Baatchit: the power of economics to a successful community information center

Author : Steven Rudolph
Date added : 2002-04-15

Brief Project Background

In June of 2001, Jiva came to know that Media Lab Asia was forming in India, and that it would likely be accepting proposals for rural ICT projects. Having had previous grant experiences that were typical funding-type arrangements, we approached MLAsia with a similar perspective.

We were however surprised to find that MLAsia was operating under a very different set of criteria. It claimed not to be a funding agency, but rather, a catalyst. And although it said it would provide seed money for projects, it made no bones about the fact that projects would need to emphasize strongly sustainability, entrepreneurship, and cost recovery models.

Although we had earlier fantasized about the innovative uses of technology that we could bring to a village, we were forced to think more deeply about the viability of technology in the rural sector.

We began analyzing other initiatives, and were suprised how most seem to fail the main requirements that MLAsia was emphasizing so strongly. These projects, though they had achieved a good amount of media hype had still not managed to demonstrate real sustainability and cost recovery.

It seemed to us that one of the most critical requirements of a village was information access. However, the stereotypical “information kiosks”, where villagers come and get connected to the Internet, did not in reality provide useful information that would make a significant difference to villagers. Nor could we truly see the cost recovery in such services when we looked at things realistically.

At that stage, we realized that we needed to widen our scope of the elements we would need to address. This took us into discussions about not only IT, but also economics and sociology. Within a few brainstorming sessions, we began to develop a more comprehensive perspective of what our project should entail-and Baatchit was soon born. It was not just a project, but was indeed an entire philosophy for ICT development.

We began working in September of 2001, although our project wasn’t formally approved until November of 2001. We were too excited to wait. And even though the project was approved, it was months before we received funding and equipment. We didn’t care. We figured out ways to make due in the meantime, and used our own equipment.

The project is well underway now, and the results are encouraging. Many of us who had only planned to be working on the project part time, have found ourselves hopelessly addicted to it!

A vibrant village in India, some 40 Kms from the heart of the national capital New Delhi. There is a sense of exultation and eagerness on every worry lined (creased) face. The people are excitedly discussing a multitude of opportunities and the pros and cons of new rural schemes and policies.

It is hard to imagine that just over 4 months ago, ‘Tikawali’ was no different from the hundreds of villages dotting the Indian landscape. The villagers faced the same trepidation of a life that was rooted in addressing everyday problems of water, electricity and livelihood. Although numerous attempts had been made in the past to improve the conditions of the village, successive failures have led to a feeling of general complacency; this is the unfortunate hand that fate has dealt to them. Today, however, the village seems to have gotten a new lease of life. All roads in Tikawali lead to the Baatchit* Center-where one and all gather not just for local news and information but also for entertainment, exchange of ideas, and business advice.

*Baatchit means “chit-chat” in Hindi.

Before the introduction of communication devices such as radio and TV, the rural Indian communities depended extensively on the Chaupal (a central meeting place) as the primary means of information exchange, business talks, socialization, and entertainment. However, the proliferation of these technologies gradually caused disintegration within rural areas, where villagers began to spend more time at home using these tools as surrogates for the Chaupal.

While these gadgets heralded a great advancement for ruralites, they did not come without their problems. Television and radio programming was largely urban-oriented; whether it was news or entertainment, with content lacking a local relevance, especially with regard to information pertinent to sustaining livelihoods. Worse, as people spent less physical time together, social bonds also began to deteriorate. These consequences, combined with India’s limiting economic conditions, have resulted in a wide-scale socio-economic breakdown in the rural sector. Villagers have been stripped of both the know-how of making effective livings for themselves, as well as the conditions conducive to supporting development.

The Baatchit program seeks to empower and enfranchise villagers through a set of social, economic, and IT strategies. Further, it demonstrates that this multi-perspective approach is necessary if any information and communication technology (ICT) project is to succeed.

From the physical perspective, Baatchit has a center, 500 square feet, located in the middle of the village. It has a computer room and a TV hall. The computer room contains a PC laptop (with a webcamera) that runs an icon-based community software system. There is also a Mac laptop and video camera that villagers use to create their own video content in the form of news, informationals, entertainment, and advertisements. The TV hall has a 34” TV that plays the videos created by the video team.

From the economic perspective, villagers are encouraged to understand essential economic principles as they relate to the development of the village as a whole, as well as to the villagers independently. For this, the center is used as a discussion and learning ground.

