Computing for Social Inclusion in Brazil: A Study of the CDI and
other initiatives∗
Claudio Ferraz
Rodrigo Fonseca
Joyojeet Pal
Manisha Shah
University of California, Berkeley
December 2004
Abstract
This work examines projects that provide shared computer access and training for poor communities in Brazil. The research focuses on the Committee for Democracy in Information Technology
(CDI), a 10-year old project that has been conducting computing training courses in low-income
urban and rural areas. The CDI creates schools in communities by donating computing technology,
curriculum, and training methodology, based on proposals from the communities themselves.
At the strategic level, we compare CDI to other groups that choose the communities they work in,
to groups that have other funding sources, and finally contrast CDI with groups that are profit driven.
Such groups fall into two categories - first those that emphasize primarily on teaching, second those
that emphasize on internet access. Despite the difference between the primary goals of the two
∗
Financial support for this project was provided by the UNIDO/UC Berkeley technology development grant. We would
specially like to thank our faculty advisor, prof. Eric Brewer, for encouragement, helpful discussions, and support. We are
grateful to the CDI director Rodrigo Baggio and the team in CDI-Rio for all the help in undertaking this project. Also, we would
like to thank Heirich Kuhne and Marco Figueiredo, from Gemas da Terra, Wagner Meira Jr., from UFMG, and Beatriz Tibiriçá
and the São Paulo Telecentros team for hosting our visits to these projects. We thank Luis Eduardo Guedes and his team
at ISER for the superb field work, and students and managers of the schools visited for their patience and help in answering
questions. We thank Andrew Isaacs, Kristiana Raube, Fred Finan, Paul Gertler, and Bernardo Sorj for preliminary discussions
and suggestions.
1
groups, the comparison is useful since these projects are both work in the same area - of promoting
computing as a means of socio-economic development in poor neighborhoods.
Our main data source is a survey undertaken with 500 individuals in 14 favelas of Rio de Janeiro.
Half of these people took courses in CDI, and half did not. Questions asked assessed their demographic characteristics, computer ability, employment situations, and perceptions about their community and citizenship. The quantitative survey data was coupled with qualitative inquiries, including
three focus groups, data about the different CDI schools in Rio, and conversations with key CDI staff.
To help compare CDI with other initiatives, we also did field visits to other computing access projects,
including the “Gemas da Terra” project in Minas Gerais, and the “Telecentros” project in São Paulo.
The analysis also examines the facilities used by the computer training schools, to document
best practices in cost effective infrastructure, looking especially at ways of optimizing the thin client
architecture for shared computing. Finally, a study of the social interactions surrounding the community telecenters helps determine some of the key factor that play an organizational role in making
these projects successful.
1
Intoduction
As technology and information systems become more important in labor markets and political pro-
cesses, the digital divide between the rich and poor may exacerbate the gap in their economic and
political opportunities. The rise in inequality in several developing countries have been associated with
skill biased technical change which is likely to hurt the poor by reducing their employment opportunities.
Many see the extension of computer access and knowledge to poor households in developing countries
as one solution to decrease economic and political inequality. Computers have the potential to improve
employment opportunities and to increase the voice of individuals by providing them with skills and
access to information through the Internet that would be nonexistent otherwise. With this motivation, a
2
large number of projects have emerged around the developing world in the past decade, varying from
computer kiosks in rural India to Computer schools in slums of Latin America.
Computers have been finding their way into rural areas and urban slums marginally faster than the
cameras following them. Spurred partly by a vigorous media fascination in the area, computing projects
for the underserved sprout daily in the most forsaken neighborhoods the world over. Yet, opinions on
whether computers can improve the quality of lives of underserved populations are sharply diverse.
Skeptical development economists point out the lack of tangible economic evidence of wealth creation
from many of the technology projects in underdeveloped areas. In contrast, technologists tend to have
visions of a world that is made more equitable by access to computing technology. Equally divided
on both sides are grassroots organizations, with plenty of anecdotes of technology changing individual
lives, but little statistical data to support larger community-level change.
Understanding the impacts of providing computer skills and access to poor households is an important task. Despite the general perception that improving the skills of the poor would increase their
probability of employment and upgrade the quality of their employment position, and the large number
of projects, there exists little evidence on the impact of computer knowledge and use on the opportunities and empowerment of poor individuals. Computer skills may not help the very poor because the type
of jobs they are able to obtain do not demand computer skills. Alternatively, poorer households may be
able to obtain higher quality jobs once they have computer skills allowing them higher earnings. Thus,
the actual effect can only be determined with a careful empirical evaluation. Furthermore, it is possible
to look for job creation, and wealth generation in communities arising out of access to computing, but
the more qualitative questions are difficult to measure. What for instance, does it mean to be more
socially included, and how can one measure it?
In this paper we take two complimentary approaches to look into this problem, both quantitative and
3
qualitative. It is an initial study of such impacts. We focus on projects that provide computer access
and training to poor household in Brazil, through an in-depth study of the users of the CDI project –
Committee for Democracy in Information Technology – in Rio de Janeiro, as well as a comparative,
organization level study of the São Paulo Telecentros project and the rural telecenter network of Gemas
da Terra. In CDI, we look at the reach of the schools in the communities they are inserted, and at the
computing skills of the persons who did and did not take CDI courses. Across the organizations, we
had the opportunity to identify good and bad practices, and here we focus on aspects related to the use
of technology, what common pitfalls, difficulties, and recommendations are.
The extensive use of the term “computer literacy” in the IT for Development discourse has important
implications. The attachment of “literacy” to computing implies, in essence, the disempowering potential
of being “computing illiterate.” In a world moving gradually towards service sector predominance, and in
a service sector increasingly demanding of computing proficiency as a prerequisite for its participants,
not being able to use computers has exclusionary potential in both the job market as well as in social
participation.
The academic consciousness of the digital divide is coupled with the interest of corporate strategy
thinkers in the “bottom of the pyramid” argument (Prahalad, 2004), which suggests that following the
top economic tiers of society, corporations need to start targeting markets lower down the economic
ladders. Not surprisingly, among the top contributors to the kinds of projects that bring computers to
the underprivileged are technology companies, often cash-rich, and looking for areas to spend their
philanthropy budgets in.
These are important ideas that help us understand what it is that drives and sustains the projects
studied here like CDI, Telecentros, and Gemas da Terra (GDT). Key recurrent themes across these
projects in Brazil are social inclusion, access to opportunities, and democracy. The vision statements
4
of such organizations are a useful in understanding the “computers for development” movement in
Brazil, since there are clearly common threads on what they feel technology can do for the poorest of
the poor. CDI refers to its schools as “IT and Civic Participation Schools” which work towards “mobilizing excluded segments of society and helping to transform their reality.”1 The prefecture of São Paulo,
when describing Telecentros, refers to the initiative as part of a “digital inclusion plan that aimed to
increase access to information.”2 Similarly, GDT, in its justification document (GDT, 2003), states that
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT’s) “contribute to overcoming barriers of social, economic, and geographic isolation, to increased access to information and education, to the increased
popular participation in the decision processes.” The substantial reiteration of social and behavioral
goals underplays the economic goals of the project, thus also underplaying the quantifiability of project
impacts.
In the following section, we provide some background on Brazil relevant to the development of digital
inclusion projects. In Section 3, we present short a description of the CDI project, our study design and
results from the survey we did with CDI in Rio. Section 4 elaborates on the use of technology by the
different organizations, noting common difficulties and future directions. We present our conclusions in
Section 5. Finally, in the Appendix, we present a descriptive comparison of CDI with the two main other
projects we visited, São Paulo Telecentros and the Gemas da Terra project.
