Rural areas can gain from technology: Study

The MIT School of Telecom Management (MITSOT) has proved that information and communication technology (ICT) can change the face of rural India. The college had recently submitted a proposal to the ministry of human resource development, government of India, after conducting a survey on the use of ICT in rural areas.

Director of MITSOT, Milind Pande, said, “The main aim of the project was to provide basic information on agriculture, education and health through 3G technology on cellphones. We had adopted two villages — Rameshwar in Marathwada and Kurkhed in Vidarbha. We chose these areas keeping in view the challenges of socio-economic development.”

The project was a regional study of telecom technology options for Indian rural education. “During the survey, we found that the problems faced by villagers were related to agriculture, health and education. However, they showed keen inclination towards technology,” said Pande.

After some convincing, the villagers agreed to get training in the usage of technology. “We identified that the MobiTech solution was apt considering the requirements and constraints of villagers. By constraints, I mean that the villagers could use only the information that they had been given access to,” he added.

The villagers were given iMate, touchscreen phones that provided them with access to education, agriculture, sanitation and laws. “We made 11 animated films on different subjects, which would run for 24 hours and 365 days,” said Pande.

Through the main server, the villagers were able to get continuous feeds of the information. The stored information was updated regularly and broadcast. The information flow in MobiTech will only be through cellphones and servers located at district levels using SMS, MMS and Video Transmission Technology.

This technology can be used by farmers, doctors and teachers to get information from experts who work through MobiTech, added Pande.