In recent decades, the economic value of technology has been increasingly questioned in the light of growing concerns about its negative environmental impacts which can become quite huge, sometimes to the extent of threatening the life-support systems of the planet. Ozone-depleting substances are threatening the UV-intercepting shield in the stratosphere and fossil fuels are changing the climate all around. And these impacts are not new. Jared Diamond’s recent book Collapse documents a wide variety of civilizations that destroyed themselves by undermining their resource base and relying too heavily and single-mindedly on technology.

Throughout history, however, it was the social impacts that generally predominated the side-effects of technology. The wheel, lever, stirrup, gunpowder, steam engine, electricity, automobile — all became sources of power in society, first mechanical, then economic and then political, in the hands of a few to dominate the many. Many of these technologies could not be operated economically without extremely low cost labors, which was often supplied by unpaid slaves or lowly paid soldiers. Thus resulted the mega projects, wars and conquests over the centuries: the pyramids, the castles and palaces, temples and roads, and empires that civilizations have and continue to be addicted to.

Almost every technology is entropic in nature. This means that it leads in the long run to zero sum outcomes. Whenever there are heavy winners, there have similarly got to be some heavy losers or, more likely, many ordinary losers. Most technology has the in-built capacity, the DNA, to create disparity. Technologies have now created vast improvements in the lives of people, but many have also created very large inequities.

Information technology (IT) is one of the few technologies in history that has much to offer not only to the rich and powerful but also to the marginalized and the weak. Information – and, even more so, knowledge – is negentropic in nature, which means that the more of it is shared, the more there is to share. The value of networks – here the knowledge community – grows exponentially with the size of the network. So, greater the number of people who know, the more valuable and less expensive it is for each one to know. And, further, because modern IT is subject to Moore’s Law, which describes the rapid decline in the costs of computing and communication power, its costs are coming down even more rapidly. For the first time, more than half the world’s population is able to take advantage of a technology to actually climb up the economic, social and political ladder.

Connectivity is now reaching out in ever-wider circles and getting to places never before connected to the mainstream economy. Various services are now being offered in villages that were until quite recently the prerogative of metropolises and big cities. More and more youth are now connected to the wider world through a local, affordable cyber kiosk.

Yet, there are large hurdles to be jumped before everyone can truly enter the Internet age. First, content and services need to be developed that are of true relevance to the poor and the excluded. Second, real accesses have to be created through local services that cater to the needs of those who cannot afford their own computers or connections. And third, the downstream services (fulfillment) must be available, since the Internet is only a means of getting what one actually wants, and not an end in itself.

To do this in an economy where the cost structures are determined by the global economy (five figure monthly salaries, for example) and the revenues are constrained by the purchasing power of the local villager (whose disposable income barely reaches three digits) is not easy. New kinds of solutions, products and financing systems are needed if the benefits of the new technologies are to reach everyone. This is what TARAhaat has set out to do and plans to achieve during 2008. q

Dr. Ashok Khosla
akhosla@devalt.org