1
CDI- Mission Vision and Values http://www.cdi.org.br/inst/eng/eng_f_inst.htm, last accessed October
31, 2004
2
Bacoccina, Denise, Brazil bets on Linux cybercafés http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3250876.
stm, BBC News, December 2, 2003.
5
2
The Brazilian Landscape
There is a sizeable mass of projects that provide poorer populations with access to Information and
Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Latin America, Brazil has been at the forefront of this movement
with many free or subsidized computer access projects across its vast landscape. In Table 1 we list
some macro level statistics about the country, including some demographics, wealth and wealth distribution, and some indicators of the penetration of ICTs. A country of socio-economic extremes, Brazil
has among the world’s highest concentrations of wealth, 6th from the bottom in global Gini coefficient
comparisons in 2003 according to UNDP’s Human Development Report (Fukuda-Parr, 2003). It is believed that this income disparity is reflected to an even greater intensity in the area of access to ICTs.
According to the Digital Inclusion Map (Neri, 2003), a study by CDI, USAid, and Fundação Getulio
Vargas in 2003, 72% of homes with access to computers belonged to the richest 20% of Brazilian
households, while 3.5% of these belonged to the poorest 40% households.
This project involved field work in Brazil, where the authors were in contact, at different levels, with
5 different projects for “digital inclusion”. In Rio de Janeiro, we did an extensive survey with users
and non users of CDI, and also visited the Estação do Futuro project, associated with the NGO Viva
Favela. While both are NGO based projects, they have some important differences, as we shall see. In
São Paulo, we visited the Telecentros project, a municipal government initiative to install telecenters in
some of the poorest areas of the city. Then, in the state of Minas Gerais we visited 4 rural telecenters of
the Gemas da Terra network, and, in Belo Horizonte, visited a project by the Universidade Federal de
Minas Gerais (UFMG) and the Secretary of Education of the state to put computers in the state’s public
schools. The choice of these projects, while not statistically representative of the vast landscape of ICT
for development projects in the country, shows interesting variations in sources of funding, location, and
6
form of operation. In the Appendix we compare these projects more closely.
Sharing the aforementioned perceptions and reasons for providing ICTs – social inclusion, access
to opportunities, and democracy – governments at different levels, universities, and the private and
third sectors, together with community associations and schools have been working together in the
implementation of several projects. There have been a number of workshops and meetings around the
theme, and the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community is particularly involved.3 The digital
inclusion movement in Brazil began gaining traction in the mid-90s. CDI began its operations in 1994.
A recent book (Dias, 2003) documents over 50 such projects all over the country, distributed among
public and private sector projects. The book defines digital inclusion projects as those which provide
“access to information technology and to the Internet, applied to the solution of social problems”. There
are several aspects and dimensions over which the projects differ. Some are established and operated
entirely on public funds, while others have a private-public partnership, and yet others are run entirely
by NGOs or even corporate entities. Many projects are associated with public schools. People from
the communities generally form the staff and take decision making roles in the local instances of the
projects. In terms of technology, one can find projects using new or donated, used computers, and in
the area of software, most of the newer projects tend to be using free and open source software entirely,
although some important projects, such as the CDI, run Windows.
The proactive involvement by government technocrats has galvanized a general consciousness
about these issues, and provided the grounding for the technical infrastructure and service delivery.
Many NGOs and organizations have developed methodologies and accumulated expertise from smaller
scale projects, and can contribute to a better use of public and private resources. An interesting observation (Dias, 2003) is that government led projects generally have a larger scale and more repercussion,
3
During our visit, for example, we had the opportunity to participate in two such workshops.
7
while the projects led by the private and third sectors are excellent for testing out different models of
operation. The experience by the latter can also be fundamental in shaping public policies and investments, and projects that are not entirely government led and funded can survive discontinuities
brought by changes in the government. Brazil is in an advantageous position in this arena, in that there
are enduring projects by these NGO’s and the private sector that have accumulated know-how and
community penetration. The government is also willing to move forward in this area, judging solely by
the recent actions and programs, and by the current discourse, and sees many of the infrastructural
issues involved as a matter of providing a public good to society. For current and future projects to gain
scalability, long term sustainability, and really reach a large fraction of the population, it is the major
requirement that all these sectors of the society work together, leveraging eachother’s advantages.
3
Committee for Democracy in Information Technology – CDI
Here we describe the methodology and results of the study we performed with the Committee
for Democracy in Information Technology (abbreviated CDI in Portuguese). We concentrated on the
specific instances of CDI schools located in uban slums, or favelas, in the city of Rio de Janeiro. We
start with some background on Rio de Janeiro and on the CDI project.
Urban poverty is pervasive in the city of Rio de Janeiro. There are approximately 513 slums in the
city where more than one million individuals live. The favelas are generally characterized by precarious
infrastructure conditions and in several locations, they do not have access to a large array of public services such as water, sanitation and garbage collection. Nonetheless they are communities composed
of “working-class wards with finely stratified webs of ties to industry and to the wealthy districts for which
they supply household service labor" (Wacquant, 2004).
8
Most favelas in Rio are subjected to violence due to drug trafficking and police. The youth is one
of the most affected age groups. Due to the lack of employment opportunities, they join drug trafficking
schemes (Zaluar, 2000). In political terms, clientelism is pervasive and the political process does not
allow individuals to express their citizenship rights. In this institutional context, CDI, a non-governmental
organization, was founded in 1994 by Rodrigo Baggio to increase voice and income opportunities of
favela residents. The aim was to promote the social inclusion using Information and Communication
Technologies as a means to help poor individuals become aware of their rights as citizens to participate
fully in society. The project consists in reaching poor communities and opening schools that could teach
computer skills and use such training to improve civic participation.
The CDI aimed at implementing computer schools through a community initiated project strategy.
Individual communities have to submit a proposal, arrange for a school location, and hire the manager
and instructors. The CDI is responsible for training the instructors and for obtaining the hardware
and software used in the local center. Schools are only built in communities that have a civil society
organization that can manage the project. On top of that, they have to state the reasons why they
want to teach information technology and how they will use the school to improve livelihood in the
community. Students usually live in the community and there is a fee paid per month of approximately
R$18 ($6). If the person cannot pay the fee, it can be waived for a period of time, but in order to keep
the project sustainable, students are strongly encouraged to pay at least part of the fee. The courses
are thought in three modules: basic computer skills and Microsoft Windows, Word, and Powerpoint.
The courses teach computer skills directing students to use these skills in improving some aspect of
life in the community. Such projects could be the creation of a local newsletter, a presentation made for
the community on a relevant topic, or the creation of a community web page.
The computer centers have to be self-sustainable since there is no cash transfer from the CDI
9
main office to the computer centers. Hence, the computer centers are encouraged to seek funds in
alternative ways by making arrangements with small businesses in the favelas, in the neighborhood
or by selling services such as typing curriculums, letters and other computer related services for the
residents of the favela. Since the first CDI school opened in Morro Dona Marta, Rio de Janeiro, in 1995,
the project grew fast. By December 2003, eight years after the opening of the first school in Rio de
Janeiro, CDI had 833 schools in 11 countries and more than 501,000 people had received training in
these schools.4
3.1
The Sampling Procedure
From July to August 2004, we visited 14 CDI schools in different favelas in Rio de Janeiro. We ac-
companied CDI managers in their monthly interviews and had informal conversations with the teachers
and students. To gather detailed data on CDI users and a comparison group of non-users, a survey
was administered in these 14 favelas. We selected 500 individuals with the sample distributed across
favelas based on the weight that each community had on the 2000 Rio de Janeiro population census.
