You are: A rural village in India.

Your situation:

You are in a very poor and remote village, in a region of India that has undergone very little modernization or development. You have no communications infrastructure – not even a single telephone. Your school has no permanent building, and no blackboards. Many villagers suffer from disease and malnutrition, and you are recovering from a major drought. Your region does have access to forests and mineral deposits, as well as (usually) good arable land, but these resources have not been highly developed.

The technology available: The Simputer.

"The Simputer is a low cost portable alternative to PCs, by which the benefits of IT can reach the common man. The key to bridging the digital divide is to have shared devices that permit truly simple and natural user interfaces based on sight, touch and audio.
The Simputer meets these demands through a browser for the Information Markup Language (IML). IML has been created to provide a uniform experience to users and to allow rapid development of solutions on any platform.

"The projected cost of the Simputer is about Rs 9000 (US $300) at large volumes. But even this is beyond the means of most citizens. The Smart Card feature that the Simputer provides enables the Simputer to be shared by a community.

"The Simputer is *NOT* a personal computer. It could however be a pocket computer. But the Simputer is much more powerful than a Palm. For example, in terms of screen size (320x240), memory capabilities (32MB RAM) and the OS (GNU/Linux). Application development for the simputer can be done on any platform: linux, windows, solaris, MacOS.

"There are two options on the base simputer for entering text: one is a soft keyboard, that can be brought up onthe touch screen and you poke at it to enter one character at a time. The second option is to use a novel character entry software called tap-a-tap which is similar in spirit to graffitti, but quite distinct (no patent infringement:-). But if you insist on entering tons of text using the Simputer, you may be able to attach a USB keybaord. We don't recommend the Simputer as a mass data-entry device.

"It runs on three AAA batteries or off the mains. It can also use rechargeable batteries, but the charger is not built in."

-- from the Simputer FAQ

Your task:

To create a development project that uses this new technology to improve your village’s economic, social, or political prospects. Be sure to describe: