SOUNDING BOARD is an outlet for opinions on good and crazy things going on at home (wherever I may be). All are welcome. You are not expected to bring anything except your common sense & sense of humor.
'If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get one million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.'
-Robert X. Cringely (from geek wisdom)
SOUNDING BOARD
Wednesday, November 06, 2002
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Smartcard solutions to bridge the digital divide
Sangam Krishi Sangam (SKS), a Grameen Bank replication project in drought-prone Medak district of Andhra Pradesh is pioneering the use of smart card technology to improve the delivery of microfinance.
Swayam Krishi Sangam made a presentation in 2 June 2001 entitled “Achieving Connectivity for the Rural Poor in India Using Smart Card Technology for Poverty Alleviation” . A smart card looks similar to a credit card and it carries the capability to encrypt large amounts of data that can be read and written to a small microchip on the card. The data can be accessed by a card reader into which the card is inserted (like the simputer, see below). The information may include access codes, account number, and electronic cash. He cited the following uses of smart card: (a) record savings and loan transactions; (b) dial a connection on a mobile telephone and be charged on a per-call basis (e.g., Grameen Phone); and (c) give hospitals/doctors/clinics personal data without filling out a form. As an electrical passbook, Smart Cards can: (1) eliminates manual passbooks/collections sheets; (2) reduce the time of meetings by one half; (3) increase—virtually double—staff productivity; (4) reduce operational cost; (4) reduce the risk for error and fraud by creating one point of entry; and offer a more diverse/real-time set of financial products.
For simputer, a smartcard acts as a prime method of enabling the "sharing" of devices. Rural communities could own several devices and hire these out for usage to individuals based on the ownership of a smartcard. Each user's smartcard would contain the minimum "personalization" information required to log into a community server which would maintain personalized data about the user. This model of sharing would bring down the cost of the Simputer to that of owning only a simple smart card, and paying for the usage of a shared Simputer.