Inside each community, we interviewed CDI ex-students and persons that were never students in the
CDI school. Due to the relative small number of CDI participants in several communities, a random
sample would not allow us to compare users and non-users. Thus, we designed a stratified sample that
matched a non-user for every CDI-user. Hence we would end up with 250 persons that took a course in
the CDI school and 250 that did not take the course. The field work was complemented with interviews
with the CDI staff, computer schools managers, teachers, and a focus group with users, non-users and
project managers.
The data from the two samples were collected differently. In a main street of each favela, enumer4
Source: CDI.
10
ators stopped people randomly and asked if the person had ever taken a computer course at the CDI
school. If the person said yes, then the interview was conducted. To match this interview, enumerator
looked for a person that never took a CDI course. In some communities, the enumerators encountered
some difficulties applying this methodology and the sampling strategy had to be changed. The first
problem occurred in the communities of Sapucaia, in Ilha do Governador, where the CDI coordinator
advised us not to conduct the work due to the high level of instability caused by community violence.
Confrontation between police officers and bandits was very common which compromised the security
of the researchers. Another problem took place in the Morro da Coroa. In this community, the coordinator informed us that the teachers abandoned the course in November 2003, and since then no classes
were held. After verifying the problems mentioned above, a redistribution of the sample took place as
well as a redefinition of the random process of interviews in some communities. In the communities
of Chapéu Mangueira, Morro do Chacrinha, Morro do Urubú, Morro dos Macacos, Parque Erédia de
Sá, Morro da Pedreira, Vila Canoas and Vila Carioca, the process described earlier continued to be
executed exactly as planned. However, in the communities of Vila do João, Vila Vintém, Vila Cruzeiro
and Vila Rica of Irajá, the low probability of encountering users of the CDI, observed in the first 3 days
of work, led us to change the strategy. In this period, only two interviews were conducted with users in
the communities of Vila Rica do Iraja and Vila Vintém and none in Vila Cruzeiro and Vila do João. We
decided to conduct the interviews drawing randomly from the CDI ex-students listing. Once a person
was chosen, a phone call was made to schedule the interview, which was either conducted at the house
of the user, or in the CDI school.
11
3.2
Descriptive Statistics
The sample of individuals who who responded to the questionnaire is described in Table 2. The
descriptive statistics are broken down by CDI user and non-users. In terms of race, religion, civil status,
and employment characteristics, the respondents are fairly similar regardless of their CDI status. Interestingly, a similar percentage of CDI users and non-users own computers (approximately ten percent)
and have internet access at home (approximately seven percent). In addition, they look fairly similar in
terms of income and assets. The main difference between these two groups is the educational status
and average years of education. Sixty-seven percent of the CDI users are currently students while only
fifty-two percent of the non-CDI individuals are students. CDI users have an average of 7.4 years of
schooling versus an average of 6.6 years for non users. In all other ways, we do not note any observable
differences between the two groups.
3.3
Results
3.3.1
Community Level Problems
Individuals were asked to rank the three biggest problems in their communities before and after the
CDI came. These results are reported in Table 3 for CDI users and Table 4 for and non-users. Table 3
indicates that for CDI users, the two biggest problems pre-CDI were violence at twenty-two percent
and lack of sanitation and sewage at sixteen percent. The same problems remain the most important
after the CDI enters the community; however the relative importance of the categories changes quite
a bit. Violence is now reported by forty-five percent of the interviewees as the biggest problem, with
sanitation as the second biggest problem at only nine percent.
We see similar results for non-CDI users in Table 4. Pre-CDI, sanitation and violence are the biggest
12
problems in the community at fairly similar reported percentages—seventeen and twenty percent. PostCDI, violence becomes the biggest and most prominent problem within the community at thirty-three
percent, while sanitation and sewage move to only ten percent of the reported biggest problems. Violence is clearly a tremendous problem in all the communities where we interviewed. From these tables
it is not possible to isolate an effect that CDI has brought to the communities.
3.3.2
CDI School Use
In Table 5 we present information on the knowledge and use of the CDI school. Out of the 504
individuals interviewed, 307 have used a computer at least once. A large proportion of individuals have
heard about it (66 percent), although only 50 percent have ever used the CDI school. The outreach of
the CDI is not high in the communities. Only 28 percent of respondents were familiar with a campaign
or action taken by the CDI, while only 13 had ever participated in one. From the focus groups and visits
we made to different CDI communities, we observed a wide variability in the reach of the CDI schools
within the communities, with some being much more widely known and successful than others.
Table 6 shows the reasons that led people to go to the CDI school in their community. We can
see that the overwhelming majority of the users went there to take courses, and that other services,
such as Internet, typing, and printing, are much less cited as reasons.5 As we see in the next section,
this has implications in what technological solutions are viable to be used in community telecenters, as
users want to be able to learn full featured applications, gaining skills for the job market. These results
are also reflective of the way CDI is marketed, naming their centers as ‘schools’, and advertising the
courses.
5
Note that in users were allowed multiple responses to this question, and this explains the values adding up to more than
100%.
13
3.3.3
Computer usage patterns and skills
In terms of computer skills, we asked the respondents whether they were able to perform a number
of tasks related to computers, with varying degrees of difficulty. In Figure 1(a) we show the responses by
the 370 persons who had ever used a computer. The figure also separates these persons in two groups,
those who did and those who did not take courses at the CDI. We observe that the percentage of those
who claim to be able to perform all tasks is higher among CDI users for all tasks, and that the difference
varies from task to task. In the graph we order the tasks according to increasing perceived difficulty.
We have evidence that at least one of the tasks, ‘Write a program to print your name’ was largely
misunderstood by the interviewees, since a large fraction of the users claimed to be able to do it while,
contradictorily, a very small fraction of the users admitted to using a programming language. In terms
of the differences in percentage, tasks related to what is taught at the CDI (basic operating system,
word processing, presentation, and, occasionally spreadsheets) seem to have a larger difference (such
as write a letter in Word, create a folder, and add numbers in Excel). Others, including Internet related
tasks, have a smaller difference between the two groups. In the related Table 7, we show the results of
a regression on each task variable against an indicator variable of whether the person had taken a CDI
course and a constant. For example, for the task ‘Turn off the computer’, CDI users have a probability
that is 46 percentage points higher of knowing how to do it. The results are statistically significant at
the 99% level for all tasks, and remain so when we control for demographic indicators. We also did the
analysis controlling for the person having computers and Internet at home, but the results are practically
unaltered.
From these answers we can conclude that it is more likely for the persons who took CDI course to
claim that they know how to perform these tasks. This data does not measure actual skills, and thus
may not reflect the real effect that CDI has on the abilities of people, which would have to be measured
14
with people actually doing supervised tests on computers.
Finally, in Figure 1(b) we show what type of software people normally use, and divide the respondents again depending on whether they took the CDI course. In this graph we can notice that there is
a comparatively higher frequency of usage of Powerpoint, Word, and Excel among those who took the
CDI course, and not a significant difference for Games, Internet usage, and Programming Languages.
4
Technology Aspects
As we came in contact with different and diverse projects with similar high level goals, we were able
to relate several aspects of the projects, such as organizational structure, source of funding, teaching
methodology when present. Here we choose to focus on the use of technology by these projects, a
central piece in achieving the goals of the organizations. We we describe the most prevalent technical
hurdles that the projects had, and also provide some recommendations on directions that can be taken
to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of the solutions. Rather than being a comprehensive
study in this regard, this is a collection of observations, and we hope to point to directions of future
research. Indeed, several of the issues may turn into challenges for both industry and for the research
community, as the demand for inexpensive and shared access computing increases in Brazil, and in
the world over. The technical challenges we consider the most important are dependency on external
technical support, the need to have lower cost devices, and getting connectivity to each telecenter.
Other difficulties we noticed but do not elaborate on are access to electricity in very remote areas, and
lack of operational supplies, such as printer ink. Our main observations are summarized in Table 8.
