Mathukathe is an adapter kit for smartphones/PC that allows illiterate villagers with no schooling to find jobs, learn of development opportunities and provide feedback on welfare. It can be thought of as a hybrid ATM, coin phone device. One device can serve an entire village.
Instead of a regular keypad which is useless to illiterates here two colored buttons (connect, skip) are used similar to a tape recorder
Instead of a screen which illiterates cannot read here the machine speaks to the user in their native tongue.
Just like an ATM card s used to identify a user, here a similar card is used to identify a user and provide information specific to the user.In that sense it is a shared personal phone. currently, a job card is used to identify a job rather than a specific user and it is barcode based but that is more for ease of operation and explaination.
Instead of contact information being stored as name and phone number, here a descriptive audio clip represents the contact. For example instead of storing an employer's name a job description is used to represent the employer since its the job that connects the employer and illiterate job seeker.
This a full fledged illiterate phone with multiple other uses: remote surveys among illiterates, remote 1-1 mentoring, street vendor sales leads. Please press articles linked to website for more information (in particular thinkChangeIndia article)
Contact management is different than in a regular phone: instead of searching contacts by spelling them here they are played out as a list similar to a song list and navigated by the two buttons. The network participates in contact management since this is an area where illiterates are really handicapped.
Mathuakathe is developed in Bangalore, India and has been on trial in a few sites in Bangalore. Various media publications have covered Mathukathe: SmartPlanet, Slashgear, Times of India Crest Edition, Bangalore Mirror, Deccan Chronicle. Media links available on the website.
Publicly available: yes
Countries where available: Worldwide
Available online: yes
Offered or can be licensed for local manufacture: yes
Countries where spare parts can be purchased: Worldwide
Dimensions: 22cmx9cmx11cm
Weight: 2kg