Roger Harris recently spent 12 days trekking in Nepal where he met with 650 people in 15 communities to discover if ICTs could be of any use to them. Following is a summary of some of the responses.

What are your future plans for development?

Skills training, marketing, incorporation as a co-operative society, milk chilling, road construction, drinking water, livestock, sanitation, plantations, bazaar, craft industries, community shop, electrification, irrigation, telephone, playground, community radio, tourism, health centre, community building, women's community bank, higher education.

What problems is the community facing?

Drinking water, unemployment, low prices, health, education, lack of knowledge, transportation, isolation, irrigation, communication, getting products to market, illiteracy, sanitation, electricity, finance, flooding, land slides, nutrition, old traditions (young women), low salaries.

How many people have seen a computer? 28.1%

How many people have used a computer? 2.3%

How many people know what a computer is? 2.5%

How many people have heard of the Internet? 8.1%

To see further comments on this discussion such as - "Respondents will not choose options they do not know they have. It would be of great use if Roger Harris went back to this village to demonstrate some of the newer technologies...and then repeated the study"

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