The Challenges of Development-through-Entrepreneurship: Research on Rural Computer Kiosks in India

Опубликовано 7 сентября 2016, 16:42

In this presentation, I will be talking about my PhD research in India over the last 2 years on rural computer kiosks as an intern with Microsoft Research India. I have taken an ethnographic approach to understanding the challenges of implementing information and communication technology (ICT) projects for rural development, specifically with kiosks. I have conducted over 200 open-ended interviews and used participant observation methods as part of this research. This included interviewing rural households (wage laborers, housewives, students, users and non users of kiosks); government actors at state and central government levels; private sector actors (IT Companies, CEOs of companies, NASSCOM president); and small scale entrepreneurs who implement these projects. It also included spending time with entrepreneurs in their daily routines and in their work at the kiosks. This presentation examines computer-service kiosk projects in two states in India (Kerala and Andhra Pradesh). As with many ICT for development initiatives, kiosk projects often have goals of both social development through access to computers and financial viability through market-driven entrepreneurship. Using ethnographic methods, this research uncovers some of the practices and contradictions of this development-through-entrepreneurship model. It finds that tensions within the state and amongst entrepreneurs, and perceptions of public versus private amongst consumers, make it difficult to meet the twin goals of commercial profitability and social development.