Intel Chairman Craig Barrett’s keynote speech yesterday was a marked departure from the usual electronics-show fare. Rather than talk about the “glitzy glitzy tech we see on the floor of CES,” Barrett focused on the company’s Small Things Challenge, which dares people to get off their butts and help out the less fortunate, and how technology can sustainably improve the lives of the billions of people in developing countries–”simple tech changing lives one step at a time.” He tossed out four examples of how this works in the real world:
1) My favorite project involved a school bus turned into a roving computer lab in Baramati, a village near Pune, India. The computer lab, which has a microwave Internet link and is powered by 12-volt batteries, drives around to different schools, where kids hop on and start learning, learning, learning. (Here’s a short documentary on the project.) The project is sustainably funded by parents who pay $3 per year to have their kids get on the bus. This awesome little idea has steadily grown, and now the’re looking to get 17 more buses.
Barrett said when he visited the town and asked one little girl what her favorite subject was, she said “Tuesday”–the day the bus came to her school. Cute!
