Will a US$35 ‘tablet for the poor’ bring computing power to the masses? Not likely The Minister for Communication & Information Technology, Kapil Sibal, announced with much pomp on 5th October, the breakthrough pricing of a tablet computer at US$35 for “millions of India’s schoolchildren” to become digitally connected and benefit from online education. Kapil [ Read More ]
A new report commissioned by the APC written by Osama Manzar and Divya Menon of the Delhi-based Digital Empowerment Foundation takes a critical look at what is being done in the country to manage e-waste. APCNews talked to co-author Divya Menon. electronics is the fastest growing sector in India and are purchased by about 52 [ Read More ]
They call themselves “Silicon Valley in a Box”. They define themselves as an “accelerator”. They are located in a building with a space of 170,000 sq.ft. There are hundreds of people working in the building. They have 250 companies stationed within the building, along with 70 data centres. They have 170-plus investors and venture capital [ Read More ]
I am in a situation where I cannot but compare India and the US to bring perspective on how the information economy driven by information communication technology and digital tools will be led by India to make the world a better place. And the onus will be on India and Indians across the globe, and [ Read More ]
Two important developments have taken place at the ministry of communications and information technology in the past two weeks. One, the department of information technology (DIT) has come up with a consultation paper on a mobile governance policy framework. Two, the department has opened stakeholders’ discussions on the framework for citizen engagement in the national [ Read More ]
Tracking Livelihood Entitlements for Rural Communities is a mobile phone-based initiative to track the efficiency of the government’s public distribution scheme for food, pension schemes and the rural job guarantee scheme. It has helped more than 2,000 families in Orissa’s backward Keonjhar district gain access to the public distribution system and has had an impact [ Read More ]
The lack of digital connectivity is impeding development in one of India’s richest regions culturally and ecologically- the North-East. The government has put in place some policies and programmes to bolster the use of information and communication technology (ICT) here, but their poor execution means a colossal loss of opportunity for both the region and [ Read More ]
Technology is as good as what it does. That is the basic principle on which we started our journey at the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) and instituted the Manthan Award. The idea was to identify initiatives that use information and communication technology (ICT) tools to achieve specific goals with the long-term target of empowering the masses, especially in rural areas. 