Shared Computing
Shared computing is most probably the best way for poorest sections of the
population to have access to computing and to the Internet, and that is the perception in all the organi-
15
zations we visited, as well as the current perception in several levels of the Brazilian government. The
failure of the Simputer, in India, to reach the end consumer, but rather its being used by intermediaries
such as government officials and health agents to reach the people (Fonseca and Pal, 2005), draws
attention to the fact that current computing devices are at a higher price point than what a large fraction
of the population in developing countries can afford. The same issue arises when talking about the cost
of maintaining a connection to the Internet, in which sharing the cost among a large number of users is
a viable solution. Multiplexing and sharing computing resources among many users greatly decreases
the cost per user: examples are thin-client architectures and multiple users per CPU.
We also believe that there are at least two other big advantages to the use of shared computing
centers in poor communities. The first one is the raising of a sense of participation in the community,
not only because such a facility fosters social interaction, but also because the use of the Internet,
for example, allows a community to obtain information and even voice its opinions to an unrestricted
audience. The second advantage is that users will be able to learn and perceive the value of the
computer by shared experience, and, very likely, by courses and interaction with instructors. After this
value is perceived it is more likely that users will consider acquiring a private computer for the home.
Technical Support One of the most prevalent difficulties present is related to technical support and
technology transfer. The computers, most frequently generic brand, present hardware and software
failures that may or may not be easy to fix. Hardware problems include overheating due bad computing
room design, hard disk failures, failure in printers, and even simple failures such as in the on/off button!
We witnessed software problems both in Windows and in Linux environments, such as viruses and
abundance of spyware, in Windows, and difficulties in configuring peripherals in Linux. In most of the
cases we noticed great dependence on external technical support people. These are either expensive
16
hired technicians, or part of the sponsoring organization, generally in lower number than necessary
to give consistent. In GDT, the difficulty in getting technicians to the remote sites was a hindrance to
the scalability of the project: problems such as configuring peripherals have been known to halt some
services at the center for weeks at a time. Operating on small support budgets, CDI-Rio de Janeiro
faced similar support issues: one technical staffer, hired by CDI-Rio, was responsible for more than 30
centers. This has affected the latency in resolving problems across schools which tend not to internally
have the kind of expertise to fix minor problems. The São Paulo Telecentros project was best staffed to
deal with this problem, a separate budget for technical assistance was included in the project financial
planning.
Given the distributed nature of the computer centers, training local people from the communities in
fixing and configuring computers is the most compelling solution. This a both valuable to the telecenter
as well as a knowledge skill for the individuals who train as support staff. CDI Rio is in an advantageous
position in this sense, as it can train people from the communities where EICs are located in its large
computer recycling facility.
From a technical standpoint, solutions requiring little maintenance and intervention, are a constant
challenge. The challenge for telecenters is the tradeoff between ease of use and flexibility of configuration. Solutions in which each workstation does not need to be individually configured will reduce reduce
the cost of the systems and of administration, as well as decrease repair cycles.
Such workstations could be diskless, since experience at the CDI shows that hard disks seem to
be the component most prone to failure.6 Ideally, one would want a terminal that can be plugged
into the wall outlet and network, and be already useable as a workstation. In addition, there are also
user interface issues, especially regarding configuration and maintenance: there is clearly room for
6
The long term failure rates of different computer parts in the telecenter environment is an important area of future research.
17
automated solutions in these areas. Although not an issue in Brazil, in which only support for the
Portuguese language is needed, in other countries language issues are important to be considered, and
constitute an additional challenge. If network connectivity is present, the possibility of remote monitoring
and administration is extremely valuable in saving technical support time (Nedevschi et al., 2005).7 A
project by the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) has deployed computer labs in public
schools in the city of Belo Horizonte and has a comprehensive monitoring and remote administration
tool in place, based on the Nagios tool8 .
Low cost computers
Minimizing the cost of the devices is very important for telecenter projects,
as it allows larger scale deployments. There are conflicting goals, as the users of the telecenters
want to use current applications. In the case of CDI in Rio, 40.1% of the respondents in our survey
wanted to take courses to learn computing and have better opportunities in the job market. From our
conversations, users tend to be interested in learning and using currently prevalent office applications
in most cases. This need precludes solutions in which the computing hardware cannot run these, or
equivalent, applications.
We observed different approaches to the problem, that affect how the computers are obtained, and
how they are used. CDI almost exclusively uses refurbished computers in its schools. They receive
donations from companies, and assemble complete systems using the parts. There are considerable
challenges in doing this, logistic and economic (bridges.org, 2004). A large fraction of the received
material is not useable, and has to be disposed of, and a lot of computers come with missing or malfunctioning parts. Yet, they manage to supply all of their schools with the computers, and the recycling
7
This is also seen in the case of the Akshaya telecenter network in Kerala, India which has a centrally administered network
of over 630 nodes, an effort which aids data collection and helps reduce time spent in rectifying minor problems.
8
http://www.nagios.org/
18
is carried out independently in other CDI regional offices.9 The resulting computers are complete systems, albeit with outdated processors and comparatively little RAM. CDI uses donated or subsidized
copies of Microsoft Windows and Office in the majority of its schools. To run Windows, a hard disk is
required in all terminals. This is a price point disadvantage in these environments since each machine
needs to be independent of the others.
A different approach has been gaining popularity in more recent projects is the use of the so called
‘thin clients’ and ‘smart clients’. The terminals may be configured as diskless workstations that receive
their configuration at boot time from a differentiated server computer in the telecenter - these solutions
were deployed used the GNU/Linux operating system. Two common approaches are the Linux Terminal
Server Project (LTSP)10 and the Diskless Remote Boot in Linux (DRBL)11 . The former uses the terminals as a window manager client, while all programs are run in the server; the latter allows for more
flexibility, as some programs may run in the server and some in the client. DRBL is more adequate
when the individual terminals have more processing power and memory, and can alleviate the server.
An approach that can be helpful in this situation, which we have not yet seen deployed, is to have
the terminals participate a “cluster”, which allows dynamic migration of computational tasks between
computers with less processing power to those with more powerful processors. It may be beneficial in
environments with heterogeneous, used computers. In the case of used computers, these approaches
allow outdated computers to be used with current software. There are manufacturers building hardware
and software solutions for these environments, such as FIC computers, of Taiwan, and MetaSys, from
Brazil.12
In an orthogonal solution to these, some projects have been able to connect a number of sets of
9
Each regional office has its own recycling facility.
10
http://www.ltsp.org
http://drbl.sourceforge.net
12
http://www.metasys.com.br
11
19
monitors, keyboards, mice, and even sound, to a single CPU. The Federal University of Paraná, Brazil,
has free software available to allow multiple users to share a single CPU.13 HP has a solution, called the
’Multiuser 441 desktop’14 , which uses Linux. Thinsoft15 has similar solutions using the RDP protocol
with Microsoft Windows Servers. A careful and independent study comparing the different options in
terms of cost, benefit, and need for specialized maintenance is in order.
Internet connectivity Anecdotal evidence from Brazil as well as India (Nedevschi et al., 2005) suggests that maintaining access to the Internet add much value to a given telecenter project. It is however
one of the most challenging aspects of reaching sustainability. A large fraction of CDI schools do not
have Internet access, but the number is growing. Most of the newer projects we visited tend to treat
Internet connectivity as a synonym with digital inclusion. In fact, most of the perceived benefits of
the telecenters indeed depend on some form of connectivity: access to e-government and banking
services, communication with relatives and with communities with similar problems, publishing local
content. The poorest areas usually coincide with those with less access to infrastructure, including,
for example, access to the Internet via cable and DSL. Telephones are more ubiquitous, but the cost
and bandwidth are not adequate for shared access. Wireless technologies hold good promise, as they
require less investment in infrastructure, and can allow good bandwidth.
