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KNOWLEDGE AND VILLAGE INFORMATION KIOSKS:

BRIDGING THE CONCEPTUAL DIVIDE IN RURAL KENYA

AND AFRICA.

Lazarus NOLASCO, KUBASU

Mwafrika Institute of Development, P.O BOX 340 – KABARNET (KENYA)

Tel: +254 724 881380, E-mail: kubasuln@gmail.com

Lily MSAE, NYARIKI

Manager, Moi University Bookshop

P.O. BOX 3900 ELDORET

Tel: +254733712117 E-mail: lmnyariki@gmail.com

Abstract: Information entails an understanding of the relations between data, it does not provide a foundation

for what the data is nor an indication as to how the data is likely to change over time. However,

when a pattern relation exists amidst the data and information, the pattern has a potential to

represent knowledge. It only becomes knowledge, nevertheless, when one is able to realize and

understand the pattern and their implications. This pattern representing knowledge has a tendency to

be self-actualizing. Empowering development in rural areas can only take place when knowledge is

managed in such a way that it empowers the recipient to conceptualize the pattern and exploit it to

her or his advantage.Many rural communities in Africa live in abject poverty and have limited access

to basic infrastructure essential for economic growth, a number of researches document linkages

between this widespread poverty and information poverty – the lack of information and knowledge

that could improve earnings. This paper strongly argues that unless actors in development make

differences between data, information and knowledge to the recipient and design information or

knowledge projects that are geared towards ensuring that both information and knowledge is availed

rural communities, then development in rural area is unlikely to be achieved. Many information

programs have failed in rural areas because they only provide data and information that cannot be

utilized by rural folks. The paper also presents in details the project Village Information Kiosk

project in Western Kenya, a pilot information and knowledge program among rural communities that

uses ICT technologies, both digital and non-digital to avail information and knowledge in the field of

agriculture, health, enterprise, banking, micro-credit, environment, energy and governance among

others to both literate and illiterate rural consumers. The information is repackaged in

understandable formats for the rural consumers. The paper observes that through Village Information

Kiosks repackaging information in understandable formats using both digital and non-digital

instruments transform data to practical knowledge thereby ensuring usage by the rural users, who are

able to understand critical conceptual patterns of varied subjects that could gear them to

development and out of poverty. In deed, after sometimes, there was reported change by the users

because of the practicality of the information.

1.0 Introduction

Many of Kenya’s rural areas exist below subsistence levels and remain impoverished

because they have no access to basic information, knowledge and infrastructure

essential for economic growth and development. As a consequence the youth are

leaving their rural homes in pursuit of employment opportunity in the cities1. Basic

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information and knowledge infrastructure, which are essential pillars for economic

growth, has not even been planned for many deep rural communities in Kenya.

Geographic location have placed limitations on access to information and the use of the

Internet, which are considered vital to the promotion of learning, training and business

development in developing rural communities2.

While at the same time, information for its sake means little to a farmer, a craftwoman

in a small isolated rural communities or a pupil in a rural primary school. The most

important strategy is that information and communication must be presented in a way

that stimulate participation of the rural citizenry, generate learning resources and

promote interpersonal exchange within the context of the rural beneficiary. In Africa,

information and communication technologies (ICT) certainly mean more than internet

and e-mail. It is in Africa, where more than half the population has yet to make first

telephone call and most rural communities are illiterate mostly in English language,

which is the biggest medium of communication in the modern ICTs. As such, digital

divide, in the sense of a gap between individuals, households, businesses and

geographic areas at different socio-economic levels against opportunities to access to

the internet3 as described for the developed world need special exception to apply in

Africa.

Many researches 4 stress the convergence of information technology and

communication technology to form the new field of information and communication

technology (ICT) has had a revolutionary impact on the way we do business, live and

learn. This convergence has brought about the Information Age, the Knowledge Era, the

New Economy and the Information Society - popular concepts in use today.

