As part of their research on cognitive learning and to determine whether outdoor computer kiosks can survive extreme climates, NIIT chief scientist and senior vice-president Sugata Mitra and his team set up kiosks in public places. They found that children tinkering with this device achieved a working knowledge of operating the computer in a matter of hours. A week later, the children were given a demonstration of how the MS Frontpage package operates, and started making Web pages. But then came the language divide. The children had planned their Web pages in Hindi. They couldn’t type in English.

Dr Mitra says massive efforts go into ensuring at least 75% uptime at kiosks. Yet, unforeseen problems continue to crop up. At one such kiosk Dataquest visited, children complained that the boy who was supposed to boot the computer often didn’t turn up. "Net access has been down for a while," one avid user said. Asked what they did with the machine, he quipped—"We play games or use Paint. But some rowdy boys delete the games or simply switch off the computer when they are through. The computer can only be switched on from inside the kiosk," explains another regular. But the fact remains that the kiosks have surpassed the "curiosity value" test and continue to draw children. There are 60 computers set up across 20 locations in India. The moot question—are these kiosks successful primarily because they offer Net access free of charge? "Yes, this may not work if any kind of enrollment fees were involved," says Dr Mitra. The project is funded by NIIT, the International Finance Corporation, the Government of Delhi and ICICI Bank. Setting up kiosks costs approximately Rs 5 lakh each (Rs 2.5 lakh without a Net connection) and maintenance adds up to about Rs 500 per month.

But would other institutions actually take up similar projects, if not for the research value that this one offers?