Gadfly Gates

It is not so intriguing that Bill Gates is beginning to question some of thepromises of digital technologies. Tall claims are being made a...

It is not so intriguing that Bill Gates is beginning to question some of thepromises of digital technologies. Tall claims are being made about computersand hype is becoming an industry standard. It needs someone to set therecord straight and who better for the job than the industry leader? Atconferences and press interviews, the world8217;s richest man and founder ofsoftware giant Microsoft increasingly plays the gadfly to the computerindustry, expressing scepticism about its ability to solve all the world8217;sproblems, challenging the notion that 2 to 3 billion of the world8217;s poorpeople are in the market for infotech products, arguing that the poor needfood and health care before they need laptops. It sounds like a variant ofthe contagion first sighted at the anti-WTO protests in Seattle last year.

But of course Gates is no Luddite or anti-capitalist. What he is doing ispuncturing the bloated claims of high tech industry.8220;They computers areamazing in what they can do,8221; he says, 8220;but they have to be put in theperspective of human values8221;. Quite right.

Gates is right about some things and wrong about others. True, you cannotsell computers to people who have no electricity or reading skills or money.

But there are two ways of looking at this: as dead-end or as a problem to besolved. In India, at least, you can try selling computers to villagepanchayats in the hope that they will improve communication between peopleand the district administration, and that villagers can get practicalinformation from anywhere in the world. That the village computer which soimpressed Bill Clinton in Nyala in Rajasthan stopped working the day afterhis visit does not change the fact that computers have the potential tovastly improve rural life. Having once seen what they can do, people ofNyala can be trusted to demand computers, the electricity to run them andthe education to benefit from them. What use is it selling cars to peoplewho have no roads, Gates asks. Well, what has happened in India may beinstructive. By accident or design, a liberal automobile policy combinedwith bad, congested roads built up so much road rage that it has beenpossible for the government to levy a road-building cess on a biggerpopulation of car-owners. In time and with sustained public pressure, Indiamay get the new roads it needs.

The promise of high tech and the promise of market-friendly reform isenormous. No doubt about that. But they have to be done right. It is howthey are applied to the problems of the day that will make all thedifference between success and failure. Priorities matter. Once governmentsdetermine that social services, health and education, clean drinking waterand good sanitation, are of primary importance, technology and the marketcan be used as the means to get to those goals. What good is it beingenamoured with all the possibilities of the Internet and mobile phonesunless practical applications are worked out to improve the lives ofmillions of poor people directly? Meanwhile, as Bill Gates emphasises, theworld8217;s most impoverished people need urgent aid not next year but now.