▲ ▼ Remote education for underprivileged
COVID-19 pandemic has put the world into lockdown and the children are forced to get their education through Internet - especially via video conferencing often using smartphones, radio, television and texting.
Unfortunately, even feature phones let alone smartphones are beyond the reach of many, resulting in the lack of means to get educated in the marginalised communities where education is the only way for the next generation to escape the poverty. There are several reports of children committing suicide after being distraught from not being able to afford a smartphone[1][2][3].
Pew Research centre's 2019 report says,
Pew Research centre's 2019 report says,
Across the 11 emerging economies surveyed as part of this report, up to one-in-five people do not own or even share a mobile phone.
Lack of smartphone or other electronic device is not the only problem, lack of proper electricity, cellular and Internet connectivity inhibits the underprivileged from receiving remote education.
What we can we come up with under such conditions to deliver remote education to the underprivileged? Note that several governments are trying to crack this problem as well, so any solution to fill this need gap could be a viable international social good startup idea.
What we can we come up with under such conditions to deliver remote education to the underprivileged? Note that several governments are trying to crack this problem as well, so any solution to fill this need gap could be a viable international social good startup idea.
Can't good-old printed books be a solution? Or does it needs to be a tech device?
They have books, the issue is the lack of access to teaching/guidance per se as schools have been shutdown and in remote areas teachers completely lost contact with their students due to lack of communication devices.
But schools are opening soon and in many parts of the world it has already opened. Hopefully the second wave of pandemic doesn't put the children through this again.
When Learning Is Really Remote: Students Climb Trees and Travel Miles for a Cell Signal - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/05/world/asia/coronavirus-indonesia-school-remote-learning.html .
Several other students have have killed themselves due to the lack of access to devices for attending remote education since this problem was posted - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/india-teenager-suicide-mobile-phone-screen-online-classes-b1371700.html , https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/lsr-students-suicide-prompts-introspection-among-delhi-universitys-premier-colleges-7046894/ .
It is gut wrenching to say the least on how this problem is being overlooked.
Addendum
Building a cheap computer could be the first thing which comes to the mind of a technically inclined person. But efforts regarding this have been underway for for several decades without widespread success in getting access to mobile computing to the underprivileged from One Laptop Per Child to Raspberry Pi.
This is a problem of extraordinary implications, requiring immediate attention, thank you for posting this Abishek.
I think creation of easier mechanism (like contact free door-to-door pick-up and delivery) for the donation of smartphones, computers from cities to rural areas can help reduce the pain for several children immediately.
I have found links to few Govt. and NGOs working on donating electronic devices for education,
Pune's Zilla Parishad (Govt.) which has tremendous track record for improving rural living conditions has started a donation program - https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/donate-smartphones-laptops-to-help-poor-students/article31997654.ece .
Used phone selling service - Cashify has put up a donation portal for customers to donate their smartphones - https://www.cashify.in/donate-for-education .
Another such, used phone selling platform - budli claims to donate a portion of every transaction to NGOs - https://budli.in/budli-charity (They seem to be doing this even before COVID-19).
Xiaomi seems to have partnered with Teach for India (NGO) - https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/xiaomi-joins-teach-for-india-to-donate-smartphones-worth-2-crore-11597306454757.html .
So, the primitive concept is -
Do you mean like a portable television with keyboard and two-way radio for text messaging?
ditto.
Hey Abishek, any updates to this device? I mean even in just idea.
Not personally, but Pine64 has proposed a device - https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=11772 which shares the features of the device I envisioned in a previous comment.
It uses WiFi/LoRAWAN for communication and since it runs Linux Mainline kernel connecting a DVB-T dongle wouldn't be an issue.
But, they seem to have removed the external display capability through USB-C alt mode which would have been immensely useful in building a laptop dock with such a device.