Fast Company Co.EXIST features Question Box!
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Question Box Answers Questions In Remote Villages That Can’t Just Google It
By Michael J. Coren
January 4, 2012
Without an Internet connection or robust smartphones, many people around the world don’t have access to instantaneous information. Question Box--a mobile phone connected to an operator--can help villagers from settling bar bets to answering serious questions about health and farming.
Ask, and you shall receive. When it comes to information in much of the developing world, this simply isn’t true. Connectivity is like air in industrialized nations: We take it for granted that we can go online with a question in mind and search a good portion of human knowledge to find the answer.
But the next time you’re in a bar settling an argument by checking IMDb on your smartphone, think about how people in other parts of the world have to resolve these questions, or even more important ones. Rural areas without decent roads or schools, never mind an Internet connection, have little to link them to the outside world. For these places, there is now Question Box.