Can Digital Community Centers Save Remote Communities?

In most developing regions, governments are hard-pressed to provide the services needed to keep civic and cultural life functioning. Schools often lack supplies, health care may not be available in the community, and isolation is the rule. 

One bold attempt to change this pattern is underway in Costa Rica. A local foundation and the MIT Media Lab are recycling old shipping crates into newly-wired digital community centers. The goal of these Little Intelligent Communities (LINCOS) is to give rural villages access to a post office, a school computer lab, a small medical center (linked to specialists by telemedicine), a large screen for videos, as well as e-mail, fax, and Internet services -- tools that villagers can use to improve their quality of life. The effort plans to expand from today's seven units to sites throughout Central America, Asia, and Africa. At the same time, the Media Lab will use the LINCOS units as testbeds for businesses that could power economic and community development. Successful models will be franchised. 

The LINCOS strategy, still being refined, is to offer governments more cost-effective service delivery, community residents new economic opportunities, and online vendors potential new markets. If it succeeds, remote might no longer have to mean isolated.