - 2:04and know-how that's built into this little two meters of space.
-
2:04 - 2:07They have figured out everything that's required
-
2:07 - 2:09to dismantle, take things apart,
-
2:09 - 2:12rewrite the circuitry, re-flash the firmware,
-
2:12 - 2:14do whatever you want to with the phone,
-
2:14 - 2:16and they can fix anything so quickly.
-
2:16 - 2:18You can hand over a phone this morning
-
2:18 - 2:20and you can go pick it up after lunch,
-
2:20 - 2:22and it was quite incredible.
-
2:22 - 2:24But then we were wondering whether this is
-
2:24 - 2:26a local phenomenon, or is truly global?
-
2:26 - 2:29And, over time, we started understanding
-
2:29 - 2:30and systematically researching
-
2:30 - 2:32what this tinkering ecosystem is about,
-
2:32 - 2:34because that is something that's happening
-
2:34 - 2:36not just in one street corner in Mumbai.
-
2:36 - 2:39It's actually happening in all parts of the country.
-
2:39 - 2:41It's even happening in Africa, like, for example,
-
2:41 - 2:44in Cape Town we did extensive research on this.
-
2:44 - 2:47Even here in Doha I found this little nook
-
2:47 - 2:50where you can get alarm clocks and watches fixed,
-
2:50 - 2:53and it's a lot of tiny little parts. It's not easy.
-
2:53 - 2:55You've got to try it on your own to believe it.
-
2:55 - 2:56But what fuels this?
-
2:56 - 3:00It's this entire ecosystem of low-cost parts
-
3:00 - 3:03and supplies that are produced all over the world, literally,
-
3:03 - 3:07and then redistributed to basically service this industry,
-
3:07 - 3:09and you can even buy salvaged parts.
-
3:09 - 3:11Basically, you don't have to necessarily buy
-
3:11 - 3:14brand new things. You have condemned computers
-
3:14 - 3:15that are stripped apart,
-
3:15 - 3:17and you can buy salvaged components
-
3:17 - 3:21and things that you can reassemble in a new configuration.
-
3:21 - 3:24But what does this new, sort of, approach give us?
-
3:24 - 3:26That's the real question, because this is something
-
3:26 - 3:28that's been there, part of every society
-
3:28 - 3:31that's deprived of enough resources.
-
3:31 - 3:32But there's an interesting paradigm.
-
3:32 - 3:34There's the traditional crafts,
-
3:34 - 3:36and then there's the technology crafts.
-
3:36 - 3:38We call it the technology crafts because these are emerging.
-
3:38 - 3:40They're not something that's been established.
-
3:40 - 3:43It's not something that's institutionalized.
-
3:43 - 3:45It's not taught in universities.
-
3:45 - 3:46It's taught [by] word of mouth,
-
3:46 - 3:48and it's an informal education system around this.
-
3:48 - 3:51So we said, "What can we get out of this?
-
3:51 - 3:54You know, like, what are the key values that we can get out of this?"
-
3:54 - 3:56The main thing is a fix-it-locally culture,
-
3:56 - 3:58which is fantastic because it means that your product
-
3:58 - 4:01or your service doesn't have to go through
-
4:01 - 4:03a huge bureaucratic system to get it fixed.
-
4:03 - 4:06It also affords us cheap fabrication, which is fantastic,
-
4:06 - 4:08so it means that you can do a lot more with it.
-
4:08 - 4:11And then, the most important thing is,
-
4:11 - 4:13it gives us large math for low cost.
-
4:13 - 4:15So it means that you can actually embed
-
4:15 - 4:19pretty clever algorithms and lots of other kinds
-
4:19 - 4:22of extendable ideas into really simple devices.
-
4:22 - 4:27So, what we call this is a silicon cottage industry.
-
4:27 - 4:30It's basically what was the system or the paradigm
-
4:30 - 4:33before the industrial revolution is now re-happening
-
4:33 - 4:36in a whole new way in small digital shops
-
4:36 - 4:39across the planet in most developing countries.
-
4:39 - 4:43So, we kind of toyed around with this idea,
-
4:43 - 4:45and we said, "What can we do with this?
-
4:45 - 4:47Can we make a little product or a service out of it?"
-
4:47 - 4:50So one of the first things we did is this thing called
-
4:50 - 4:52a multimedia platform. We call it a lunch box.
