The Simputer

Simputer: a Computer for the Third World

The term "digital divide" refers to the issue of certain segments of society, notably the poor and poorly educated, having less access to the benefits of information technology. One Indian initiative aims to transform the digital divide by creating a computer optimised for the needs of the 3rd world -- that is, the poor and the poorly educated.

Information technology offers many useful benefits to the poor. Crop information and pricing, land ownership records, egovernment initiatives, public health surveys, and education are all proposed uses.

The Simputer design aims to be low-cost, and simple to use.

The hardware is based on a form factor and hardware set that is closer to PDA than to PC, with a target cost of about US$240. It operates on batteries, so can be used off-grid or when the power is out. It connects to a telephone line (or a cell phone) to access the internet. It contains two USB ports for connecting with accessories such as digital cameras.

The Simputer design includes "Chikki" memory cards. These are extremely low cost, and can store one user's data. This permits a village or a group to buy a Simputer CPU to share, with each buying their own "Chikki" card to store data.

The Simputer UI is also designed to be accessible. It supports many of the languages of India. Since many of its users are expected to be illiterate, it includes text-to-speech capability so that it can recite the contents of the screen. And the overall UI design is kept extremely simple, so that a
novice with a stylus will intuitively figure out how to use it.

The Simputer concept has been around since the turn of the 21st century. The first Simputer product, the Amida Simputer, was announced only in March 2004. Initial response is good, but it remains to be seen whether the Simputer will in fact succeed. Among its competitors is the cell phone, which is being deployed more and more places, and is getting a more and more capabilities.