Question Box brings info from Internet to village with one button

Filed under: News

Question Box brings info from Internet to village with one button

by Jay Hathaway Mar 4th 2008

Rose Shulman and the Open Mind foundation are tackling the problem of bringing information access to areas too physically or politically remote to sustain an Internet connection. The project is called Question Box, and it consists of one button and a speaker. Users in remote villages can push the button and have their questions answered by a multilingual operator with Internet access.

Open Mind has teamed up with National Institute of Information Technology in New Delhi to install two Question Boxes so far, in India's Ethida and Poolpur villages (roughly near New Delhi). The units are centrally located, near shops where they'll get the most use. Residents of the villages have already asked about topics as diverse as cricket scores, university exam results, and how to get a personal loan.

Question Box will expand as it gains funding, and hopes to allow villagers to dial the system from their home telephones. We think this is a fantastic idea: information should be available to people whether their infrastructure allows for an Internet connection or not. Look for Question Box to keep breaking down language and technology barriers in the future.

[via BoingBoing]

Tags: developing world, DevelopingWorld, Internet, nonprofit, question box, QuestionBox

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Christian said 7:23PM on 3-04-2008

I feel like people might use this for prank questions. Let's hope not but who am I to question what people want to ask on that box.

Jay Hathaway said 7:26PM on 3-04-2008

Interesting point. It would be strange and kind of compelling to see what pranks Indian villagers might play on an unsuspecting operator. The public location of the box might also make it tricky to use for those more -- uh, personal -- questions.

Anand K Gupta said 2:48AM on 3-05-2008

Every coin has two sides. Remember what was the first word you searched in Yahoo or Google, when you got the internet connection at home ?

This is a very positive way to bridge the gap using the available technologies. I laud the great efforts by "Rose Shulman and the Open Mind foundation". All the best guys.

Jimmy said 2:54AM on 3-05-2008

Another interesting project by the National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT) is the hole in the wall project. http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/egwest/holeinthewall.html

invadesoda said 2:10PM on 3-05-2008

I agree, lack of up-to-date cricket scores are a leading cause of poverty.

shein said 2:26AM on 3-06-2008

They should combine this with Mosio! That would be perfect.

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