-
4:52 - 4:55Basically one of the contexts that we studied was
-
4:55 - 4:58schools in very remote parts of India.
-
4:58 - 5:01So there is this amazing concept called the one-teacher school,
-
5:01 - 5:04which is basically a single teacher who is a multitasker
-
5:04 - 5:07who teaches this amazing little social setting.
-
5:07 - 5:08It's an informal school,
-
5:08 - 5:10but it's really about holistic education.
-
5:10 - 5:12The only thing that they don't have
-
5:12 - 5:14is access to resources. They don't even have a textbook
-
5:14 - 5:17sometimes, and they don't even have a proper curriculum.
-
5:17 - 5:20So we said, "What can we do to empower this teacher
-
5:20 - 5:23to do more?" How to access the digital world?
-
5:23 - 5:26Instead of being the sole guardian of information,
-
5:26 - 5:28be a facilitator to all this information.
-
5:28 - 5:31So we said, "What are the steps required to empower the teacher?"
-
5:31 - 5:34How do you make this teacher into a digital gateway,
-
5:34 - 5:37and how do you design an inexpensive multimedia platform
-
5:37 - 5:40that can be constructed locally and serviced locally?"
-
5:40 - 5:42So we walked around.
-
5:42 - 5:44We went and scavenged the nearby markets,
-
5:44 - 5:48and we tried to understand, "What can we pick up that will make this happen?"
-
5:48 - 5:51So the thing that we got
-
5:51 - 5:54was a little mobile phone with a little pico projector
-
5:54 - 5:56that comes for about 60 dollars.
-
5:56 - 5:59We went a bought a flashlight with a very big battery,
-
5:59 - 6:01and a bunch of small speakers.
-
6:01 - 6:03So essentially, the mobile phone gives us
-
6:03 - 6:05a connected multimedia platform.
-
6:05 - 6:08It allows us to get online and allows us to load up files
-
6:08 - 6:11of different formats and play them.
-
6:11 - 6:14The flashlight gives us this really intense, bright L.E.D.,
-
6:14 - 6:17and six hours worth of rechargeable battery pack,
-
6:17 - 6:19and the lunch box is a nice little package
-
6:19 - 6:21in which you can put everything inside,
-
6:21 - 6:22and a bunch of mini speakers to sort of
-
6:22 - 6:24amplify the sound large enough.
-
6:24 - 6:27Believe me, those little classrooms are really noisy.
-
6:27 - 6:30They are kids who scream at the top of their voices,
-
6:30 - 6:32and you really have to get above that.
-
6:32 - 6:34And we took it back to this little tinkering setup
-
6:34 - 6:36of a mobile phone repair shop,
-
6:36 - 6:38and then the magic happens.
-
6:38 - 6:39We dismantle the whole thing,
-
6:39 - 6:42we reassemble it in a new configuration,
-
6:42 - 6:44and we do this hardware mashup,
-
6:44 - 6:46systematically training the guy how to do this.
-
6:46 - 6:50Out comes this, a little lunch box -- form factor.
-
6:50 - 6:57(Applause)
-
6:57 - 7:00And we systematically field tested,
-
7:00 - 7:02because in the field testing we learned some
-
7:02 - 7:05important lessons, and we went through many iterations.
-
7:05 - 7:07One of the key issues was battery consumption and charging.
-
7:07 - 7:11Luminosity was an issue, when you have too much bright sunlight outside.
-
7:11 - 7:14Often the roofs are broken, so you don't have enough
-
7:14 - 7:17darkness in the classroom to do these things.
-
7:17 - 7:20We extended this idea. We tested it many times over,
-
7:20 - 7:22and the next version we came up with was a box
-
7:22 - 7:25that kind of could trickle charge on solar energy,
-
7:25 - 7:28but most importantly connect to a car battery,
-
7:28 - 7:31because a car battery is a ubiquitous source of power
-
7:31 - 7:33in places where there's not enough electricity
-
7:33 - 7:35or erratic electricity.
-
7:35 - 7:37And the other key thing that we did was
-
7:37 - 7:39make this box run off a USB key, because we realized
-
7:39 - 7:43that even though there was GPRS and all that on paper,
-
7:43 - 7:45at least, in theory, it was much more efficient
-
7:45 - 7:49to send the data on a little USB key by surface mail.
