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![Page 1: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Rural Kiosks:Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities
Kentaro Toyama, PhDAssistant Managing Director
Microsoft Research India
eIndia ConferenceNew Delhi – August 1, 2007
![Page 2: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Outline
Introduction
Sustaining rural kiosks is very difficult!
Some kiosk types are more likely to endure.
Focus on end-to-end service.
![Page 3: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Outline
Introduction
Sustaining rural kiosks is very difficult!
Some kiosk types are more likely to endure.
Focus on end-to-end service.
![Page 4: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Definitions
“Rural kiosk”– Rural center with PC as the
focus of services– Socio-economic
improvement as goal
“Sustainable”– Self-sustaining, as a
business
(for the purposes of this presentation)
![Page 5: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Research MethodologyData sources:
• Ethnographic studies– 200+ site visits in India and Africa, over
2.5 years – ~550 hours of in-depth interviews, both
open-ended and structured • Interviews with kiosk agencies
– 20+ organizations– Small NGOs, start-up firms, MNCs,
state governments, academics• Kiosk surveys
– 300 kiosks, 2 years, once per quarter, 5 customers, 1 operator per kiosk, n-Logue and Drishtee [w/Kiri et al.]
– 1250 people, single survey, Kerala [w/Pal et al.]
• Results from software logging tool– 13 kiosks in Maharashtra
• Discussions with third-party observers• Literature in journals, books, web sites,
whitepapers
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Published
• Renee Kuriyan, Isha Ray, Kentaro Toyama. Integrating Social Development and Financial Sustainability: The Challenges of Rural Kiosks in Kerala. 1st International Conference on ICT and Development, UC Berkeley, May 2006
• Kiri, K., Menon, D., Rural kiosks on profit mode. I4D, June, 2006.• Nedevschi S, Sandhu JS, Pal J, Fonseca R, Toyama K, Bayesian Networks, a Statistical Approach to
Understanding ICT Adoption. International Conference on Information and Communication Technology and Development, Berkeley, 2006.
• Rangaswamy, N. and K. Toyama. (2005) Sociology of ICTs: the Myth of the Hybernating Village. HCI International 2005 (Las Vegas), July 2005.
• Rangaswamy, N. (2006) Social Entrepreneurship as Critical Agency: A study of Rural Internet kiosks. First International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (Berkeley), May 2006.
• Rangaswamy, N. (2006) Global Events Local Impacts: Rural Emerging Markets in India, Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference, Portland, EPIC.
• Toyama, K., K. Kiri, D. Menon, J. Pal, S. Sethi, J. Srinivasan. (2005) PC Kiosk Trends in Rural India. Policy Options and Models for Bridging Digital Divides (Tampere, Finland), April 2005.
• Toyama, K., K. Kiri, M. Ratan, R. Vedashree, R. Fernando. (2004) Rural kiosks in India. Microsoft Research Technical Report. http://research.microsoft.com
• Veeraraghavan, R., Singh, G., Pitti, B., Smith, G., Meyers, B and Toyama, K. Towards Accurate Measurement of Computer Usage in a Rural Kiosk. Third International Conference on Innovative applications of Information Technology for Developing World – Asian Applied Computing Conference, Nepal, December 2005.
• Veeraraghavan, R., Singh, G., Toyama, K. and Menon, D. (accepted poster, 2006). Kiosk Usage Measurement using a Software Logging Tool, IEEE/ACM Int’l Conf. on Information & Communication Technologies for Development, 2006.
In preparation…
• Renee Kuriyan. The state and rural ICT. In preparation.• Joyojeet Pal. A survey of Akshaya centres in Kerala. In preparation.• Rajesh Veeraraghavan, Balaji Parthasarathy, Ken Keniston. Computer kiosks in a sugar cane cooperative. In
preparation.• Savita Bailur. Community participation in rural ICT projects. In preparation.
Research Papers
![Page 7: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
Outline
Introduction
Sustaining rural kiosks is very difficult!
Some kiosk types are more likely to endure.
Focus on end-to-end service.
![Page 8: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Source: various published articles
Sustaining rural kiosks is very difficult!
![Page 9: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
Dhawan, Vivek (2004)Critical Success Factors for Rural ICT Projects in India
Masters Thesis, IIT-Bombay
Sustaining rural kiosks is very difficult!
