The Chinese government is using computers based on the Moblin software stack and the Intel Atom processor to help boost development and incomes in rural China. By making low-cost, powerful netbooks and nettops available in rural areas, China is providing new outlets and opportunities for the tens of millions of Chinese who live in rural villages away from the cities where China’s economic boom is concentrated.
Using a version of Red Flag Linux built on the Moblin stack and nettops and netbooks built on the Atom processor, the Go Rural program is helping the Chinese government close the digital divide by promoting the use of computers in villages throughout China. Red Flag, a leading Chinese software vendor of Open Source products, productized the Moblin stack and provided Moblin based netbooks and nettops from local Chinese PC OEMs for the projects.
To encourage rural residents to purchase computers, in February, 2009, the Chinese government began offering subsidies of up to 13 percent for residents in rural areas who purchase qualifying computers.
In addition to Internet connectivity, the Moblin-based systems run a variety of applications specifically aimed at helping villagers develop their businesses and new sources of income.
One example is an application which helps promote ethnic tourism. Besides the majority Han, China has 55 different ethnic groups with a wide variety of cultures, religion, customs and arts and crafts. Tourism can offer an important supplement to the ethnic villagers’ incomes, and the Chinese government has an extensive program of promoting ethnic tourism as a way to aid rural development. With the application running on Moblin-based computers, visitors can book tours of villages as well as accommodations in the villagers’ homes over the World Wide Web. To the people booking through the app, it appears as a web page.
The Moblin-based computers are also helping entities in the rural areas handle conventional business and office automation chores. For example, the Pinggu Rural District is using computers based on the Moblin software stack from Red Flag to run its mobile office automation system. The application allows district employees to get email, perform data processing and other tasks remotely relying on the connectivity of the Moblin-based computers. This allows the Pinggu Rural District to serve residents more effectively.
Rural China is overwhelmingly agricultural and computers and information technology can help farmers as well. China Standard Software Company, Ltd. (CS2C), a leading Chinese Open Source software vendor has worked with agricultural industry vendors to develop an application suite which runs on Moblin-based computers to help farmers with everything from crop and livestock management to marketing. The programs have an easy-to-use icon based interface especially designed for less IT savvy users. The applications provide a new level of information accessibility to rural farmers and help them improve their farming practices, offer the latest information on pests and diseases and commodity pricing to help them maximize their incomes.
Computers based on the Moblin software stack are ideally suited for China’s rural development needs. The Moblin-based interface is intuitive and easy to use as well as being aimed specifically at net based applications.
The computers are also inexpensive. The Moblin stack combined with the underlying Atom processor produces a low-cost yet powerful system able to meet the needs of China’s rural population.
The Atom processor is designed from the ground up to support powerful, rugged and simple low-cost systems, such as the netbooks and nettops being used in rural China. Featuring low power, extended battery life and a design optimized for low-cost, portable and remote applications, the Atom processor serves as an ideal base for building these kinds of systems.
The Moblin architecture is especially well adapted to providing the kind of graphically rich, user-friendly interface that first-time computer users need to get the most out of a computer. The icon-based interface which is part of the Moblin stack is optimized for net connectivity without consuming large amounts of resources such as memory or processor power.
Moblin implementations are developer friendly as well. The Moblin software stack is highly customizable and the Moblin project includes a comprehensive set of development tools so developers can easily produce everything from interfaces to applications specialized for target audiences, whether it’s a MID user in a developed area or a villager in a rural district getting their first exposure to the power of the information age.
China’s Go Rural program is an effort to improve the life of rural Chinese villagers through a wide variety of development and coordinated programs. Information technology plays a key part in these plans and Go Rural includes efforts to get low-cost computers into the hands of villagers and help them find ways to use them to aid in raising the economic level of the people.
