Hole-in-the-Wall Learning Station

In 1999, Sugata Mitra and his team at NIIT dug a hole in the wall of their office building facing a slum in Kalkaji, New Delhi and placed there a WiFi enabled computer terminal. All that was exposed was a monitor, three feet off the ground, and a touch pad. Within hours, children were swarming the monitor to discover what it could do. To Sugata’s surprise, children who had never seen a computer before began to teach themselves how to use it. They quickly learned basic functionalities such as all of the mouse operations, opening and closing folders, and downloading games and music from the internet. The experiment was meant to test Sugata’s hypothesis that, given the right tools, children could teach themselves. Many more experiments were tested across India and the same results were observed in each case. It seems as though Sugata’s hypothesis was correct.

Children at the first terminal built in Kalkaji, New Delhi (Mitra, Sugata. 2000).

The Hole-in-the-Wall computer has been implemented elsewhere following its great success in India. It was even the inspiration behind the popular novel Q&A, which many others will recognize as the Oscar winning film Slumdog Millionaire. However, there are many places that would yet benefit from this revolutionary learning technique. It is our belief here at @ecoswell, that the children of Lobitos, Peru and surrounding areas might greatly benefit from such a device. WiFi access in Lobitos is prohibitively expensive and thus is not readily available for most. Installing a Hole-in-the-Wall computer terminal in Lobitos would give the children of Lobitos access to an entirely new world of knowledge and exploration previously unavailable to them.

In 2013, Sugata Mitra won the TED Talk prize of $1,000,000 for his Hole-in-the-Wall research. In his acceptance speech, he said, “In nine months a child left alone with a computer would reach the same standard as an office professional in the West.” This statement is not said lightly and it speaks to the passion and belief behind Sugata Mitra’s work. Here at Ecoswell, we are in the process of conducting a feasibility study on the Hole-in-the-Wall project to see if we can bring it to the children of Lobitos.

Seth Watkins, an energy professional from the United States, will be conducting the study. The research will look into various scenarios in which varying designs and locations are considered, weighing the pros and cons of each with regard to accessibility and cost. It will also look into the best way to incorporate renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and battery technologies to power the computer. The goal would be to bring the vast universe of information found online to the children of Lobitos in a sustainable manner. After beginning his research on the project, Seth had this to say: “It seems to me that this project imbues what I might call the Field of Dreams Complex, a term inspired by the 1989 film Field of Dreams with actor Kevin Costner who plays a farmer on the verge of losing his land. To the surprise of nearly everyone, rather than fold and sell his land, Costner’s character builds a baseball field after hearing a voice that said ‘If you build it, they will come.’ While the film was referring to deceased baseball legends, here in Lobitos, if we build the Hole-in-the-Wall the children will come.”

Children in Uganda using a Hole-in-the-Wall learning station powered by solar panels (Museum of Modern Art).

@EcoSwell is a for-impact, sustainable development organization based in Lobitos, Peru. Since 2014, we have been working everyday to help coastal communities thrive in unison with nature. All the revenue generated from our SteemIt posts go directly back into our projects. If you would like to learn more, please visit our Facebook, website, and follow us on SteemIt!