A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I was going through my entire video collection, watching (almost) everything once and then throwing it away. Tonight I watched a docu called "Hole In the Wall." It's about this Indian guy, Dr. Sugata Mitra, who got some old computers and had an engineer friend build a kiosk with a couple of the computers in it. He then plopped the kiosk down in the middle of an urban slum in India. Kids flocked to it--they had no education about the kiosk or the computers that were built into it, they just tought themselves and each other how the thing worked. All the guy and his staff did was stand around and watch the excitement as kids learned about the world they live in.
Soon, this program gets more funding and they are able to build more kiosks and put them in more areas around India, allowing for more poor kids to have access to the Internet.
There's a bit more to the story, but I don't recommend the docu--it seemed like it was shot by a high school video crew and has a giant section that follows the kiosk's creator to Sri Lanka where he meets with 2001 author Arthur C. Clarke. What does this have to do with the kiosks? Good question. There's a valid but still thin strand that connects them.
To Mitra, the computer kiosk is like the monolith. So-called primitive man met the monolith and was immediately enthralled with it. Equally so-called primitive children meet the computer kiosk and they are equally enthralled. I thought it was a very good comparison, but a whole segment dedicated to going and seeing Clarke in Sri Lanka seemed like a massive distraction from this wonderful story.
So, instead of checking out the documentary, check out their website at www.NIITHoleInTheWall.com. It tells you all about their project and even has instructions on how to sponsor them--although you might want to find out if trips to Sri Lanka so Mitra can play fanboy to Arthur C. Clarke are included in the budget.
Hey, I'm a fan of Clarke, too--but stick to the story, not the neat celeb who only tangentally inspired the project...
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