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 commu-

nities 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 wouldspecially like to thank our faculty advisor, prof. Eric Brewer, for encouragement, helpful discussions, and support. We aregrateful to the CDI director Rodrigo Baggio and the team in CDI-Rio for all the help in undertaking this project. Also, we wouldlike to thank Heirich Kuhne and Marco Figueiredo, from Gemas da Terra, Wagner Meira Jr., from UFMG, and Beatriz Tibiriçáand the São Paulo Telecentros team for hosting our visits to these projects. We thank Luis Eduardo Guedes and his teamat ISER for the superb field work, and students and managers of the schools visited for their patience and help in answeringquestions. We thank Andrew Isaacs, Kristiana Raube, Fred Finan, Paul Gertler, and Bernardo Sorj for preliminary discussionsand suggestions.

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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 demo-

graphic characteristics, computer ability, employment situations, and perceptions about their com-

munity 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 com-

munity 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

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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 im-

portant 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 opportuni-

ties 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

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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

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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 “mobiliz-

ing 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, eco-

nomic, 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.

1CDI- Mission Vision and Values http://www.cdi.org.br/inst/eng/eng_f_inst.htm , last accessed October31, 2004

2Bacoccina, Denise, Brazil bets on Linux cybercafés http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3250876.stm , BBC News, December 2, 2003.

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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 distri-

bution, 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 be-

lieved 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 obser-

vation (Dias, 2003) is that government led projects generally have a larger scale and more repercussion,

3During our visit, for example, we had the opportunity to participate in two such workshops.

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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 in-

vestments, 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 ser-

vices 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).

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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

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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, enumer-

4Source: CDI.

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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 coordina-

tor 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.

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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. Inter-

estingly, 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

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problems in the community at fairly similar reported percentages—seventeen and twenty percent. Post-

CDI, 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. Vio-

lence 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.

5Note that in users were allowed multiple responses to this question, and this explains the values adding up to more than100%.

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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

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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 respon-

dents 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

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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 configura-

tion. 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

6The 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 mal-

functioning parts. Yet, they manage to supply all of their schools with the computers, and the recycling

7This is also seen in the case of the Akshaya telecenter network in Kerala, India which has a centrally administered networkof over 630 nodes, an effort which aids data collection and helps reduce time spent in rectifying minor problems.

8http://www.nagios.org/

18

is carried out independently in other CDI regional offices.9 The resulting computers are complete sys-

tems, 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 termi-

nals 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

9Each regional office has its own recycling facility.10http://www.ltsp.org11http://drbl.sourceforge.net12http://www.metasys.com.br

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) sug-

gests 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 band-

13http://www.c3sl.ufpr.br/fourhead14http://www.hp441.com15http://www.thinsoftinc.com

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 connec-

tivity 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

16http://www.gilat.com17http://www.solonopole.ce.gov.br18There are a number of active Linux User Groups all over Brazil, and the Linux Kernel maintainer, picked by Linus Torvalds

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 piracy-

related 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, prod-

ucts such as MS Office are ubiquitously demanded across the job market. However, most of the compa-

nies, 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 bottom-

up 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? In-

deed, 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 sustain-

ability 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 sub-

scribes 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.

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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 cham-

pion 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 opera-

tion.

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 184 million Median Age 27.4 years Population growth rate 1.11% Life Expectancy 71.41 years Ethnic groups White: 55%1, Mixed: 38%, Black: 6%, Other: 1%2 GDP (PPP) $1.375 trillion3 GDP per capita (PPP) $7,6003 GDP growth 1.7% (1998-2002)4 GDP by sector Agriculture: 10.2%, Industry: 38.7%, Services: 51.2%3 Population below poverty line 22%5 Labor force by occupation Agriculture 23%, Industry 24%, Services 53%3 Unemployment rate 12.3%3 Distribution of family income – (Gini) 60.75 Household Income by Percentage share Lowest 10%: 0.7% Highest 10%: 48%5 Total Phones 73.69 M (2002) 6 Phones/100 pop 42.4 (2002) 6 Main lines 38.81 M (2002) 6 Mobile 34.8 M (2002) 6 (46.37 M in 2003) Mobile/100 pop. 26.5 (2002) 6 Internet 14.3 M (2002) 6 Internet/100 pop 8.22 (2002) 6 PCs 13.0 M (2002) 6 PCs/100 pop 7.4 6 Sources: 1 White includes Portuguese, German, Italian 2 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

1 White includes Portuguese, German, Italian 2 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

31

Table 2: Socio-Demographic Characteristics of CDI Users and Non-Users

Characteristics CDI Users Non-Users Sample Size 251 253 Age 18.03

(4.97) 20.01 (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

(2.44) 6.63

(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

(154.56) 372.25

(224.21) Household income 608.62

(432.52) 625.84 (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 (%)

Pre CDI

Lack of sanitation/sewage 15.94 11.07 8.70Violence and drug trafficking 21.91 7.57 6.37Unpaved streets 4.78 4.78 3.19Lack of culture/sports 4.38 4.78 5.98Lack of medical assistance 3.59 3.19 2.39No garbage collection 3.19 4.78 1.99Lack of schools/daycare 3.19 2.79 2.39Lack of technical and language courses 0.80 2.39 2.39Unemployment 1.59 2.79 1.99Lack of electricity 0.8 3.59 3.19Transportation 1.99 1.99 0.40Lack of community projects 0.40 0.80 1.99Other/ don’t know 37.42 50.99 60