-
7:49 - 7:51It might take a few days to get there,
-
7:51 - 7:53but at least it gets there in high definition
-
7:53 - 7:55and in a reliable quality.
-
7:55 - 7:58So we made this box, and we tested it again
-
7:58 - 7:59and again and again, and we're going through
-
7:59 - 8:01multiple iterations to do these things.
-
8:01 - 8:04But it's not limited to just education.
-
8:04 - 8:06This kind of a technique or metrology
-
8:06 - 8:08can actually be applied to other kinds of areas,
-
8:08 - 8:10and I'm going to tell you one more little story.
-
8:10 - 8:12It's about this little device called a medi-meter.
-
8:12 - 8:15It's basically a little health care screening tool that we developed.
-
8:15 - 8:19In India, there is a context of these amazing people,
-
8:19 - 8:21the health care workers called ASHA workers.
-
8:21 - 8:23They are essentially foot soldiers for the health care system
-
8:23 - 8:26who live in the local community and are trained
-
8:26 - 8:28with basic tools and basic concepts of health care,
-
8:28 - 8:32and the main purpose is basically to inform people
-
8:32 - 8:36to basically, how to lead a better life, but also
-
8:36 - 8:39to divert or sort of make recommendations
-
8:39 - 8:42of what kind of health care should they approach?
-
8:42 - 8:44They are basically referral services, essentially.
-
8:44 - 8:47But the problem with that is that we realized
-
8:47 - 8:51after a bunch of research that they are amazing
-
8:51 - 8:53at referring people to the nearest clinic
-
8:53 - 8:56or the public health care system, but what happens at the
-
8:56 - 9:00public health care system is this: these incredibly long lines
-
9:00 - 9:03and too many people who overload the system
-
9:03 - 9:06simply because there's not enough doctors and facilities
-
9:06 - 9:08for the population that's being referred.
-
9:08 - 9:10So everything from a common cold
-
9:10 - 9:13to a serious case of malaria gets almost the same
-
9:13 - 9:16level of attention, and there's no priorities.
-
9:16 - 9:18So we said, "Come on, there's got to be a better way
-
9:18 - 9:19of doing this for sure."
-
9:19 - 9:22So we said, "What can we do with the ASHA worker
-
9:22 - 9:26that'll allow this ASHA worker to become an interesting filter,
-
9:26 - 9:28but not just a filter, a really well thought through referral
-
9:28 - 9:32system that allows load balancing of the network,
-
9:32 - 9:36and directs patients to different sources of health care
-
9:36 - 9:40based on the severity or the criticalness of those situations?"
-
9:40 - 9:42So the real key question was,
-
9:42 - 9:43how do we empower this woman?
-
9:43 - 9:45How do we empower her with simple tools
-
9:45 - 9:48that's not diagnostic but more screening in nature
-
9:48 - 9:52so she at least knows how to advise the patients better?
-
9:52 - 9:54And that'll make such a huge difference on the system,
-
9:54 - 9:59because the amount of waiting time and the amount of
-
9:59 - 10:01distances that people need to travel, often sometimes
-
10:01 - 10:04seven to 15 kilometers, sometimes by foot,
-
10:04 - 10:09to get a simple health check done, is very, very detrimental
-
10:09 - 10:12in the sense that it really dissuades people
-
10:12 - 10:14from getting access to health care.
-
10:14 - 10:16So if there was something that she could do,
-
10:16 - 10:17that would be amazing.
-
10:17 - 10:20So what we did was that we converted this device
-
10:20 - 10:22into a medical device.
-
10:22 - 10:23I want to demo this actually,
-
10:23 - 10:26because it's a very simple process.
-
10:26 - 10:28Bruno, do you want to join us? (Cheers)
-
10:28 - 10:34Come along. (Applause)
-
10:34 - 10:37So, what we're going to do is that
-
10:37 - 10:40we're going to measure a few basic parameters on you,
-
10:40 - 10:43including your pulse rate and the amount of oxygen
-
10:43 - 10:45that's there in your blood.
-
10:45 - 10:48So you're going to put your thumb on top of this.
-
10:48 - 10:50Bruno Giussani: Like this, works?
-
10:50 - 10:51Vinay Venkatraman: Yeah. That's right. BG: Okay.
-
10:51 - 10:55VV: So I'm going to start it up. I hope it works.
-
10:55 - 11:00(Beeps) It even beeps, because it's an alarm clock, after all.
