The traditional model of networked computing - one PC per user - has some major flaws:
- It's much too expensive for most of the world to afford
- It has a very high environmental cost
- The distributed complexity is difficult to manage
So, although it has worked for the first billion people on the planet, it cannot be the long-term solution for providing IT to the world.
We therefore must find another model, unless we are going to tell two-thirds of the world that they cannot participate in this new digital world we've created.
Ndiyo has a model. It's not the only one, nor necessarily the best one, but it does work now using today's technology. It's based on sharing the power of a PC between several users at once. Today's computers are easily capable of supporting multiple users, but in the past there hasn't been a convenient and affordable way to do this. Now there is.
Ndiyo is a donor-supported non-profit UK organisation working to make this model accessible to the world.
clipped from: www.ndiyo.org