Post CDI

Lack of sanitation/sewage 8.76 5.58 6.37Violence and drug trafficking 45.02 12.75 5.58Unpaved streets 1.59 1.59 0.40Lack of culture/sports 6.37 7.97 7.17Lack of medical assistance 3.59 5.18 4.78No garbage collection 1.59 3.59Lack of schools/daycare 0.40 3.59 5.18Lack of technical and language courses 1.99 2.39 2.39Unemployment 3.19 5.98 4.38Lack of electricity 1.59 4.38 2.39Transportation 1.20 1.99 1.20Lack of community projects 1.99 2.79 2.39Other/ don’t know 22.71 42.23 57.77

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 (%)

Pre CDI

Lack of sanitation/sewage 17 11.07 7.51Violence and drug trafficking 19.76 8.70 6.32Unpaved streets 7.51 4.74 1.98Lack of culture/sports 2.77 5.53 5.93Lack of medical assistance 2.77 3.95 4.74No garbage collection 1.58 1.58 2.77Lack of schools/daycare 1.98 3.56 2.37Lack of technical and language courses 1.98 3.56 0.79Unemployment 3.95 1.98 1.19Lack of electricity 1.98 3.95 2.37Transportation 0.40 1.19Lack of community projects 0.79 0.79 0.79Other/ don’t know 37.95 50.2 62.06

Post CDI

Lack of sanitation/sewage 9.49 10.28 3.16Violence and drug trafficking 33.20 13.44 7.11Unpaved streets 4.35 1.98 0.40Lack of culture/sports 5.93 7.51 6.72Lack of medical assistance 1.98 7.11 4.74No garbage collection 1.98 1.98 2.77Lack of schools/daycare 2.37 2.37 3.16Lack of technical and language courses 2.77 1.98 2.77Unemployment 9.09 4.74 3.56Lack of electricity 2.77 2.37 1.58Transportation 0.40 1.19 1.98Lack of community projects 1.58 1.58 1.98Other/ don’t know 24.11 43.48 60.08

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 85.3Use the Internet 17.5Other services (typing, printing) 12.4Find friends, socialize 12.4Safe place in community 6.8Other reasons 7.2Notes:Valid responses: 214Multiple responses allowedSource: UC Berkeley-ISER CDI data 2004

Table 7: Computer Skills. Results of a regression for each task on an indicator variable of whether theuser took a CDI course. The third column controls for demographic characteristics.

Task CDI User (std error**) CDI User1 (std error**) Turn off the computer 0.466 (0.0347) 0.403 (0.0330) Write letter in word 0.309 (0.0422) 0.227 (0.0457) Create Folder 0.261 (0.0415) 0.170 (0.0445) Access Web Page 0.140 (0.0344) 0.104 (0.0379) Create Presentation 0.501 (0.0375) 0.443 (0.0402) Do a Web search 0.312 (0.0408) 0.264 (0.0446) Use Email 0.500 (0.0384) 0.435 (0.0420) Place Fig. in Word 0.180 (0.0343) 0.142 (0.0383) Program to Print Name 0.116 (0.0287) 0.095 (0.0317) Add #s in Excel 0.360 (0.0397) 0.295 (0.0437) Install Software 0.360 (0.0396) 0.297 (0.0441) Create a Web Page 0.436 (0.0396) 0.383 (0.0444) Configure a Printer 0.276 (0.0376) 0.228 (0.0411) Create an Access DB 0.152 (0.0302) 0.128 (0.0338) Create Web p. w/form 0.308 (0.0373) 0.247 (0.0399)

1CDI 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

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All (370)Users (238)Non-users (132)

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

Turn

off th

e com

puter

Write

letter

in word

Create

Folde

r

Acce

ss Web

Page

Create

Presen

tation

Do a W

eb se

arch

Use Em

ail

Place F

ig. in W

ord

Program

to Prin

t Nam

e

Add #

s in Ex

cel

Install

Software

Create

a Web

Page

Configu

re a P

rinter

Create

an Ac

cess

DB

Create

Web

p. w

/form

Tasks (in order of perceived difficulty)

Frac

tion

of U

sers

All (370)Users (238)Non-users (132)

(b) What type of program do you normally use?

Source: UC Berkeley-ISER CDI data 2004

Figure 1: Computer skills and usage by those who took CDI courses (Users) and those who did not(Non-users)

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Table 8: Main technical issues facing telecenters, and some important observations

Issue Key Points

Technical support

• train people from the community in computer mainte-nance and administration (this should be a course withthe more advanced students, for example)

• develop hardware and software that require less mainte-nance and less configuration by the end user

• integrate remote monitoring and administration softwareand hardware if applicable

Low cost hardware

• users demand current applications

• use thin and smart clients

• use of recycled computers with intelligent software to op-timize resources

• use multiple terminals per CPU

• cheaper, integrated hardware that can be mass producedto 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

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Table 9: High level comparison among projects CDI Telecentros Gemas da Terra

Funding sources

International Philanthropy

Corporate Philanthropy

Prefecture of São Paulo International Agencies

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

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

• Community telecenter model

• Charges for browsing, 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 V-

SAT provided by the central government

(Table continues)

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Table 9: continued CDI Telecentros Gemas da Terra

Franchising System

• 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

• 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

• Selection system is region-based, rather than partner-based, based on research design document for selecting and setting up a GDT telecenter

I. 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

II. Regions of interest are visited by GDT, surveyed for the right kind of organizations / community dynamics

Sustainability Issues

• Sustainability for CDI 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

• Sustainability in terms of 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

• Sustainability depends 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 long-term sustainability for the GDTs.

Source: visits to the projects; interviews with project managers and staff

39