-
11:00 - 11:02So ... (Laughter)
-
11:02 - 11:06So I take it into the start position, and then
-
11:06 - 11:10I press the read button. (Beeps)
-
11:10 - 11:15So it's taking a little reading from you. (Beeps)
-
11:15 - 11:18And then the pointer goes and points to three different options.
-
11:18 - 11:21Let's see what happens here.
-
11:21 - 11:23(Beeps) Oh Bruno, you can go home, actually.
-
11:23 - 11:27BG: Great. Good news. (Applause)
-
11:27 - 11:30VV: So ... (Applause)
-
11:30 - 11:33So the thing about this is that
-
11:33 - 11:37if the pointer, unfortunately, had pointed to the red spot,
-
11:37 - 11:39we would have to rush you to a hospital.
-
11:39 - 11:43Luckily, not today. And if it had pointed to the orange
-
11:43 - 11:46or the amber, it basically meant you had to have,
-
11:46 - 11:49sort of, more continuous care from the health care worker.
-
11:49 - 11:51So that was a very simple three-step screening process
-
11:51 - 11:53that could basically change the equation
-
11:53 - 11:56of how public health care works in so many different ways.
-
11:56 - 11:58BG: Thank you for the good news. VV: Yeah.
-
11:58 - 12:02(Applause)
-
12:02 - 12:06So, very briefly, I'll just explain to you how this is done,
-
12:06 - 12:08because that's the more interesting part.
-
12:08 - 12:11So essentially, the three things that are required
-
12:11 - 12:15to make this conversion from this guy to this guy
-
12:15 - 12:19is a cheap remote control for a television
-
12:19 - 12:22that you can almost find in every home today,
-
12:22 - 12:26some parts from a computer mouse, basically,
-
12:26 - 12:30something that you can scavenge for very low cost,
-
12:30 - 12:33and a few parts that have to be pre-programmed.
-
12:33 - 12:35Basically this is a micro-controller with a few
-
12:35 - 12:38extra components that can be shipped for very little cost
-
12:38 - 12:41across the world, and that's what is all required
-
12:41 - 12:43with a little bit of local tinkering talent
-
12:43 - 12:46to convert the device into something else.
-
12:46 - 12:50So we are right now doing some systematic field tests
-
12:50 - 12:53to basically ascertain whether something like this actually
-
12:53 - 12:54makes sense to the ASHA worker.
-
12:54 - 12:58We are going through some reference tests to compare it
-
12:58 - 13:01against professional equipment to see if there's a degree
-
13:01 - 13:03of change in efficacy and if it actually makes an impact
-
13:03 - 13:06in people's lives. But most importantly,
-
13:06 - 13:08what we are trying to do right now
-
13:08 - 13:10is we are trying to scale this up, because there
-
13:10 - 13:13are over 250,000 ASHA workers on the ground
-
13:13 - 13:16who are these amazing foot soldiers, and if we can
-
13:16 - 13:19give at least a fraction of them the access to these things,
-
13:19 - 13:22it just changes the way the economics of public health care
-
13:22 - 13:25works, and it changes the way systems actually function,
-
13:25 - 13:29not just on a systematic planning level,
-
13:29 - 13:33but also in a very grassroots, bottom-up level.
-
13:33 - 13:35So that's it, and we hope to do this in a big way.
-
13:35 - 13:39Thank you. (Applause)
-
13:39 - 13:47(Applause)
- Title:
- Technology crafts for the digitally underserved
- Speaker:
- Vinay Venkatraman
- Description:
-
Two-thirds of the world may not have access to the latest smartphone, but local electronic shops are adept at fixing older tech using low-cost parts. Vinay Venkatraman explains his work in "technology crafts," through which a mobile phone, a lunchbox and a flashlight can become a digital projector for a village school, or an alarm clock and a mouse can be melded into a medical device for local triage.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 14:08
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Technology crafts for the digitally underserved | ||
Aliaksandr Autayeu commented on English subtitles for Technology crafts for the digitally underserved | ||
Aliaksandr Autayeu edited English subtitles for Technology crafts for the digitally underserved | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for Technology crafts for the digitally underserved | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Technology crafts for the digitally underserved | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for Technology crafts for the digitally underserved | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Technology crafts for the digitally underserved | ||
Joseph Geni edited English subtitles for Technology crafts for the digitally underserved |