Rural Connectivity

In a group comprising mostly professors 8212; offloaded at Delhi airport and mildly grumpy as their coach inched along a foggy Haryana high...

In a group comprising mostly professors 8212; offloaded at Delhi airport and mildly grumpy as their coach inched along a foggy Haryana highway 8212; one man from IIT Madras was smiling smugly.

He had downloaded and replied to 90 e-mails on his laptop while the rest grumbled about the cancelled Delhi-Chandigarh flight and the hours wasted waiting at airport lounges. Until connectivity went kaput and his laptop was useless.

IIT-M professor Ashok Jhunjunwala was heading to the Indian Science Congress at Panjab University to share a business model with faculty and students to bring the Internet and telephones to villages.

They believe it8217;s Internet and telephony that can double rural India8217;s per capita GDP from Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 in 10 years.

The professor has reason to smile when Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee speech 8212; he skipped the event 8212; was circulated at the insipid ISC inauguration today: 8216;8216;I urge universities, labs and industry to take up enrichment of India8217;s human resources in science and technology as a national mission.8217;8217;

The IIT-M faculty did just that, starting a little over a decade ago. The Telecommunication and Computer Network TeNet Group, the result of informal chats among three professors 8212; all IIT alumni and US returns 8212; is better known for incubating Midas Communications and its corDECT wireless in local loop technology with US chip manufacturer Analog Devices. Midas started by coaxing nine IIT alumni to chuck well paying jobs for this business risk.

8216;8216;We identified students and met them personally,8217;8217; said Jhunjhunwala.

8216;8216;In 1994, Midas was a dream, today it8217;s on autopilot,8217;8217; he said, shrugging off the mention of a rich bounty of jobs abroad. 8216;8216;The simplest technology is more challenging in India than in the US because it has a huge impact.8217;8217;

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Today TeNet has incubated 14 companies totalling over 1,000 engineers. 8216;8216;If you have a big vision, you generate goodwill and succeed,8217;8217; said the man who8217;s on the board of some 20 companies and teaches regularly. 8216;8216;We don8217;t have any leaders in the bureaucracy with big vision or policy.8217;8217;

TeNet8217;s latest incorporation is n-Logue Communications to take telephones and the Internet multimedia, webcam, video conferencing software, the works to villages at the cost of Rs 50,000 a kiosk 8212; Rs 40,000 as bank loan. Promised returns: Rs 3,500 a month and 500 to 1,000 subscribers in a 25 sq km radius.

If a tea shop owner running the kiosk never saw a PC before, never mind. 8216;8216;We8217;ll train him if he8217;s passed high school,8217;8217; is the answer over stories of chicken pox epidemics prevented by 100 e-mails sent across Tamil Nadu from a single kiosk. Of a stubborn goat who refused to eat until its ailment was e-mailed to a vet for Rs 20 only.

n-Logue8217;s agenda is to stay off cities, with a target of 2,500 rural access centres and one million subscribers over three years. Kiosks are springing up across Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan, some already raking in Rs 13,000-14,000 income monthly. 8216;8216;I have seen villages where children are masters at CADCam or PowerPoint,8217;8217; says the professor.

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Coming up next from the group is a planned February launch of a rural ATM by Vortex. The cost: Rs 30-35,000 instead of the usual budget of several lakh. No pin numbers for this money vending machine, just stick your thumb on the webcam for a good old fingerprint.

As the airport coach lazily passed Karnal, the prof shared another IIT-M campus dream by TeNet. A billion dollar product company. 8216;8216;We have to tell the world India has arrived8217;8217;. Our arrival was still 12 hours behind schedule.