[ubuntu-uk] Hole in the Wall Project

[Andrew Loughran]

London School of Puppetry wrote:
> Does anyone know anything about this project?  Taking place in India.  
> Computers are built into walls in India in open spaces for children to 
> play with ....thousands of them have learnt English over the past year 
> by playing....Apparently they did try OS tech. but said it didn't 
> work- stuff likes Red Hat I was told vaguely.....anyone know anything 
> about it?
>
> Caroline
>
> -- 
>
> ---
> London School of Puppetry
> www.londonschoolofpuppetry.com <http://www.londonschoolofpuppetry.com> 
Caroline,

I have come across this before - having read a journal article on the 
phenomenon for a final-year Psychology essay.  I'll try and dig up the 
entry so I can find you some details.

If I recollect correctly, then the situation was something like the 
following:

A big tech company in Mumbai had a building which was next to a slum, 
and one of the buildings backed onto the slum.  A philanthropic 
employee/manager decided to study the ability for people who were 
completely uninitiated to any form of technology to use a computer.  It 
had a basic keyboard and mouse - and the main reason that I was 
impressed by the article - & Linux (though which flavour I am not sure).

The surprising thing was, that not only were the indian children able to 
use the computer and work out how to use the keyboard and the mouse - 
but they were able to use both google (and english) to a surprisingly 
level. 

If I could get my hands on my Uni documents then I'd be able to give you 
a complete essay on it (and a far more accurate account).  However, I 
ran Windows during my final year of Uni to run some University 
software... needless to say the first thing I did when I left uni was to 
switch to just ubuntu - and took out my windows HD to keep all my stuff 
backed up.  That disk is now in Birmingham, and I'm in Manchester.

I hope this helps.

Andy