Unfortunately it has trickled down to rural areas very dawdlingly. We are living through

this revolution, which brings together people from different environments. In these

circumstances, people may learn one another, but they also need basic access to and

understanding of ICT. Not only do people need to understand the rapid evolution of

new information and communication technologies, they also need to keep pace with

the rapid changes imposed on the social structure at work, at home, in the classroom

and in the entertainment field.

Importantly, rural initiatives for use of ICTs need to demonstrate the value of

information and knowledge to rural development and assist rural communities use the

information they need and get to foster their own development. This is because ICT is

regarded as both a driver and an enabler by influencing how things are done - but this

focus area of rural communities considers the aspects of ICT as the driving force for

current or future change. Kenyans need to be part of the information society to be

globally competitive, play their rightful role in the region and benefit as individuals.

Access to information and awareness of the possibilities of the effective use of ICT form

part of this initiative. Broader online literacy is required, as ICT is becoming a popular

service delivery channel increasingly used by the government, business and financial

sectors. It is important to address the growing functional illiteracy that disempowers

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people from living effectively in a modern society especially those in villages and rural

areas, by taking away people's fears of ICT innovatively.

ICTs can give a ‘voice’ to the disadvantaged rural communities. A ‘voice’ of knowledge

that enables them to use information communication technologies to escape poverty

traps; specifically reduce unemployment, deforestation, avail new business

opportunities, improve health care delivery, public safety and security and bring

government services to the people. This is what village information kiosks (VIKs) project

aims to do. VIKs does this by facing the challenges of rural poverty reduction through

innovatively establishing and providing information, knowledge and communication

services for practical knowledge acquisition through repackaging. This arrangement

enables rural people access information and communication technologies at relatively

cheaper and affordable costs for their development.

2.0 Conceptual Analysis of Information and Knowledge

Before attempting to address the question of knowledge management in rural areas, it's

probably appropriate to develop some perspective regarding this stuff called knowledge

and information, which there seems to be such a desire to manage, really is. We begin

with data, which is just a meaningless point in space and time, without reference to

either space or time. It is like an event out of context, a letter out of context, a word out

of context. And, since it is out of context, it is without a meaningful relation to anything

else. Most information is brought to rural community without regard to their context.

That a collection of data is not information5, as Neil Fleming indicated, implies that a

collection of data for which there is no relation between the pieces of data is not

information. The pieces of data may represent information, yet whether or not it is

information depends on the understanding of the one perceiving the data. I would also

tend to say that it depends on the knowledge of the interpreter, but I'm probably getting

ahead of myself, since I haven't defined knowledge. What I will say at this point is that

the extent of my understanding of the collection of data is dependent on the

associations I am able to discern within the collection. And, the associations I am able

to discern are dependent on all the associations I have ever been able to realize in the

past. Information is quite simply an understanding of the relationships between pieces

of data, or between pieces of data and other information.

While information entails an understanding of the relations between data, it generally

does not provide a foundation for why the data is what it is, nor an indication as to how

the data is likely to change over time. Information has a tendency to be relatively static

in time and linear in nature. Information is a relationship between data and, quite

simply, is what it is, with great dependence on context for its meaning and with little

implication for the future.

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Beyond relation there is pattern 6 where pattern is more than simply a relation of

relations. Pattern embodies both a consistency and completeness of relations which, to

an extent, creates its own context. Pattern also serves as an Archetype7with both an

implied repeatability and predictability. When a pattern relation exists amidst the data

and information, the pattern has the potential to represent knowledge. It only becomes

knowledge, however, when one is able to realize and understand the patterns and their

implications. The patterns representing knowledge have a tendency to be more self-

contextualizing. That is, the pattern tends, to a great extent, to create its own context

rather than being context dependent to the same extent that information is. A pattern

which represents knowledge also provides, when the pattern is understood, a high level

of reliability or predictability as to how the pattern will evolve over time, for patterns

are seldom static. Patterns which represent knowledge have a completeness to them

that information simply does not contain.

