Monday, December 12, 2005

The Jhai PC and Communication System

Go to the Jhai Computer website.

The Jhai PC and Communication System seeks to respond to expressed needs of poor people for telecommunications, business opportunities, and enhanced education. Jhai's business systems and way of doing development are seen as working together with new solid-state, low-wattage computers. The Jhai PC can be powered by any power source and uses a high-bandwidth wireless network. The Jhai Foundation reports that people from 80 countries have contacted its staff, and that the Foundation is moving forward with a "Proof of Concept". The system is designed for: "micro-lending accounting and accountability, microbusiness, small business, human rights, disaster relief, agricultural extension, remote health clinic communication and business functions, telemedicine, e-learning, distance learning, curriculum enhancement, vocational education, disabled special needs, technical education, women's empowerment, coffee and other agricultural co-operatives, e-government, human network building, and ecological protection."

Lee Thorn, the Chair of the Jhai Foundation recently wrote:
The Center for Development of Advanced Computing (government of India) in cooperation with Jhai, is planning to develop and engineer a PC for India that can be produced in large volume, along the broad lines of the Jhai PC, with a target selling price of $200, including Operating System and basic application software suite in English and Indian languages. The turn-around is quite short. Mission 2007, of which Jhai is a member, has garnered the support of the Indian government, the private sector, professional organizations and civil society organizations to undertake an information and communication technology (ICT) roll out that will positively effect the economic well-being of people in 600,000 villages. MS Swaminathan Research Foundation and Datamation Foundation Trust with Jhai's help, will test the advanced socio-economic development systems of these two world famous ICT and development organizations and the new Indian PC in early 2006 to demonstrate appropriate training, connectivity choice, content decision-making, capacity building and coordination services that can used as one template for Mission 2007 efforts as it
>develops Knowledge Centres country-wide.

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