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Monday, November 04, 2002

Jason Margolis, Special to the Post-Gazette

KUPPAM, India -- Twenty Indian farmers crowd forward, straining their necks to get a better glimpse of the talking box. Outside, 40 more from nearby villages loiter and wait for their chance.

"I've never worked on a computer before; I've seen it," says M. Jayappa, a 45-year-old rice grower who lives in southern India's Kuppam district.

Like many in Kuppam, Jayappa was lured into town for the day to see a computer demonstration set up by Hewlett-Packard.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based computer giant is bringing 21st century technology straight from Silicon Valley to impoverished rural India as part of a three-year deal with the state government of Andhra Pradesh. H-P is investing $1 million in the venture, which is still in its first few months of development.

Western companies have helped introduce cyberspace to cities throughout the developing world, but H-P appears to be the first to attempt wiring a large group of rural villages into a single network, much like a modern office building.

In some parts of Kuppam -- a collection of some 100 villages and 300,000 people -- the literacy rate is less than 10 percent. Thirty percent of the people live below the poverty line, lacking basic healthcare and schooling. Many live in simple huts with corrugated-metal or palm-leaf roofs.

H-P is aiming to do more than simply deliver Internet access. It hopes to link farmers to wider markets, a larger choice of suppliers and vital crop information -- in addition to health care advice, educational opportunities and the latest news.

"I think it will be useful," says Jayappa. "As a farmer, I need to know the rates for my crops in different locations, the seed availability, and if my crop has diseases."

H-P is expecting other villagers to share Jayappa's optimism -- and his patience in learning how to use the computer. Most of the farmers in Kuppam can't read, can't write, and certainly can't type.

That's why H-P Labs in Bangalore, India's high-tech heartland, has developed software that recognizes Telugu, the local language.

At the demonstration in Kuppam, villagers asked the computer questions. A futuristic woman's voice emanated from the computer, communicating the latest news in Telugu.

But the software still has glitches, said Vijaya Raghavan, a project coordinator for H-P in India. "The challenges are different dialects and accents. The computer still needs to learn these."

Beyond the technological details, the true challenge may be getting farmers to understand exactly how and why a computer can help them.

At present, a few Internet kiosks, independent of the H-P project, are available in the Kuppam district. Most users are young men who can read and have some familiarity with the computer. Many use the computers to play games or look at online pornography.

This experience makes some wonder if the H-P project will actually reach those who need it most. And with so many basic needs in Kuppam unmet, arguments abound on how the state should invest its money.

"There are so many theories as to whether you should worry about education and healthcare first and the economy later," said Srinivas Sukumar, H-P's project director in Palo Alto. "We believe that we should look at economic growth of the community, and at the same time not ignore some of the social indices."

With the information technology space already so crowded, H-P is hoping to be the first to tap the vast rural Third World market, which has been largely ignored by tech companies. The company hopes ultimately to reap a profit by replicating the Kuppam business model in other developing nations. H-P is investigating similar projects in South Africa and Latin America.

H-P chose southern India as a test site because of strong support from the state government of Andhra Pradesh, which selected Kuppam to test whether a variety of technologies might improve conditions in the poorest parts of India. The Andhra Pradesh government has also brought an Israeli company to Kuppam to implement modern irrigation techniques and a Seattle-based non-government organization to train young workers in business principles.

A. Sharat, the government officer in Kuppam who is overseeing the new initiatives, brims with pride when he talks about the transformation of the region.

"All around, previously nothing was here," Sharat said, as he rattled off a stream of statistics to show how life has improved since Kuppam was selected as the model technology site in 1994. There are better medical treatment, schools, agriculture, and access to drinking water. Eight years ago, he said, only 27 percent of residents had clean drinking water. Now, the figure is 99 percent.

Kuppam is ready to take the next step, Sharat said, by leaping into the brave new world of computers and cyberspace. "It is going to succeed, there is no doubt."

Jason Margolis is a free-lance journalist based in San Francisco. He can be reached at JMargo2@aol.com.