Wisdom arises when one understands the foundational principles responsible for the

patterns representing knowledge being what they are. And wisdom, even more so than

knowledge, tends to create its own context. These foundational principles are universal

and completely context independent. This is the theoretical basis for the establishment

of Village Information Kiosks that people or have the capacity to understand the

patterns that exist between knowledge for the personal and community development.

So, in summary the following associations can reasonably be made:

Information relates to description, definition, or perspective (what, who,

when, where).

Knowledge comprises strategy, practice, method, or approach (how).

Wisdom embodies principle, insight, moral, or archetype (why).

2.1 An illustration of the information knowledge relation

This example uses a rural bank savings account to show how data, information,

knowledge, and wisdom relate to principal, interest rate, and interest.

Data: The numbers 100 or 5%, completely out of context, are just pieces of data.

Interest, principal, and interest rate, out of context, are not much more than data

as each has multiple meanings which are context dependent.

Information: If I establish a bank savings account as the basis for context, then

interest, principal, and interest rate become meaningful in that context with

specific interpretations. Principal is the amount of money, $100, in the savings

account. Interest rate, 5%, is the factor used by the bank to compute interest on

the principal.

Knowledge: If I put $100 in my savings account, and the bank pays 5% interest

yearly, then at the end of one year the bank will compute the interest of $5 and

add it to my principal and I will have $105 in the bank. This pattern represents

knowledge, which, when I understand it, allows me to understand how the

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pattern will evolve over time and the results it will produce. In understanding

the pattern, I know, and what I know is knowledge. If I deposit more money in

my account, I will earn more interest, while if I withdraw money from my

account, I will earn less interest.

If one studied all the individual components of this pattern, which represents

knowledge, they would never discover the emergent characteristic of growth. Only

when the pattern connects, interacts, and evolves over time, does the principle exhibit

the characteristic of growth.

We learn by connecting new information to patterns that we already understand. In

doing so, we extend the patterns. Csikszentmihalyi provides a definition of complexity

based on the degree to which something is simultaneously differentiated and

integrated8. His point is that complexity evolves along a corridor and he provides some

very interesting examples as to why complexity evolves. The diagram below indicates

that what is more highly differentiated and integrated is more complex. While high

levels of differentiation without integration promote the complicated, that which is

highly integrated, without differentiation, produces mundane. And, it should be rather

obvious from personal experience that we tend to avoid the complicated and are

uninterested in the mundane. The complexity that exists between these two alternatives

is the path we generally find most attractive.

In an organizational context, data represents facts or

values of results, and relations between data and other

relations have the capacity to represent information.

Patterns of relations of data and information and other

patterns have the capacity to represent knowledge. For

the representation to be of any utility it must be

understood, and when understood the representation is

information or knowledge to the one that understands.

Yet, what is the real value of information and

knowledge, and what does it mean to manage it?

The value of Knowledge Management relates directly to the effectiveness9 with which

the managed knowledge enables the members of the organization or community to

deal with today's situations and challenges and effectively envision and create their

future. Without on-demand access to managed knowledge, every situation is addressed

based on what the individual or group brings to the situation with them. With on-

demand access to managed knowledge, every situation is addressed with the sum total

of everything anyone in the organization has ever learned about a situation of a similar

nature.

3.0 Case of Village Information Kiosk Project in Busia and Knowledge

Management

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The key objective of this paper is to present a model of Village Information Kiosk

project for rural communities that was/is designed to develop information

communication strategies that enhance knowledge management capacity and capability

of rural locals thereby help reduce rural poverty. The specific objectives of this pilot

project were /are:

a. Establish and coordinate village information kiosks in rural Kenya.

b. Collect, synthesize and re-package important development information such as

agricultural, health, entrepreneurship, water, environment, for local

consumption and use.

c. Provide pertinent information that promotes sustainable utilization of existing

natural resource base in rural areas.

d. Help equip the rural youth and women groups with IT and entrepreneurship

skills by organizing training sessions and providing information on existing

opportunities.

e. Promote e-governance/commerce/learning at the rural grassroots’ level.

f. Foster information sharing in the community.

