ICTworks by Inveneo

The Educational Technology Debate - an initiative of World Bank and Unesco to explore the impact of low-cost ICT devices on educational systems in the developing world is is coming to India with a live debate to be webcast around the world:

The live Educational Technology Debate will employ the classic Oxford-style debate process to engage noted experts in the field on the following motion:

The debate will be moderated by Dr Tim Kelly, Lead ICT Policy Specialist, infoDev/World Bank. He will introduce the topic and our discussants, who will respond with concise arguments, initially restricted to five minutes each, using only the power of their arguments to sway the audience. This will be followed by a discussion, initially among the panelist and then extended to the audience. To conclude, panelists will be given a further three minutes to summarise their arguments.

The goal of the panelists will be to persuade the audience to reach one of two conclusions:

1. FOR the motion: Most current investment is being wasted and needs a fundamental rethink
2. AGAINST the motion: Existing schemes are already bearing fruit and need only ongoing support

The audience will hold the last word. Participants will be invited to vote FOR, AGAINST or UNDECIDED on the motion both before and after the debate. The side that swings the most votes during the course of the debate will be declared the winner.

Here is an interesting video from the Barefoot College solar program in which they've trained illiterate women from African villages to be solar engineers for their communities in just 6 months:

Barefoot College makes four key points about their program model:

1. Work with the community to make sure they are willing to accept the woman as a technician before she travels to India for the training
2. Do not include "paper certified" technicians in the process, they cannot be seen as equals by the communities or the local technicians
3. No certificates - its the community that certifies technicians. Certificates only promote leaving communities for city jobs.
4. Partnership models work in rural areas - the government or donor buys the initial solar equipment and the community pays technician for ongoing maintenance

Using the numbers in the video of 60 women trained and 40 villages solar electrified for $1.4 million, or $35,000 per village, I would say that the Barefoot Engineers have a pretty cost effective program. I would only suggest that training the women in Africa, rather than flying them to India, might even generate a greater cost/benefit scale.