# IOP 21 for 21

Namaste, Indian Observer Post is compiling 21 for 21 i.e. 21 ideas from experts for rural India. All the ideas will be released on 22nd Jan and presented Minister/PMO by the organizers. Your idea would be important. In case of interest, may submit 300 to 500 words write up (may go little higher also) to [e-mail] with 60 to 80 words bio and a picture. Monday 18th is last date.

Can we consolidate our USP of ASPi into 500 words, suitable for rural women and communities to make their stories heard and connect them in process with advancements in all fields be it education, jobs, healthcare, market, policies... Or any other idea

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Aamne Saamne PI

[Aamne Saamne Pi Logo]

Aamne Saamne Pi (ASPi), a community owned white box laptop, built on top of the Raspberry Pi facilitates the creation, discovery and renarration of community expressions. Using the Raspberry Pi 4, a tiny single board computer, ASPi is placed in rural areas with young women and girls. It also empowers them to negotiate their traditional roles in the society while putting their own narratives forward. The Pi devices move away from the scope of personal mobile which have an added burden of addiction, abuse and expenses. It provides flexibility also in terms of extending it’s peripherals and portability. The Pi was designed while keeping in mind the specificity of their use in community media content creation through annotation, storytelling, archiving and moving away from the textually prolific internet.

[Aamne Saamne Pi Packaging hand painted by local artists]

These devices are designed to be affordable, easily repairable and networked to each other as well as to the Internet. This network would be useful to foster the entrepreneurial aspirations of women by also supporting them to build a small business within these networked communities. This kind of networking increases access to opportunities by helping bring local skills together - their applications and possibilities are enormous. This kind of network could be used to disseminate educational material, explore cyber physical systems, create jobs around the network, regulate markets in a more decentralised way, gather voices and responses to various policies, hear from the ground on healthcare, education, policies and mental health issues etc.

[Welcoming Tunes of ASPi]

[Assembly and peripherals of Pi]

The Pi can answer the question of the exacerbated digital divide which has been imposed due to the pandemic as the education model has now been moved online. With the implied mandation of mobile phones, their education has become a worry for many households in rural India who can't afford these costly gadgets. Instead of moving towards a more inclusive way, this has led to further divide and propagation of privilege and biases. In an educational setting, Pi can be used in groups and shared, be tinkered and played with. Since it is open to dissect and look at, transparency and accessibility defining its core, use cases such as introduction to robotics, adapting peripherals to their own needs like bigger screens or attaching projector are probable.

[An Online Session with the Mirzapur Girls]

It can facilitate the working of Community radio and video channels. With webinars and workshops becoming ubiquitous, the likelihood that webinars hosted by communities is not far with the use of Pi. Another advantage of Pi is its feature that allows for remote assistance. It lets connection happen even after it is deployed, which in turn can help in feedback and maintaining relationships with the community. We conducted a pilot run of ASPi with Girls in Mirzapur [UP, India], and the device became the expression of how the girls imagined their space, physically and digitally. They discovered and navigated the internet not just through browsing but through annotations, tagging and storytelling. For them ASPi was a device that connected generations, that broke superstitions and overcame biases, that incorporated different mediums and questioned traditional forms of literacy.

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* available for online classes
* not a "smartphone" - its expensive, addictive and abusive
* open device
* group media activity
* local cloud
* mesh node
* webinar/online classes
* community radio/video channels
* offline first content
* discovery and navigation
* remote assistance
* online workshops for groups
* phones work as extensions
* adaptable monitors, cyber physical systems,
* poratable

Not a black box
community owned device away from personal device space
negotiate traditional roles in society
specificity in use: storytelling & oral traditions
spaces for vernacular narratives to come out