There are different sets of problems to solve if the telecenter is to be located close to major
metropolitan areas or in remote rural locations. In CDI Rio, for example, the main problem is not
the distance to places with good connectivity, but rather the need to overcome geographic barriers. In
more remote areas, such as where GDT centers are located, the main challenge is to get a high band13
http://www.c3sl.ufpr.br/fourhead
http://www.hp441.com
15
http://www.thinsoftinc.com
14
20
width link to the location of the telecenter. The Federal government’s GESAC project is instrumental in
this regard, as it provides high bandwidth access to potentially any point in Brazil, using Gilat’s VSAT
technology.16 Another interesting example is in Solonopole,17 a small city in the state of Ceará, where
the prefecture contracted a high bandwidth link, created a small ISP, and provides free wireless connectivity to whoever buys the appropriate antenna and modem. These are two examples of governments
that view the provision of connectivity as a public good. An approach that many projects and research
groups are taking is the use of IEEE 802.11 (WiFi) links adapted to long distance links, of up to dozens
of kilometers, provided there is line of sight. The advantage is the very low cost that this technology
has achieved, due to mass production and commoditization worldwide. Combining long directional links
with omnidirectional links for local distribution may be a good solution for shared connectivity, as many
telecenters may potentially share a single central high bandwidth connection. It is outside of the scope
of this work to provide an thorough investigation of all possible technologies that can be used, and their
cost versus bandwidth tradeoffs, but it is clear that wireless link technologies will play an increasing role
in providing connectivity.
Software In the years going forward, software issues are likely to become increasingly important
as international Intellectual Property laws become stringently enforced in developing countries, and
the ability to customize applications becomes essential in adapting the software appropriately to local
contexts. The critical argument in the near future is going to be in the desktop computing area, in the
distinction between Microsoft and Open Source platforms.
There is an aggressive free and open software movement in Brazil, from NGO’s, Universities, and
the government laws giving priority to FOSS.18 While there is a cost component involved in the choice of
16
http://www.gilat.com
http://www.solonopole.ce.gov.br
18
There are a number of active Linux User Groups all over Brazil, and the Linux Kernel maintainer, picked by Linus Torvalds
17
21
free software over Windows platform, telecenters cite this not as the primary or only reason for opting
with Linux, with participation in the directions and development, translation, i.e., appropriation of the
technology most of the projects use FOSS, GNU/Linux playing a very important role in this choice.
Microsoft does grant inexpensive licenses to developmental projects, but like elsewhere in the world,
there is a choice between inexpensive Windows, and virtually free Windows, without any real piracyrelated legal disincentives. Another key factor is the size and corporatization of most telecenter projects,
each of which is interested in differentiating itself through branding. With the flexibility of design on
Linux, and the closeness of most popular applications to Windows comparables, this is a compelling
option for the larger projects that need to consider custom-designed interfaces for their telecenters.
However, there is little doubt that Windows has considerably more value among potential clients at the
computer centers than Linux. These demand factors are reflected in CDI’s choice of operating platform.
CDI’s philosophy has been that the demand for using Microsoft tools comes from the market, products such as MS Office are ubiquitously demanded across the job market. However, most of the companies, and certainly most of the potential users of the telecenters, do not know that there are alternatives
which present equivalent functionality, especially at the basic level of features they use, and that people
who learn in these alternatives can use the Microsoft tools as well.
Without significant prevalence of alternative OS use, there is the risk of writing off non-Windows
tools without a real informed choice. However, the use of FOSS tools is becoming more common in
the government, and trickling down to more and more companies. Here is another point in which an
interesting scientific study can be made: to what extent people who learn to use, say, office software
in open tools, such as OpenOffice, can use the Microsoft counterparts, or vice-versa. In the short run,
Brazil may in fact be the best place in the world to test these hypotheses. Despite the tendency towards
himself, is a Brazilian - Marcelo Tosatti, who took over the job when he was just 18 years old.
22
choosing Windows products for what may be the wrong reasons, the adoption of FOSS solutions by key
players - especially in public internet access centers - has created a burgeoning community of Linux
users. In the years ahead, one of the great lessons of community telecenter projects may be in the area
of usability of alternative OS for daily-use computing.
5
Conclusion
In our short study about CDI, São Paulo Telecentros, Gemas da Terra, and other initiatives we came
across great diversity in solutions, degrees of success and maturity, and problems. The majority of the
users for these shared access computing projects are adolescents and young adults, and most see the
centers as a means of improving their lives: by helping acquire skills needed for the job market, helping
find jobs, or obtaining information about universities to go to. From our CDI survey data, 85% of the
users seek the project to take courses. We also find that users who take courses at the CDI are more
likely to claim they know how to perform several computer related tasks. In our 500 participant survey
from urban slums in Rio de Janeiro with CDI schools, we also included questions related to employment
and civic participation, but leave a more in depth analysis trying to correlate CDI participation and
presence in a community with these socioeconomic outcomes for future work. CDI advertises its main
contribution not in teaching computing skills, but in using these as enablers for greater social inclusion
and civic participation, and some preliminary analysis point to a positive influence of CDI schools in
these areas.
Reaching a large fraction of the population, even within a single community, is a challenging task. In
the 14 communities we visited, we found a large amount of heterogeneity in CDI quality, courses offered,
services provided, and civic participation projects implemented. This heterogeneity stems from the fact
23
that communities are very different as is the local leadership. Associating projects with schools seems a
good way of increasing their visibility and reach. Studying the movement of telecenters and subsidized
computer training in Brazil, it is inevitable that one comes across the importance of "communidade"
(community), a critical element in the way these projects are imagined by the agencies running them.
Projects almost always require local bodies to underwrite them. Telecenters and the computer training
schools are built for, franchised to, or allotted within specific localities - thus the "community" is the unit
of reference to which such a project is assigned. This is important, since our experience showed that
support from the local community was a make-or-break factor for most telecenters, rural and urban,
state and privately funded. In this realm of community computing centers and telecenters projects,
there is bound to be a question of whether projects should be implemented in a top-down or a bottomup fashion. The CDI recognizes this, and requires that all franchisees show a certain level of community
organization and outreach.
On the technical side, it seems that shared computing centers are the right way to increase the
access of the general population to computing and to the Internet. That there is still debate, and
space for detailed studies, of the best technological platform for shared computing, whether new or
used computers, and how to efficiently share resources within a telecenter. Technical support is tightly
related to the scalability of projects, and the directions of local capacitation and hardware and software
with lower maintenance requirements are both promising. Internet connectivity is important to achieve
the stated goals of social inclusion, access to opportunities, and democracy, and is also a major cost
component challenging the sustainability of the telecenters. Even when there is Internet access, we
feel that the channel is only utilized in one direction: centers are very seldomly producing content, or
communicating with each other to share experiences. Technologies such as blogs and wiki’s are a
promising way of achieving this goal.
24
We finally come to the question of sustainability. The sustainability of initiatives such as CDI is
reflected in the local demand for their service. In comparing CDI to Viva Rio’s Estação do Futuro,
community telecenters with teaching facilities, we find that pricing can play a central role in public
perception of such projects, especially where training is the killer application. CDI has a fairly flexible
price scheme: students are encouraged to pay, but if the instructors or center managers verify that they
cannot afford by making home visits, fees are generally waived. The Estações do Futuro have a rigid
policy regarding the price of the courses, and those who cannot afford the course are excluded. This
results in extremely different financial constraints, public reached, and thus services provided.