From the IT perspective, the community software system is functioning as a means of collecting information about people, and providing a window for villagers to understand their village in a different light. They are finding out about schemes that are available and are beginning to take advantage of them. Through the video-message board module, users are able to asynchronously share their ideas with others, without having to read or write.

From the social perspective, villagers are interacting not only for emergencies (as has been the case previously). The gathering here are often for social or constructive purposes.

Results

Project Results
Although the project is in its nascent stages, we have already seen remarkable results on a number of fronts-even in areas that we had not intended. Here are a number of areas:

1. Participation: The increasingly active participation of villagers and their enthusiasm in taking ownership of the program. The regularity of visitors in the center is steadily increasing. The range of visitors is also increasing. Visitors include young and old, male and female, members of all castes, and so on. There are also visitors coming from nearby villages.
o Information Access: Information that villagers have requested (such as loan schemes, small business grants, etc.) has been collected, translated, and audio-recorded, and is now being accessed on a bulletin board, as well as on our community software system. A number of employment opportunities are beginning to come in regularly.
2. Information Technology: The Baatchit software has been developed, and thus far can be described in the following way:
a. It is an open source application framework for village-based communities. It has been written in php, and Flash, using MySQL as the database.
b. The software uses an iconic interface with audio cues that work with mouse rollovers.
c. There are modules for registering, making a complaint, video message boards, iconic searching, and iconic meta-tagging. The extensive use of icons facilitates information access for those who are illiterate.
d. The icons for the interface have been developed in partnership with the villagers. This ensures that the icons do not convey conflicting information.
3. The Baatchit system has been successfully tested with a standard Internet dialup line, as well as with a ground-breaking wireless technology called DakNET, a store and forward methodology that uses the 802.11b protocol. One wireless card is stored in the Baatchit kiosk. A mobile computer (in a van) passes by the Baatchit kiosk, and transfers information back and forth. The van then proceeds to a central office equipped with a wireless hub with high speed Internet access, where information is further exchanged.
4. A group of eight village youth has completed a video training course. The team is creating video content to produce a daily 20-minute news program that is aired on local cable TV. They have also produced a digital film on a story they scripted themselves about the unfairness of favoring of male children. The story depicts a young girl who wishes to get a formal education as her brother is receiving. She secretly learns by watching over his shoulder, and at the end of the movie proves to be quite competent in math-so much so, that she saves her father from being cheated by a local money lender who tries to trick him in his interest calculations. The group has also created a number of advertisements that are aired on Baatchit TV.
5. With the assistance of our designers and local artists, a number of shopkeepers have created a signboard template to promote a branding of the village as a quality marketplace.

Lessons

Our experience in carrying out Baatchit, our interaction with other groups carrying out ICT projects, and our extensive reading of research in this field has led us to a number of realizations. Among them, here are some of the most significant:

o When it comes to participatory development work, the organizations working with the villagers must “walk the participatory talk”. It is easy to say that we are being participatory in our approach, but it is another thing to spend that extra time in integrally involving villagers-and at every step. For instance, though we have graphics experts on our development team, we learned how wrong we were in so many cases with the icons we chose that we thought would be understandable. We chose a “water drop” to signify water, though the villagers indicated the symbol looked more like a drop of oil, and that a tubewell would be more appropriate. The magnifying glass, which we thought clearly signified “search”, was perceived as a badminton racket.

o Economic development of the village is critical for a rural ICT project to succeed. ICTs can only enhance existing economic development; they cannot create it where healthy, ground level economies do not exist. And further, for any development program to have real meaning vis-à-vis sustainability, it must develop through organic means that are grounded in local economic realities. By merely pumping in money from the outside to create technology infrastructure will not result in sustainability. For true sustainability to take place, there has to be a vision within the community towards the village’s economic development. This vision may be inspired from outside, however, the villagers must genuinely aspire to achieve that vision. The process of this economic development requires villagers to take on the role of learners, who must understand the basic economics related to their village, and who must be active participants of the economic development process. Lastly, your ability to demonstrate real economic successes with your program will be tantamount to the level of support you receive.