![Page 10: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Business vs. Social Cause
• Achieving both ends is exceedingly difficult– Difficult even for other
businesses in wealthy communities
– Sends mixed messages to entrepreneur
– Branding issues
• Analogy:– Hard to run a five-star hotel
and an orphanage in the same building
Renee Kuriyan, Isha Ray, Kentaro Toyama (2006)Integrating Social Development and Financial Sustainability: The Challenges of Rural Kiosks in KeralaICTD2006
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Who Loses?
Kiosk Entrepreneur
• Potential harm– Debt, if kiosk doesn’t break even– Drain on other businesses– Loss in trust by community
• Between 1/3-2/3 of all for-profit kiosks fold each year
• Suicides from agriculture-related loans: “the survey indicated that most suicide victims had loans ranging from Rs.10,000 to Rs.1 lakh.” (http://www.hindu.com/2004/01/02/stories/2004010209620400.htm)
Source: Microsoft kiosk survey (Kiri, et al) and ethnography (Toyama, et al) [2004-2006]
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100,000 villages 6 villages/day x 365 days/year 46 yrs46 yrs
Scaling is even harder!
• ITC can lay claim to the most kiosks in rural India (around 6000-7000)
• At peak, ITC set up ~6 kiosks a day.
• It required a large dedicated staff.
• Value of the PC kiosks themselves (as opposed to their modernized market hubs) is not clear.
• There are ~20 companies in India that are the size of ITC
• Even if all of them worked together, and applied the same resources as ITC, it would still take 2.3 years to set up 100,000 kiosks.
• After seven years of dedicated efforts to set up many kiosks, India currently has ~15,000 kiosks total.
![Page 13: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
Dhawan, Vivek (2004)Critical Success Factors for Rural ICT Projects in India
Masters Thesis, IIT-Bombay
![Page 14: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
Outline
Introduction
Sustaining rural kiosks is very difficult!
Some kiosk types are more likely to endure.
Focus on end-to-end service.
![Page 15: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
Enduring Model? (1/4)
E-gov’t service outlet
– But, only if…• service is frequently and
widely needed, and
• All other options for service eliminated.
• Examples– Bhoomi
– Rural E-Seva
Renee KuriyanThe State and Rural ICT
(in preparation)
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Enduring Model? (2/4)
– Wealthier parents will pay for children’s education on computers
– Relatively lucrative for centre
• Examples– 1st-phase Akshaya; some 2nd-
phase Akshaya
– TARAhaat
– recent Drishtee
Computer-education centre
Joyojeet Pal, Renee Kuriyan, Kentaro ToyamaSite visits, surveys
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Enduring Model? (3/4)Internet café
– Usage is similar to ordinary Internet cafés
• Browsing (exam results, jobs, news)
• E-mail• Desktop publishing
– So far, not a systematic approach by any kiosk agency
– Cf., Sify, largest Internet café operator, runs 3500 cafes in top 150 cities
(Note, Internet cafés also tough.)
Veeraraghavan, R., Singh, G., Toyama, K. and Menon, D. (2006)Kiosk Usage Measurement using a Software Logging Tool
ICTD2006
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Enduring Model? (4/4)
– Primary a photo shop
– Services:• Prints• Photo touch-up• Wedding photo services
– Can be lucrative
• Examples– HP’s “photo backpacks”
– Otherwise, one-off instances of photo shops adding kiosk services
Computerized photo shops
Joyojeet Pal, Renee Kuriyan, Kentaro ToyamaSite visits, surveys
![Page 19: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
Outline
Introduction
Sustaining rural kiosks is very difficult!
Some kiosk types are more likely to endure.
Focus on end-to-end service.
![Page 20: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
Focus on End-to-End Service
– Is a human professional needed at rural site?
– Who provides the service on the other side?
– Is back-end computerized?
– What needs to be transported (other than bytes), and how is it transported?
– Etc.
Rural kiosk itself is not the challenge
Rural computing?
![Page 21: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
Summary
Introduction
Sustaining rural kiosks is very difficult!
Some kiosk types are more likely to endure.
Focus on end-to-end service.
![Page 22: Rural Kiosks: Real Challenges, Potential Opportunities Kentaro Toyama, PhD Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India eIndia Conference New Delhi.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649de45503460f94adbda1/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
Thank you!http://research.microsoft.com/research/tem/kiosks [email protected]