This brings up two important issues - first, is the market approach best for such projects? Indeed, the biggest difference between Estação do Futuro and CDI is that CDI has a much more random
sampling of Brazil, going to wherever a local organization shows interest, whereas Estação do Futuro
chooses its locations and works within a revenue-oriented business model. Secondly, the implication
here is that without external funding (private or public) there is a fundamental tradeoff between sustainability and how low in the income pyramid a project can aim to reach. To address this, one really must
go back to whether or not telecenters and computing training qualify as a public utility. This is certainly
the view taken by the prefecture of São Paulo when creating the Telecentros project, totally state funded
and free for courses and general use. A problem with this approach is that the project has an uncertain
future now that the government has shifted hands to the formerly opposing party. Although CDI subscribes to the latter view, it does not appeal to the state for funding, instead taking an entrepreneurial
approach to fundraising from international agencies and corporate sponsors. Here lies the paradox,
since the default assumption for utility services is always state responsibility - simply because private
funds have an incentive to underinvest. CDI scales through a model they like to call ‘social franchising’,
but ultimately its scalability is determined by the source of funding and local demand.
25
The issues involved in establishing a computing access project in poor communtities are extremely
complex, and our study surely only scratches the surface. As future work we plan to perform further
analysis on the rich dataset we collected in the field, and also, as part of a larger initiative at UC
Berkeley, we also plan to draw parallels with similar user surveys taken in related projects in India and
Egypt.
References
bridges.org. How to set up and operate a successful computer refurbishment centre in Africa. Technical
report, bridges.org, November 2004.
L. Ribeiro Dias. Inclusão digital: com a palavra, a sociedade. Plano de Negócios, 2003. URL http:
//www.incluido.com.br/hotsite/index.asp. São Paulo.
Rodrigo Fonseca and Joyojeet Pal. Bringing devices to the masses: a comparative study of the brazilian
computador popular and the indian simputer. In South Asia Conference. University of California,
Berkeley, 2005.
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, editor. Human Development Report 2003. Oxford University Press, 198 Madison
Avenue, New York, New York, 10016, 2003. ISBN 0-19-521915-5.
GDT. Justificativa da ong gemas da terra, 2003. URL http://www.gemasdaterra.org.br,
lastaccessedDec.8th,2004. In Portuguese.
Sergiu Nedevschi, Joyojeet Pal, and Rabin Patra. Akshaya: An approach to rural computing education
in India. Submitted for publication, 2005.
26
Marcelo Côrtes Neri, editor.
Mapa da Exclusão Digital.
Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Centro de
Políticas Sociais„ 2003. Avaliable at http://www2.fgv.br/ibre/cps/mapa\_exclusao/
apresentacao/apresentacao.ht%m, accessed Nov. 6th, 2004.
C. K. Prahalad. Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits. Wharton
School Publishing, 2004.
UCB. UC Berkeley-ISER CDI data, June 2004. Data colected by authors in Rio de Janeiro.
L. Wacquant. Ghetto. In Neil J. Smelser Paul B. Baltes, editor, International Encyclopedia of the Social
and Behavioral Sciences, London, 2004. Pergamon Press.
Alba Zaluar. Perverse Integration: Drug Trafficking and Youth in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Journal
of International Affairs, 53(2):654–671, 2000.
A
Appendix
Before the in-depth study of CDI, four other telecenter and computer training projects in Brazil were
visited, and a number of interviews with project managers, customers, and teachers were conducted.
We selected the projects based on their location, and their comparability to CDI. We visited Telecentros,
a telecenter chain in São Paulo, Viva Rio, a telecenter/computer training center in the slums of Rio
de Janeiro, Gemas da Terra (GDT), a telcenter/training center project in rural Minas Gerais, and a
project by the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) with the state secretary of education,
in Belo Horizonte. Each of the projects had some training component, even when the main revenue
model was based on access, and each was setup as a development project, aiming at services for the
underprivileged.
27
Table 9 marks critical aspects of three projects - CDI, Telecentros, and GDT. The three chosen make
an interesting contrast because of the differences in the funding, business models, and sustainability
issues for each. Though GDT is a fledgling project compared to the other two, it is an important project
in the rural space.
An interesting characteristic, across all the telecenter projects was the importance of a project champion who plays an entrepreneurial role in getting the establishment off the ground. This is especially
important where there isn’t brand value attached to the project. Thus, the average telecentros manager
plays a much smaller role in marketing the services of the telecenter, than a manager at a CDI or GDT,
who if not proactive, would seriously undermine the chances of the project’s success.
The selection of locations is very different across the projects - CDI which emphasizes strongly
on community participation and on active NGOs carefully studies the groups that apply for franchises,
whereas Telecentros focuses more on the location, rather than the parties that run the show. GDT, on
the other hand, invests the most time in understanding the local community, underlining the importance
of locational issues in placing rural computer centers.
The CDI also has a natural disadvantage as compared to the other two in establishing a niche area
for itself.Telecentros has a business model that lends itself easily to usage - fast PCs allowing free
internet access in dense urban areas. GDT has monopoly internet and computing services in remote
villages, while CDI is teaching computing in rough neighborhoods, with competing institutions that often
have state-of-the-art equipment, and skilled instructors. CDI finds itself in an unusual space between
a computing class and a citizenship development program, typically one that would take significantly
greater community outreach and establishment of credibility than services such as training which are
ubiquitously understood as tied to employment outcomes.
The ability to make computing, usually a new service for most of the clientele in these centers, a
28
fun activity also plays a role here. Considering that children are a key audience for all three projects,
it is also worth examining what role fast and modern machines play in attracting youngsters to these
centers. Both telecentros and GDT had children using the facilities to play games, and it is evidenced
elsewhere in the world too that computer games are an important component of learning computing
among children. While the refurbished computers may be adequate for the learning curriculum at the
CDI, faster machines could have a different draw to get more youth involved in its schools.
The three projects have shaped their business and sustainability models differently. GDT has a
number of services it layers onto its centers - some centers make their money through services such
as photocopying, information gathering, and computer usage. The GDT kiosks have become ad-hoc
communications and computing service centers for these villages which have no comparable services
available. Similarly, evidence shows that the GDT centers were congregation points for children from
local schools, who were usually the most active participants in the project.
CDI heavily emphasizes sustainability for its computer education schools - thus perceiving the
project as more of an entrepreneurial venture, whereas Telecentros relies heavily on public funding
- perceiving the project as more of a utility service than as a business venture. This difference is a
critical part of understanding the contrast between the projects.
In the long run, this makes CDI compete with commercial computing training schools, which are
often better equipped both in terms of equipment and in trained professional lecturers. Also, while the
CDI has been focusing much of its energy on using democratization in curriculum, whereas evidence
suggests that the market demand is more towards skill-based training.
This dichotomy between training services and internet access is an important distinction. While
most projects claim to do both, empirical evidence suggests that the extent to which a group decides
to invest in one versus another can appreciably affect usage statistics. Telecentros, despite being de-
29
pendent on state funding, has made a great case for itself in terms of usage - there are over 300,000
registered users on the system, and most telecentros are reasonably crowded during hours of operation.
For GDT, it is still early to tell if its sustainability can be measured in terms of usage. CDI, after
a number of years of operation and a massive network of computing centers, needs to evaluate if its
policies of refurbished basic computers, of volunteer teachers from the community, and of computer
centers focused on market training facilities.
30
Table 1: Brazil at a glance
Population
Median Age
Population growth rate
Life Expectancy
Ethnic groups
GDP (PPP)
GDP per capita (PPP)
GDP growth
GDP by sector
Population below poverty line
Labor force by occupation
Unemployment rate
Distribution of family income – (Gini)
Household Income by Percentage share
Total Phones
Phones/100 pop
Main lines
Mobile
Mobile/100 pop.
