Silicon Valley Musings

Draft Outline - Initial thoughts

A New Spirit of Harmony - One Planet, Many Voices.
Goal: By 2020, every person on the planet would have a cell phone (geek
speek IP dial-tone).

Why cell phones instead of footprints on Mars?
- As technologically challenging as mission to Mars
- More likely to have short and long term benefit for U.S. citizens as
well as mankind
- Questions like “Where did we come from?” are better left to
theologians, artists, and philosophers

Why a cell phone, instead of food, vaccines, etc.?
- DVF experience indicates that all emergency relief, health, and
economic initiatives first require reliable communications infrastructure
(examples WFP, WHO 3×5, micro-credit)

What would the user experience be like?
- Examples: Extend Paul Rankin’s project and UCB CITRIS ICT4B

Who would benefit? How would they benefit?
- The poorest of the poor.
+ Their plight would become transparent to the rest of the
world.
+ Access to voice based medical information
- Those in poverty
+ Access to micro-credit, market information, and
educational materials for their children
- Developed world
+ Increased security by reducing the threat of terrorism
+ More efficient access to emerging markets

How would it be done?
- Three prongs: technology, diplomacy, arts
- Technology: Combination of CITRIS, GSM, and VoIP network
- Diplomacy: negotiate global treaty of free access to global
network. Key targets: China, Iran, >
- Arts: develop online health information, entertainment, and
cultural archives for each region

How much might it cost?
- Components needed for back of envelop estimate:
+ Total Number of people by 2020
+ Percentage in urban slums
+ Current handset cost
+ Current cost of GSM tower
+ Current cost of CITRIS tower
+ Number of regional server hubs needed
+ Cost of regional server hub
+ Estimate of number of terabytes necessary for cultural
archives
+ Cost for personnel

What would be a good prototype?
- By 2008, Equip everyone in (Racife, Cape Town, or Haiti) with cell
phones

Who would be good prototype partners?
- HP, Intel, Philips, UCB CITRIS