4.0 Project Methodology

To achieve this, in a small rural town in Busia district, an entrepreneur was identified.

We named his project ZachTech Village Information Kiosk. Mwafrika Institute of

Development, through funding from a private American donor, assisted the

entrepreneur to connect on a wireless and landline internet connection. The

entrepreneur was also given and equipped with several PCs with multimedia

equipments, a radio, a T.V screen, a video, web-camera, printer, power-back up, low-

cost diesel generator and a suite of local swahili language application. It was made

available to the village information kiosk operator at a total cost of USD$4,500, which

included training and maintenance for a year. Bank loans were also available to the

operator to pool in business investment.

The Village Information Kiosks (VIK) project Management through Mwafrika Institute of

Development (MID) installed the wireless exchange and ensured that it was working.

The wireless service served the village information kiosk at Nambale town and the

surrounding areas. The information kiosk provided other services such as telephone call,

mobile repairs, photocopying services, government documents download, daily

newspapers, television news service, varied education material, computer training and

other repackaged agricultural materials. Besides ensuring wireless telephony service,

the VIK operator provided several stand-alone computer services. The first usage of

computer started on the day of its installation and these were usually stand-alone

services like learning typing, word-processing, games. The computer was also used for

a variety of educational services including several on-line courses for school and

college youths, complementary to their school learning, and courses ‘open’ for all like

Spoken English Course using both audio and visual techniques. The internet was

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making a huge impact as youthful villagers and women were encouraged to open up e-

mail addresses, trained to e-mail as means to communicate with their kin in the urban

areas such as Nairobi and Kisumu.

Importantly, through the Village Information Kiosks, the villagers were also encouraged

to access repackaged information developed by VIK Project Management committees.

Every simple challenge was video-taped, recorded, experts consulted and solutions

developed for rural local consumption by the rural communities. The repackaged

information was on agricultural, health, financial, political, governance, and

employment opportunities through CD-ROMS, audio tapes, easy-to-read handout.

They could run them on our video player or rent to carry home for viewing at a fee.The

villagers also took their agricultural and veterinary problems to experts in the respective

fields through recorded video CD-ROMs at the facility and got the feedback on-line or

through recorded CD-ROMS. Similarly even doctors made consultations using digital

media or on-line for medical checkups and advice. Government officers and extension

workers too simultaneously met people from several villages through this multi-purpose

information kiosks.

VIK project management committee also attempted linkages with micro-finance banks

to extend financial and insurance advisory services on the internet to villages. It also

worked with rural development department of the government to provide a variety of

online training course toward entrepreneurship develop. This ensured that data was

transformed to information, information to knowledge, knowledge to wisdom.

The persons who learnt from the centres took the knowledge acquired to villages, local

community civic dialogues for further learning and dissemination of information and

insights. We created value of the data that defined past results, the data and information

associated with the development, local challenges, aspirations of people, market, it's

customers, and it's competition, and the patterns which relate all these items to enable

a reliable level of predictability of the future by the locals. What I would refer to as

knowledge management in rural areas. This would be the capture, retention, and reuse

of the foundation for imparting an understanding of how all these pieces fit together

and how to convey them meaningfully to illiterate rural person through media format.

5.0 Project Service Strategies

Village Information Kiosk was designed in a such a way to offer services with the

dimension of sustainability in mind. Essentially, sustainability was to be achieved

through relevancy of appropriate information given to the clients. Secondly, the

infrastructure is agreeably the core of Zacktech village information kiosk project. It was

the nerve of its services and therefore had be reliable and effective at all time. Services

and relevancy were complementary to infrastructure and equipment. The relevancy of

services was a context specific matter that included expert (normative) prescription in

exceptional cases but also primarily a pre-occupation of the users (clients). The

relevancy of Village Information kiosk was relevancy of the services it offered to its

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community where community referred to a specific group of people with definite

interests and located in specific geographical area. Zacktech village information kiosk

was primarily involved in creation of content or repackaging of information in the field

of agriculture, health, indigenous knowledge (IK) and a lot of experience has been

generated in the area.

