Internet Kiosks in Rural India: What Influences Success?

In this paper we investigate an example of a very widely applied modelfor the delivery of IT services to rural and poor populations. The modelis one where limited intervention to support infrastructure andcoordinate resources is combined with market-based delivery of ITservices to the end user (what we call here the "sustainablefranchise model"). Though this model has been deployed world-wideby governments, NGOs, and development institutions in the past fewyears, few researchers have studied the determinants of success in sucha model. In this paper we examine the example of n-Logue, a franchise ofover 1000 locally-owned, internet kiosks in rural villages in India. Weseek to assess how this new sustainable franchise model has worked inpractice by analyzing data from 74 of n-Logue's kiosks. Among otherthings, we find that gender and education do not affect success, whilelocation and other measures of social standing (age and caste) do. Wealso find that the uses that villagers have for IT services are not sodifferent from those which first world users have. The lessons we drawfrom this example are that while local customs and practices must betaken into account (e.g. the caste system), it is not a foregoneconclusion that social biases (e.g. against women) cannot be mitigatedby good program design.