o Develop human systems first, then bring in the technology. ICTs will succeed when they support systems that already exist. If you don’t follow this rule, you will wind up speculating about the revolutionary ways your new-fangled technology will improve villagers’ lives, only to find out that nobody bothers to touch the equipment. An ICT project must identify these human systems first, and if required, build them with the participation of the villagers. Any proposed ICT plan must factor in time for these systems to develop if they do not exist or if they are not mature. At best you can bring in ICTs at an early stage, but their purpose will mostly be for acclimating the villagers to the technology. The real work an attention will focus on the human systems.

o What is good for the “urban goose” is good for the “rural gander”. In other words, we should not expect that the “have-nots” deserve anything less or anything different than the “haves”. For example, if we in cities do not “wear technology”, we should not expect villagers to do so. If we have markets, systems, and economies that are supported or facilitated by technology, we should not expect villagers would effectively use or benefit from those same technologies if similar markets, systems, and economies don’t exist in their communities. At the same time, we need to understand the realities that villagers face, and find ways of using technologies which are not romanticized, and which truly cater to their needs. We must also be brave enough to admit that sometimes a better road would go much further than an internet connection, though it might not appear nearly as cool or impressive to those who speak vociferously for the narrowing of the digital divide.

Development Impacts

We were surprised when a delegation of development specialists visited our project six months after its inception and told us that the work with Baatchit had yielded considerably better results than a similar ICT project that had invested millions of dollars to accomplish far less than what we proposed. They were mostly struck by the “stickiness” of our project. In other words, whatever activities we undertook all seem to take root and blossom. In some ways, it was hard to put our finger on exactly what it was that we were doing. It could be likened, I supposed, to a kind of “green thumb” that we acquired from a) a genuine interest in making a change in the village, b) a sensitivity toward the villagers needs and our true participatory approach, c) the strong emphasis on the economic aspects of the village and those related to the context of our project.

Examples of our development results:

1. Ten village youth have found employment in the local city through the center, which has teamed up with a city-based employment agency.
2. A group of village women have banded together to start their own sewing center based on a scheme they found out about at the center.
3. People are reposing their faith in the village economy. Twenty shopkeepers are now meeting regularly for the development of a village market that they plan will attract buyers from surrounding villages, and even from the city. A number of people have already agreed to open new shops.
4. People are beginning to learn and speak the language of economics, as well as business related concepts such as branding, quality in products, and marketing.
5. Villagers have voiced the need for a financial advisor who can help them manage their money, and establish them individually and collectively as being credit-worthy.
6. Groups are beginning to self-organize to address specific village problems such as sanitation and clean drinking water.
7. There is a demand coming from the community to create a longer news show, and for the news to be aired more frequently.
8. The video team has been able to attract a number of companies to make advertisements.

Seeing the results of Baatchit so far, we have great expectations for future developments. In fact, the project has transcended the original technology focus, and has expanded to the hopeful, considerable economic development of Tikawali village. Discussions now center around what the Village might look like after 10 years, and what things people would need to do to bring things to that level. Students were even invited to draw pictures of their "Dream Village".

We believe the methodology we've adopted is the power behind this project, and that it should be captured in the form of a fictional story or even a movie. For example, a village boy goes to the city and gets educated in business development. He comes back to his village only to see it in a shambles. He iterates his dream for the villagers to revive their village through these techniques. They resist at first, but eventually cooperate. He then teaches them the basics of economics and how to apply these concepts to their lives. He also brings in technology to show them how it can empower their efforts. In the end, the village prospers, and another village takes notice of what's happened.

Baatchit can serve as a living example of this, as it is in fact a true story. It is the story of Rishi Pal Chauhan, Director of Jiva Institute, who was born in a village nearby to Tikawali. He was born in poverty, and worked his way up to getting himself educated in the city of Faridabad as a mechanical engineer. He even moved to America and worked there for 7 years as a quality control manager. Wanting to do something for his country, Chauhan returned to India to found Jiva Institute, and work toward improving the conditions of his homeland. After 8 years of fighting the system and struggling endlessly to do social service, this opportunity of Media Lab Asia finally came through, and the results are now before you with Baatchit.

Project Information

Organisation : Jiva Institute
URL : http://www.jiva.org/baatchit
Total budget in US$ : $155,000
Country of activity: India [IN]

Are there any partners involved : yes
What is partners role?: Media Lab Asia. The project was conceived by and is being carried out by Jiva. MLAsia is providing guidance, funding, and research inputs. They will also help to promote and scale the project.

Contact Information

Steven Rudolph
steve@jiva.org

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