New Village – “Leapfrogging the Grid”
on a Micro Scale*

Professor Terrell Ward Bynum

A “concept paper” prepared for distribution at the World Energy Technologies Summit: “Leapfrogging the Grid”
Presented at the UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France
on February 10 & 11, 2004

Click here to download this paper in PDF format.

Traditional Saying: Give a person a fish, and he will eat for a day; give him a net and teach him how to fish, and he will eat for the rest of his life.

1. Introduction
2. Description of “Old Village”
3. Clean Drinking Water
4. Educational Opportunities
5. Improved Health Care
6. The Need for an Information Center in Old Village
7. “Local” Employment in the Information Age – The Birth of “New Village”
8. Conclusion – Cultural Considerations

1. Introduction:
The primary idea to be explored in this paper is the use of miniaturized electronic devices and “mini units” of electricity to help a poor village leapfrog over the “industrial age” and enter the “information age”. This is technically possible at a modest financial cost because powerful and flexible miniature electronic devices have become very inexpensive, and they use small batteries that are easily and cleanly recharged simply by walking, shaking or hand cranking. Such electronic devices can purify drinking water, put boundless knowledge and powerful educational tools into the hands of teachers and students, and empower nurses and paramedics to deliver significantly improved medical care. Just as importantly, such devices also can be used to increase dramatically the financial resources available to a village population, enabling them to purchase goods, services and opportunities that come with participation in the information age.

Goals of this paper:
With these ideas in mind, this paper describes relevant technologies and explores ways to deploy them in a poor village in an underdeveloped country. The paper considers what is technically possible, but only briefly discusses cultural and political issues. The technologies already exist and are rapidly decreasing in price; but in the long run, cultural, religious, political and psychological considerations are likely to be more important in determining whether new technologies can – or should – be introduced into a society. The people themselves, if they wish to introduce the technologies into their community (with help from others), must find ways compatible with their own values and culture if the consequences are to be happy ones.

Generating “mini-units” of electricity:
Micro computer circuits, new materials, and a variety of other recent technological developments have led to the creation of electronic devices that require very little electric power, even though they provide invaluable services and useful capabilities. For example, there now exist flashlights (in Europe one calls them “torches”) that require no replaceable batteries and no old-fashioned light bulbs. Instead of a replaceable battery, there is a coil of wire and a magnet that slides back and forth through the coil when one gently shakes the torch. This motion charges a permanently installed rechargeable battery embedded in the torch. The old-fashioned light bulb has been replaced by a permanently installed crystal that lights up when a small electric current flows through it. Thirty seconds of gentle shaking of the torch provides twenty minutes of medium-bright light. The torch is hermetically sealed and made of very tough plastic that can withstand dropping, kicking, water pressure to 130 meters, and temperatures well below zero Celsius. Another example of a useful, easily charged device that already exists today is a radio (AM, FM, and Short Wave) that is powered by a rechargeable battery. Simply by turning a small crank on the radio for about two minutes one gets an hour of playing time.

These two examples are illustrations of the fact that, today, there are many ways – hand cranking, shaking, walking, solar panels, micro windmills, micro water turbines, and so on – to recharge small batteries. As a result, it is possible to generate power easily, cheaply, and cleanly for a wide diversity of useful devices – torches, radios, laptop computers, palmtop computers, cell phones, medical instruments, and so on. An interesting example recently was described in the New York Times Sunday Magazine: In 2003 a clever inventor created a children’s seesaw that charges a battery while the children play on it.¹ Soon there will be entire playground sets of seesaws, swings, merry-go-rounds, and other moving items that recharge batteries from child’s play. A school’s laptop computers might be powered in this way, or a medical clinic’s electronic instruments and communication devices. In addition, animals pulling wagons or plows also can recharge batteries to be used in a variety of miniature electronic devices. Such possibilities, when appropriately developed, can enable remote villages in underdeveloped countries to leapfrog into the information age. See the discussion on the following pages.

*The author wishes to express sincere thanks for helpful comments from colleagues at Southern Connecticut State University, especially (in alphabetical order) Christine Broadbridge, John Critzer, Krystyna Górniak-Kocikowska, Darika Nantiya, Arthur Paulson, and Richard Volkman.

¹ “Kid Power” [Report on an invention by Raj Pandian], New York Times Sunday Magazine, December 14, 2003, page 80.

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