Bridging a widening digital divide is a tough challenge for India, where gains from the booming economy that is growing 8 percent annually have mostly accrued to the urban middle class.
Intel Corp chairman Craig Barrett sees a part of the remedy lying in WiMAX technology, a wireless capability that provides Internet connectivity without requiring a computer to be tethered to a cable.
"India has the opportunity to be a leading commercial implementer in WiMAX capabilities," Barrett said as he toured the remote town of Baramati in western India on Thursday to explore how the US chipmaker could help in advancing efforts to empower unemployed youth and farmers with the help of information technology.
Intel has been trying to drive the adoption of WiMAX. Like its wireless cousin Wi-Fi, WiMAX delivers high-speed connections but the coverage range can stretch for kilometers.
"The conditions are absolutely ripe here in terms of the lack of rural infrastructure and what WiMAX could do," Barrett told a news conference in Baramati, a town known for innovative adoption of new technologies.
His comments, broadcast over the Internet, came after a tour of the town that took him to a local hospital using WiMAX to access the Internet for diagnostic work and a school that is implementing new technology-driven learning tools.
Baramati has been adopted by Intel under its World Ahead Program that seeks to expedite access to technology and education for people in the world's poorer nations.
He also visited farmers in outlying villages to see how information technology could be used to improve their living standards.
More than two-thirds of India's 1 billion plus people live in villages, depending mostly on agriculture. Much of rural India lacks adequate infrastructure such as good roads, electricity supplies and telephone facilities to help people improve productivity and living standards.
Farmers often lack vital information such as weather, new seeds and crop prices. Access to the Internet could help.
"The beauty of [WiMAX] is it is relatively inexpensive and relatively simple," Barrett said. "It is ideal for rural environment where there is limited infrastructure in place."
Intel is spending about US$1 billion in promoting WiMAX, he said. Trials are underway in about 200 places across the world and some 40 to 50 companies are engaged in commercial implementation, he said.
Yesterday, Barrett traveled to New Delhi, India's capital, to meet with government and business leaders.
Intel plans to invest US$1.1 billion over a five-year period ending in 2010 to expand its operations in India.
Intel said it has been successful in working with local companies to bring cheaper computers to the country's rural poor, and the company will donate 10,000 personal computers to provincial governments and teacher-training centers in the next two years.
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
FORCED LABOR: A US court listed three Taiwanese and nine firms based in Taiwan in its indictment, with eight of the companies registered at the same address Nine companies registered in Taiwan, as well as three Taiwanese, on Tuesday were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) as a result of a US federal court indictment. The indictment unsealed at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said that Chen Zhi (陳志), a dual Cambodian-British national, is being indicted for fraud conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding Group’s forced-labor scam camps in Cambodia. At its peak, the company allegedly made US$30 million per day, court documents showed. The US government has seized Chen’s noncustodial wallet, which contains
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
RSS