Internet
Internet/100 pop
PCs
PCs/100 pop
Sources:
184 million
27.4 years
1.11%
71.41 years
White: 55%1, Mixed: 38%, Black: 6%, Other: 1%2
$1.375 trillion3
$7,6003
1.7% (1998-2002)4
Agriculture: 10.2%, Industry: 38.7%, Services: 51.2%3
22%5
Agriculture 23%, Industry 24%, Services 53%3
12.3%3
60.75
Lowest 10%: 0.7% Highest 10%: 48%5
73.69 M (2002) 6
42.4 (2002) 6
38.81 M (2002) 6
34.8 M (2002) 6 (46.37 M in 2003)
6
26.5 (2002)
6
14.3 M (2002)
6
8.22 (2002)
6
13.0 M (2002)
6
7.4
1
White includes Portuguese, German, Italian
Others include Japanese, Arab, Amerindian
3
CIA Factbook, 2003
4
Economist Intelligence Unit, 2004
5
CIA Factbook, 1998
6
International Telecommunications Union, Worldwide Telecom Indicators 2002
2
31
1
2
White includes Portuguese, German, Italian
Table 2: Socio-Demographic Characteristics of CDI Users and Non-Users
Characteristics
CDI Users
Non-Users
Sample Size
251
253
Age
18.03
20.01
(4.97)
(6.03)
Female
46.22
50.99
Race
Black
26.69
31.62
White
28.69
27.27
Mulatto
39.04
37.94
Other race
3.98
3.16
Marital Status
Single
81.67
70.36
Married/Live Together
14.34
26.88
Divorced/Separated
0.80
2.37
Religion
Catholic
41.43
37.15
Evangelical
25.50
32.81
African religion
4.78
4.74
No religion
24.70
24.90
Head of household
5.98
17.39
Has children
16.73
35.57
Born in Rio
88.05
85.38
Currently a student
67.33
52.17
Average years of education
7.44
6.63
(2.44)
(2.57)
Worked last week
32.27
37.94
Works in formal private sector
28.40
27.08
Works informal private sector
17.28
21.88
Micro-enterprise
1.23
1.04
Self-Employed
25.93
27.08
Other type of employment
27.16
22.92
Personal income
322.21
372.25
(154.56)
(224.21)
Household income
608.62
625.84
(432.52)
(522.0)
Rents or borrows home
13.55
14.23
Owns home
82.87
84.58
Water filter
63.75
62.45
Cable television
24.70
23.72
Has computer at home
10.36
9.49
Has internet at home
7.17
6.32
Notes:
*values are reported in percentages or means.
**standard deviations of means are given in parentheses.
Source: UC Berkeley-ISER CDI data 2004.
32
Table 3: CDI User Perceptions of Community Problems
Type of problem in community
Biggest problem (%)
Second biggest (%)
Third biggest (%)
11.07
7.57
4.78
4.78
3.19
4.78
2.79
2.39
2.79
3.59
1.99
0.80
50.99
8.70
6.37
3.19
5.98
2.39
1.99
2.39
2.39
1.99
3.19
0.40
1.99
60
5.58
12.75
1.59
7.97
5.18
1.59
3.59
2.39
5.98
4.38
1.99
2.79
42.23
6.37
5.58
0.40
7.17
4.78
3.59
5.18
2.39
4.38
2.39
1.20
2.39
57.77
Pre CDI
Lack of sanitation/sewage
Violence and drug trafficking
Unpaved streets
Lack of culture/sports
Lack of medical assistance
No garbage collection
Lack of schools/daycare
Lack of technical and language courses
Unemployment
Lack of electricity
Transportation
Lack of community projects
Other/ don’t know
15.94
21.91
4.78
4.38
3.59
3.19
3.19
0.80
1.59
0.8
1.99
0.40
37.42
Post CDI
Lack of sanitation/sewage
Violence and drug trafficking
Unpaved streets
Lack of culture/sports
Lack of medical assistance
No garbage collection
Lack of schools/daycare
Lack of technical and language courses
Unemployment
Lack of electricity
Transportation
Lack of community projects
Other/ don’t know
8.76
45.02
1.59
6.37
3.59
0.40
1.99
3.19
1.59
1.20
1.99
22.71
Source: UC Berkeley-ISER CDI data 2004
33
Table 4: Non−CDI User Perceptions of Community Problems
Type of problem in community
Biggest problem (%)
Second biggest (%)
Third biggest (%)
11.07
8.70
4.74
5.53
3.95
1.58
3.56
3.56
1.98
3.95
0.40
0.79
50.2
7.51
6.32
1.98
5.93
4.74
2.77
2.37
0.79
1.19
2.37
1.19
0.79
62.06
10.28
13.44
1.98
7.51
7.11
1.98
2.37
1.98
4.74
2.37
1.19
1.58
43.48
3.16
7.11
0.40
6.72
4.74
2.77
3.16
2.77
3.56
1.58
1.98
1.98
60.08
Pre CDI
Lack of sanitation/sewage
Violence and drug trafficking
Unpaved streets
Lack of culture/sports
Lack of medical assistance
No garbage collection
Lack of schools/daycare
Lack of technical and language courses
Unemployment
Lack of electricity
Transportation
Lack of community projects
Other/ don’t know
17
19.76
7.51
2.77
2.77
1.58
1.98
1.98
3.95
1.98
0.79
37.95
Post CDI
Lack of sanitation/sewage
Violence and drug trafficking
Unpaved streets
Lack of culture/sports
Lack of medical assistance
No garbage collection
Lack of schools/daycare
Lack of technical and language courses
Unemployment
Lack of electricity
Transportation
Lack of community projects
Other/ don’t know
9.49
33.20
4.35
5.93
1.98
1.98
2.37
2.77
9.09
2.77
0.40
1.58
24.11
Source: UC Berkeley-ISER CDI data 2004
Table 5: Use of the CDI School
Yes
No
Responses
Have ever used a computer
73.00
27.00
504
Ever heard of the CDI school in this community?
66.13
33.87
499
Have ever used the CDI school?
49.60
50.40
504
Have taken a course at the CDI school?
49.80
50.20
504
Heard of campaign or action taken by the CDI ?
28.71
71.29
317
Have participated in campaign or action through the CDI school?
12.84
87.16
327
Finished all three parts of the course?
40.00
60.00
250
Ever paid a monthly fee for the course?
63.03
36.97
238
Source: UC Berkeley-ISER CDI data 2004.
34
Table 6: Reasons for users of the CDI for using the centers
Purpose for going to CDI
Percent
Course
Use the Internet
Other services (typing, printing)
Find friends, socialize
Safe place in community
Other reasons
85.3
17.5
12.4
12.4
6.8
7.2
Notes:
Valid responses: 214
Multiple responses allowed
Source: UC Berkeley-ISER CDI data 2004
Table 7: Computer Skills. Results of a regression for each task on an indicator variable of whether the
user took a CDI course. The third column controls for demographic characteristics.
Task
Turn off the computer
Write letter in word
Create Folder
Access Web Page
Create Presentation
Do a Web search
Use Email
Place Fig. in Word
Program to Print Name
Add #s in Excel
Install Software
Create a Web Page
Configure a Printer
Create an Access DB
Create Web p. w/form
CDI User (std error**)
0.466 (0.0347)
0.309 (0.0422)
0.261 (0.0415)
0.140 (0.0344)
0.501 (0.0375)
0.312 (0.0408)
0.500 (0.0384)
0.180 (0.0343)
0.116 (0.0287)
0.360 (0.0397)
0.360 (0.0396)
0.436 (0.0396)
0.276 (0.0376)
0.152 (0.0302)
0.308 (0.0373)
1
CDI User1 (std error**)
0.403 (0.0330)
0.227 (0.0457)
0.170 (0.0445)
0.104 (0.0379)
0.443 (0.0402)
0.264 (0.0446)
0.435 (0.0420)
0.142 (0.0383)
0.095 (0.0317)
0.295 (0.0437)
0.297 (0.0441)
0.383 (0.0444)
0.228 (0.0411)
0.128 (0.0338)
0.247 (0.0399)
CDI users, controlling for age, gender, years of education, and indicators for black race,
being married, being head of the household, having children, being born in Rio,
being students, owning a house, and having a water filter
** All values found significant at the 99% level
SOURCE: UC Berkeley-ISER CDI data 2004
35
Fraction
50%
Users (238)
Non-users (132)
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Pow erpoint
Word
Excel
Games
Internet
Programming
L
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
All (370)
Users (238)
Us
e
Pl
Em
ac
ail
eF
ig.
