Computer On Wheels (COW) for people centered development, a project of the Villages in Development and Learning – ViDAL – foundation, is a mobile unit with a purpose to provide information services to the villages of India. This innovation came about at the turn of the century when the digital age was bypassing our villages. Technology was adapted suitably to merge into the environment it aimed to serve. A laptop with internet connectivity through a cellular device run on solar energy on a motorbike at the doorstep of the last citizen is a tool with tremendous potential that has as of now been used for providing basic services. The strength of this model is also an Information Provider (IP) who rides this unit in the villages. The IP is necessarily a villager from the footprint that a unit of COW serves.
COW has been able to provide basic information services in terms of health, agriculture, animal husbandry and education to the villages, it has been an instrument of representation of the villages and its people to the government, and the government has also utilised COW for awareness programmes and data collection.
In Health oriented services, queries from the villages by e-mail were answered by the Primary Health Centre Doctor via a secure Internet connection directly to the IP's database. Approximately 440 people accessed remote health services for malgia, knee pains, skin problems and reproductive health problems in 7 villages in one year. HIV-AIDS awareness was created in 11 tribal habitations by a government program 'Asha' using COW's mobile equipment. While it is true that the government departments increasingly are striving to anchor contemporary e-services for people in the villages, these efforts are not realised to their optimum potential because of lack of basic infrastructure facilities like electronics & telecommunications, and electricity in the villages. Due to these reasons and also because people didn't have good transportation facilities they sought health services in earnest, the fact that they were not sure about the availability of the Doctor at the PHC was an additional attraction for seeking services at their door step. They were able to continue their respective responsibilities in their village like attending to the fields etc., while they sought these services. For the PHC doctor it made a lot of sense to give services through COW since, in his opinion nearly 40% of the people didn't require to come to the PHC as they were suffering from common ailments that were unique to the region. This perspective from the doctor resolved the ethical dilemma of diagnosing generic health problems through the Internet in villages. Health service provided by COW removed the myth that the health provider and health service have to be combined in the same place to be available for people in the villages.
In the age of the third wave where digital technologies hold forth, the interior villages of India are ignored, as the cost of including them in the information revolution is too high for the government and the giants of the information highway. Technologies of every sort have been digitised for mainly facilitating the processes, and not the least in medical sciences. Access to these life saving technologies are very much limited to the cities. The trickle down of the services even to towns has been very slow. Government hospitals feel overburdened with the kind of work they are expected to accomplish and private hospitals are prohibitive in terms of the cost. Some of the difficulties faced by the people from the villages can be reduced if basic and appropriate information for diagnosis is transferred to the nearest point of reference. The ensuing part of the proposal is aimed precisely at this need.
Under the leadership of Dr. M.B.Srinivas, Associate Professor, International Institute of Information Technology, with a PhD from the Indian Institute of Science, a Multifunctional Medical Device connected to a mobile phone for rural communities has been invented. Low-Cost hardware has been built that can monitor Pulse Rate, Blood Pressure, Respiratory Functions and ECG. This device can be connected to a mobile phone for display of parameters as well as their transmission. It can be kept either in a rural health center or in a kiosk. It does not need a computer but instead uses a mobile phone both for display as well as transmission of data. Where there is no mobile network but Internet is available, it can also transmit data over the Internet. In emergencies, data can be sent directly to a doctor's mobile phone. The most essential feature of the device is that it can be used for regular screening of rural communities as well as in emergencies. If placed in an ambulance it can be used to transfer vital information beforehand to the hospital.
Having an appropriate technology mandate for villages ViDAL envisions a pro rural technology environment to be created wherein the global accomplishments of technology are reflected in the rural communities. In this context Dr. M.B.Srinivas and ViDAL have come together to incubate this technology at a rural point so as to take the Learnings to a larger wide spread rural scale.
We are seeking support from Hospitals that have a telemedicine mandate, as the third piece, that of medical intervention is critical to the success of the project. We are also seeking financial support to enable incubation of this technology and intervention costs for a short term till the technology is proven from the users point of view.
Contact Details:
ViDAL Contacts:
Pingali Rajeswari
Founder: Computers On Wheels (COW), ViDAL
Ph: 9391214853
Ananth Raj
Programme Executive,ViDAL
m: 9866834053
P.Niranjana
Research Executive, ViDAL
m: 9849887187
IIIT Contacts:
Dr. M.B.Srinivas
Associate Professor
International Institute of Information Technology
srinivas@iiit.ac.in, srinivas@iiit.net
91-40-23001967/1969 Ext: 128
