By indi.ca/Flickr

(The following is a thought piece of a potential product or service idea. If something similar exists already prior to the posting date on this blog, woops, please send me your link and I’ll post it online. If not, then Beta Bahil, LLC accepts all the ‘wow, great idea’ glory and is open to working to implement this offline. The Kindle product is discussed as they have the waterproof case. We are not getting paid by Jeff Bezos to write this. Further posts on other e-Reader/Tablets to come.)

Tuesday afternoon in Addis Ababa or Abidjan and a university student is heading home from class. On the way, they pop into a local café or kiosk to grab a quick snack, coffee and pastry. Sitting there, they pull out the course syllabus for their Sustainable Development class and skim down to a reference for a book entitled “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.”

Usually, the student would have to first find out if the book is available at the University or local library. If not, the search begins amongst friends and family, local and abroad. Once the book is found, the student would have to go to the local photocopy facility to copy the sections of interest($$), as they would have done for other handouts received in class.

It is well known that the availability of textbooks and other reference materials are a problem in countries such as Ethiopia. Marie Paiva wrote in “A Quick Glimpse at Public and Academic Libraries in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia”, about her observations after visiting the Addis Ababa Public Library in the Sidist Kilo area of the city. Some key points of interest in the article, published in February 2008, included:

“ -current budget for acquisitions is about USD $4,500 per year; and they do occasionally receive donations from private organizations and NGOs.
-users are mostly from nearby high schools and colleges, and the library contains 220 seats.
-collection consists of 20,000 volumes which do not circulate.
-most of the titles I picked up appeared older and well used.”

To solve this, there have been successful efforts to collect new and used books and ship them to under-resourced communities. Ethiopia Reads, founded by Mr. Yohannes Gebregeorgis, is one that has focused on both the supply and delivery of books for children in Ethiopia. These projects involve soliciting people, communities, and publishers to obtain their books, store and then find a way to ship them to the end destination(i.e. partner institution or school). Mr. Gebregeorgis and the Ethiopia Reads team are heroes for overcoming and managing the acquisition and logistical issues that made the program what it is today.

But what about the college student who needed that book on sustainability?

We wave our collective hands in the air and in comes the HaLaHaMaSa(only name I could think of on the spot)iCafé. Presumably located near the Uni, the café allows the student to sit, grab a drink and browse through a waterproof and sealed Kindle that is attached to each of ten tables.

The waterproof feature is not for the unlikely case of flooding in the city, but more to the durability of an e-reader that can withstand any potential spillage/wear and tear that exists in that environment. Kindle is the e-reader developed by Amazon. Watch the video below that describes the Kindle DX.

The optimal scenario is that each student has their own device, like the plan by WorldReader.org, but there also exists an opportunity for a different service model that is a hybrid with the existing internet café model. The difference from a traditional internet café is that instead of just allowing people to browse the web and web content, they are provided an alternate reading experience and material. Roll-out of such as service is also fast, as one would be partnering with existing cafés and kiosks who could handle the upfront costs of the Kindle units.

Now there are still a lot of pricing related issues:
1. How much should the books cost in a developing market?
2. Access to scientific journals and publications?
3. Consistent access to electricity(though the readers are optimized for long battery life, it may not be longer than some electricity shortages)?

Check out the spillproof tablet, Qooq, that provides interactive recipes, instructional videos. Targeted at kitchen oriented individuals with a passion for cooking, the form is perfect for a e-reader cafe.

Though I haven’t covered the financial considerations in detail, you can’t miss the obvious savings in collections and transport of such a scheme. Instead of book collections, people would possibly collect Amazon voucher cards or send e-book credit to students, or any individuals needing the books, via sms. When the student arrives at a Kindle station, they would log into their account and access the necessary books. If they have bought the book, it would remain active on their account for future use or can be made available for others who use that particular Kindle device.

Problems Solved Are:
Lack of Material
Theft of Material
Dated Material
Built in Dictionary
Ability to Read PDFs

New Problems:
Ability to print from e-reader

Related Blog Posts:
Sankofa 2.5
Sankofa 2.5 Community Forum and Workshop