Pr
in
og
W
ra
or
m
d
to
Pr
int
Na
m
Ad
e
d#
si
nE
xc
el
Ins
tal
lS
oft
Cr
wa
ea
re
te
aW
eb
Co
Pa
ge
nfi
gu
re
Cr
a
ea
Pr
te
int
er
an
Ac
ce
Cr
ss
ea
DB
te
W
eb
p.
w/
for
m
Non-users (132)
Tu
rn
off
the
co
m
pu
W
ter
rite
let
ter
in
wo
rd
Cr
ea
te
Fo
Ac
ce
lde
ss
r
W
eb
Cr
Pa
ea
ge
te
Pr
es
en
tat
Do
ion
aW
eb
se
ar
ch
Fraction of Users
Use of Computer
Tasks (in order of perceived difficulty)
(a) Do you know how to perform the following tasks?
100%
90%
Fraction of Users
80%
70%
60%
All (370)
50%
Users (238)
Non-users (132)
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Powerpoint
Word
Excel
Games
Internet
Programming
Language
Use of Computer
(b) What type of program do you normally use?
and usage by those who took CDI courses (Users) and those who did not
All (370)
Users (238)
Non-users (132)
Us
e
Pl
Em
ac
ail
eF
ig.
Pr
in
og
W
ra
or
m
d
to
Pr
int
Na
m
Ad
e
d#
si
nE
xc
el
Ins
tal
lS
o
ftw
Cr
ar
ea
e
te
aW
eb
Co
Pa
ge
nfi
gu
r
e
Cr
aP
ea
rin
te
ter
an
Ac
ce
Cr
ss
ea
DB
te
W
eb
p.
w/
for
m
Fraction of Users
Source: UC Berkeley-ISER CDI data 2004
Tu
rn
off
the
co
m
pu
W
ter
rite
let
ter
in
wo
rd
Cr
ea
te
Fo
Ac
ce
lde
ss
r
W
eb
Cr
Pa
ea
g
e
te
Pr
es
en
t
ati
Do
on
aW
eb
se
ar
ch
100%
90%
80%
Figure 1: Computer 70%
skills
60%
(Non-users)
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
36
Tasks (in order of perceived difficulty)
Table 8: Main technical issues facing telecenters, and some important observations
Issue
Key Points
Technical support
• train people from the community in computer maintenance and administration (this should be a course with
the more advanced students, for example)
• develop hardware and software that require less maintenance and less configuration by the end user
• integrate remote monitoring and administration software
and hardware if applicable
Low cost hardware
• users demand current applications
• use thin and smart clients
• use of recycled computers with intelligent software to optimize resources
• use multiple terminals per CPU
• cheaper, integrated hardware that can be mass produced
to this environment
Internet Access
• key issue for sustainability (major cost component)
• discussion if should be a public utility
• wireless technologies combine lower cost and flexibility
37
Table 9: High level comparison among projects
Funding
sources
CDI
Telecentros
Gemas da Terra
International Philanthropy
Prefecture of São Paulo
International Agencies
Corporate Philanthropy
Established
1995
2002
2004
Location
Rio de Janeiro (HQ) and
rest of Brazil, abroad
São Paulo
Minas Gerais
Main Service
Computing Education
Courses
Free Internet Access,
Courses
Free and Paid Internet
Access, Courses
Reach
800 franchisee schools
123 browsing centers
6 centers in rural MG
Chief
Clientele
Young adults from urban
slums
Across age groups (urban
poor neighborhoods)
Rural School Children
Placement
Densely-populated urban
locations
Densely-populated urban
locations
Sparsely-populated rural
locations
Business
Model – Key
Aspects
• Franchise “School”
•
•
•
•
•
Model
Refurbished donated
computers provided by
CDI to EIC Schools
Free or highly
subsidized computer
courses provided at
courses
Employees at CDI
Schools are unpaid or
modestly-paid
volunteers
Windows-based systems
30% of schools
connected. Some places
have dial-up, others DSL
• Browsing Center model
• No charges for any
• Community telecenter
services, entirely
dependent on state
funding
Project workforce
consists of permanent
state employees and
project staff employed
on contract
Users need to register
on the system and
create profiles for
themselves
Linux-based system
Connectivity through
DSL/Cable provided by
the city
• Charges for browsing,
•
•
•
•
(Table continues)
38
model
•
•
•
•
communications use,
and publishing
Local managers are
either entrepreneurs or
youth from local schools
Various GDT centers
differ on registration,
some have regular user
clientele, others have
many drop-ins
Linux-based systems
Connectivity through VSAT provided by the
central government
Table 9: continued
CDI
Franchising
System
Sustainability
Issues
• Groups apply to CDI for
affiliation, CDI
headquarters for
individual cities/states
evaluates groups,
eventually making
support decisions that
involve providing free
computers, staff training
and service
• CDI retains control of the
donated hardware, and
can ask centers to return
hardware and materials
at any time
• CDI has a separate
advertising budget,
which individual schools
do not contribute to
• There is limited
emphasis on brand
recognition at the CDI
schools, which do not
necessarily have
identifying boards
Telecentros
• Franchising is
•
•
•
•
exclusively limited to
São Paulo, all franchises
receive promotional
material (hoardings,
software, hardware)
from Telecentros
Brand recognition
emphasized, large
hoardings are seen at
each “telecentro”
The city owns all the
material at the
franchises
Project relied on ubiquity
throughout Sao Paulo,
so most major localities
are selected for a
“telecentro” following
which local non-profit
groups are identified and
approached for potential
partnerships
Separate centralized
advertising campaign
that franchises do not
contribute to
Gemas da Terra
• Selection system is
region-based, rather
than partner-based,
based on research
design document for
selecting and setting up
a GDT telecenter
I.
II.
Groups are
encouraged to apply
to GDT, but narrow
guidelines exist on
what kinds of
regions GDT is
interested in
creating centers in,
and these are likely
to get preference
Regions of interest
are visited by GDT,
surveyed for the
right kind of
organizations /
community
dynamics
• Sustainability for CDI
• Sustainability in terms of
• Sustainability depends
depends on the ability of
volunteer coordinators to
galvanize community
support, and act as
entrepreneurs to raise
local enrollment
• Social problems in
communities where
CDIs are located tend to
affect enrollment
usage is high, but the
free model means the
organizers of the project
need to make a strong
enough case for
recognizing internet
access as a utility
service
• The change of local
government may affect
the project adversely,
since the initiative was
mainly a labor party
idea. However, the
existence of a good
critical mass, and
continued expansion of
free internet usage may
galvanize a bottom-up
demand for continuing
services even if there is
a change in government
on center managers’
ability to be
entrepreneurial. In some
areas, center managers
have reshaped GDT as
“all-purpose”
communications /
computing services
providers
• Cooperation or
partnership with local
schools may be a major
factor in ensuring longterm sustainability for
the GDTs.
Source: visits to the projects; interviews with project managers and staff
39