Village Information Kiosks (VIK) was also designed to offers value added services, a

comprehensive and attractive range of bundled services for users needed to be made

available. Connectivity related services included web-browsing, e-mail and other

related public access internet services such as instant messaging and VoIP. The latter

service was of high importance for many reasons, in particular, due to the familiarity of

the average person with telephony, the unmet demand for voice services, the potential

for reducing the cost of voice communication and because of the revenue generating

possibilities for the providers. Aside from basic internet access and voice

communications, services also included television news and market information, trade

matching/ e-procurement, fund transfer such as through Safaricom money transfer

service M-PESA. Also demand for SMS and WAP-based market price information and

other transaction-oriented facilities were provided.

Relevancy of services at Zacktech Information kiosk included availing opportunities for

assisted access and use of services for those who needed help or had never used the

service before. It was incumbent upon Village Information kiosk staff at Zaktech to

assist users seeking their services and make them interested in using such services again

or even interest them in other products they have never thought about.

A vital step in establishing public access services was to develop Village Information

Kiosks link with the local community- by re-inventing themselves so as to remain at the

center of the knowledge needs of the community they serve. This means making the

community aware of the facility and obtaining their feedback to define what sort of

information services were required. The service providers called public meetings and

invited as many different sectors as possible. The target groups normally included a

number of the following target groups:

Local community member

Tourist visiting the locality

Small businesses in the localities

Schools

Youth

Disabled people

Farmers

Women Groups

Churches

Police

NGOs

Trade Unions

Civic Organizations

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Political parties

Government departments

Small and informal businesses were key user group and were often concentrated in

small geographic area where we could obtain a wide range of resources. In this respect,

operators providing integrated business support services and facilities provision helped

to foster business incubators in these locations, by leveraging their infrastructure to

improve processes for the support of small businesses.

6.0 Limitations of the Project

There were several limitations for the successful implementation of the Village

Information Kiosk project. These are:

Low income levels of the rural community gave the information kiosk sustainability

challenge because this could not sustain the re-packaging.

Getting quality and skilled staff and their remuneration was quite a sustainability

issue.

Lack of local content on most development information in local languages, made

repackaging and dissemination of information a very expensive venture.

Most rural people did not appreciate the long-term role of information and its

impact in their lives.

Unreliability of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and power supply problem in rural

Kenya was likely to hamper efficient service delivery of Information Kiosk.

Consultancy services proposed were likely to be expensive.

ICT illiteracy levels among the rural community lead most people to shy away the

information kiosks.

9.0 Outputs of the Village Information Kiosk Project and Knowledge Management

Provision of important agricultural information for development; information on

improved seeds, fertilizer, pest control, harvesting, storage, transportation,

marketing, credit facilities, irrigation, soil, crop care, animal husbandry, weather

forecasting and subsequent training and capacity building ensured that knowledge

patterns and wisdoms were left in rural communities.

Provision of crucial health information and knowledge; disease prevention

information, indigenous medicine, nutrition message, public health disease

prevention, remote consultation, child care, HIV/AID exercise all empowered the

local communities to grow and develop.

Built capacity among the youth, women and vulnerable groups in entrepreneurship

skills enable them to start enterprises and avoid or limit rural/urban migration.

Through repackaged simple financial audits, there was enhanced political

participation and governance at the grassroots’ levels, enabling transparency and

accountability in the utilization of devolved funds; CDF, Road Levy Fund, LATF,

primary and secondary school support fund.

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Through repackaged formats of environmental information, there was sustainable

environmental and natural resource utilization thereby reduced high risk of

environmental vulnerability of the rural local people.

Reduced youth unemployment, rural poverty and illiteracy through enhanced youth

creativity, self confidence, esteem, discipline in Village Information Kiosk.

