Tablets are no Silver Bullet
But the tablet cannot single headedly change things no matter how cheap they come. There’s even a project being carried out in India, where the Indian government sponsored the production of a Tablet running android that will retail for $60 [That is less than N10,000. You cannot buy a Smartphone with N10,000, let alone a tablet] What will you do with a tablet that cannot connect to the internet? It will practically be useless. The only way to gain full benefit from a tablet is when it is connected to the internet.
Imagine the revolution that can take place when there’s abundant WI-Fi.
Let’s say we get the likes of Vantium, Encipher Inye, Ovim and others to produce low cost tablets, even subsidise them for students, like it was done in India, where is the internet they will use? Nigeria is a country where we practically manufacture or produce what we need as individuals; electricity, water, road, security, even Internet. There are many public schools that do not have access to [decent] internet connectivity. Even if other public places lack connectivity, schools shouldn’t. There’s a huge opportunity locked within a connected society. Internet connects people to one another regardless of the location.
I spoke to Iyionlowa Aboyeji, a young Nigerian working on a startup called Bookneto from far away Waterloo, Canada. When I spoke to him about this, he said the cheap/low cost tablets must have strong WI-FI receivers and there’s also need for availability of WI-FI networks that will power the tablets. This makes it clear, like I have stated, producing the low cost tablets are one side of the coin. The other side is making a decent internet connection available.
Imagine things that young people will be capable of doing. There’s a young guys from America, Thomas Suarez, a twelve year old app developer. Yep! You read right, he is just twelve years old and has developed Apps for Apple, owns a startup company called CarrotCorp. Obviously he has access to these devices at home. This sort of creativity will begin to flourish by the time younger folks are having access to this kind of information and interacting with it.
There’s a resource on YouTube by Salman Khan, a Bangladeshi American. He teaches variety of subject and uploads them on YouTube for free. Imagine the possibilities that will open to students with a connected tablet and access to such tools.
There are also the other businesses that can spring up. As education sector embraces these tablet revolution via cheaper tablets, there will be publishers that will start to create contents for the Tablets. Not just book and educational materials, but also app publishers can create quality contents.
It will be interesting to look into the next few years and see how this will play out. I have already said that Smartphone adoption in Nigeria is about to grow beyond the 5% we currently have. Tablets will also grow and impact the society well if some of these steps are taken.
I am having a cheap/low cost Android with me. I am testing it out and will be having it for a couple of days. It cost about N26,500, less expensive to the cheapest Blackberry—8520. Tablets can come cheaper than this. They may not be the same quality with Apple’s iPad, but can deliver on the fronts as I have mentioned in this article.
