New Article: Using Technology to Fight Poverty
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August 21st, 2005 | About this Blog, Software Development, Startups
“15 bucks. The guy works 40 hours a week at an IT training facility and can’t afford a $15 computer book. He’s not starving. He’s not living in a mud hut on the side of the road scraping to feed his family. But at 83 times the minimum wage this book would cost $427 in the U.S.
Does this seem wrong to anyone else?”
Read the complete article here.
About Me: My name is Rob Walling and I'm a software developer living and working in Boston (as of July 1, 2008).
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2 comments ↓
Excellent writing Rob; this kind of financial divide also raises the issue of software and book piracy in third world countries. There are some low cost edition programs for Asian countries but I’m not sure about Ghana and other African places. There is a tremendous amount of labor and intellectual potential in the people but mostly due to lack of awareness and govt. policies, it goes futile. I’ll be waiting for a sequel.
I agree, Adnan. In Ghana people are willing to work, but there aren’t any challenging jobs. You can’t blame them for leaving the country the first chance they get. The internet can go a long way towards changing this perpetual brain drain. As for software piracy, I didn’t see Windows XP Starter edition in Ghana, but I did see several pirated copies.