Empowered grassroots’ communities were able to participate in socio-economic

activities of the country.

Use of IT as an important tool for education, thereby an enabling environment for

quicker adoption of e-learning initiatives among the rural communities.

Promote cultural dialogue among communities and thereby encourage peace and

limit ethnic clashes.10

6.0 Conclusion

Village Information Kiosk project was and is based on the premise that rural poverty

can be alleviated if the majority of the population is informed, uplifted and

empowered by relevant information and knowledge strategies that enable the grasp

of grasped patterns and principles to be disseminated. The majority rural population

in Africa is illiterate and poor. People living in the cities have it all, be it access to

latest news/information, access to clean water and sanitation, access to electricity,

better education (schools & teachers), better health, better houses, fresh food etc.

These inequalities can be leveled out by people living in the cities through

supporting projects of this nature, which are earmarked for rural development. A

number of African countries have launched ICT for development ((ICT4D) initiatives,

and the focus of some of these initiatives have been aimed at poor people (ICT4P),

to create awareness, provide access, and use ICT in several creative ways to reduce

poverty. However, we wish to note that can only succeed if we build vast amount of

data into usable form, both digitized and non-digitized information for rural client

consumption. Two, if we avoid overloading users with unnecessary data that is

irrelevant to their development. Three, by ensuring that information we give is

current and lastly, by determining appropriate infrastructure requirement and new

technologies.

Village Information Kiosk Project is an ICT for development project and an ICT for

the poor project that is exposing the rural poor to information and development

insight (knowledge). So that persons grasps patterns and principles that help them

out of poverty. In deed, exposing rural poor people to information and knowledge,

provides them with a powerful weapon to deal with their poor situation and better

their lives. The phenomenal growth of small teleshops, telekiosks or telecentres,

which are now mushrooming in many parts of Kenya, affirm the important role that

ICT can play to alleviate the plight of poor people living in rural Africa. These are

centres providing a range of community-based activities and services that include

access to information and communications technology for individual, social, and

economic development.

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The case study of Zacktech Village Information Kiosk in Nambale town of Busia

district, Kenya, shares lessons learnt, management styles, sustainability measures,

design of village information kiosks and outcomes of the project. The uniqueness of

this project is that it endeavors to reach rural and other poor communities through

enabling patterns and principles of knowledge to be known that would not have

traditionally been included in similar or ICT related projects. Having access to

information through the Internet and re-packaged information can help rural

individuals and their communities better their lives.

In designing ICT systems for rural communities, it is critical to implement measures

that will address the power problem confronting most rural communities. As has

been well documented, national electrical grid in most African countries covers a

percentage of the population, mostly urban populations. In Kenya, for example, the

grid system reaches 40 per cent of homes. This means about 60 per cent of Kenyan

households lack access to any means of conventional power. Even in the urban

areas where there is national grid, the quality of the service is an issue due to,

incessant power outage and at times no power for a considerable length of time. It is

difficult to provide Internet access and other communication services to areas not

connected to the electrical grid. This is a major limitation to development and the

spread of ICT in rural Africa. One solution to this problem is to develop an Off-Grid,

Digital, Electronic Network (OGDEN) as an initial communication and computing

network for off-grid users in rural Africa. This network could be based on solar

energy solutions to the power problem. Solar energy uses and array of photovoltaic

cells and its use is becoming widespread in several African countries. They are not

unduly expensive if no more than a few kilowatts of power is required.

The paper concludes by noting that ICT is a powerful enabler and its judicious

application to the plight of the poor could help move poverty to the dustbin of

history. Africa should do all it can to provide access to ICT for the poor. The current

digital disconnect isolates a sizable proportion of African people. At same income

levels, those in urban areas are 50% more likely to have internet access than those

earning the same income in rural area. That why Village Information Kiosk is a

critical project that can bridge the digital divide of rural communities. However,

this can only be made possible if the following factors are present – a) access to

telecommunication, b) electricity, c) finance and d) skills.

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