Thoughts:
1) pitching the idea, and creating language, around distributing sets of 5-10. bundle so that shipping is half the total cost of a set.
Networks of people who all share one point of contact who knows how to update or troubleshoot them have more meaningful access and a better experience (and lower total cost of ownership).
2) lack of awareness tracks marginal cost for local groups. $30 for a school or clinic, including travel time for the person dropping it off --> something I would do for every clinic + nursing school + other school in a district. Lower cost makes it reasonable for a graduating class of nurses + doctors to all have one to take with them to their next place of work.
3) tipping points of awareness in a region make use + communication about nodes more reliable, more useful (general purpose; not just in one location) -- and lead to better feedback about types + languages of content most needed that is still not included.
4) maps of where these are desired but not available, so that others can send them, is a parallel need that can offset unit costs. Plenty of people want to help complete delivery to points on such maps (including UN orgs trying to provision global information goods).
As the price of hardware continues to drop the financial barriers to health information for all continue to fall. We are now able to package and ship an offline version of Wikipedia in multiple languages for around 40 USD. And we have sent out nearly 250 units in just over a year.
The question now is what are the remaining barriers to widespread distribution and access? Is it a lack of awareness among those who need this technology? Is it still too expensive? Are people looking for different types of content? Or maybe different languages?
Peoples thoughts?
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James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
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Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266