Whenever I’m asked albeit informally how I feel about the notion of print media dying and everyone simply relying on the net to get information, I always say “Why that’s an awfully elitist assumption considering not EVERYONE has internet or even knows what it is.” But it seems there are ways to introduce the rural and remote areas to the wonderfully wide world of the world wide web via… a bus.
The Google Internet bus has taken route across and around rural India. In association with BSNL, a state-owned internet service provider, the aforementioned bus has covered over 43,000kms since it started on its journey last February 2009 and hopes to arouse, if not stir, people’s need for the internet. Of course, this is all in hopes to increase sales for online setups and contracts though it is also an attempt to “educate the people, especially the younger generation about the worldwide web and how Internet serves as a platform to step into the digital world for information, communication, entertainment and education” as stated by Google India research and development (R&D) head Prasad Ram.
And like the passing gypsies and traveling carnivals of old, this (free) internet café on wheels is sure to get people excited.
I just want to know if anything like that is happening in the Philippines.
Source: Economist