Vviewpoints

DOI: 10.1145/2492007.2492016

emerging Markets
ultra-low-Cost
Computing and
Developing Countries

AlongsiDe the steaDy prog- ress of Moore’s Law, we sometimes see step func- tion changes in price-per- formance ratios of IT. One such change has produced ultra-low-cost computing (ULCC) over the past several years. In essence, this wraps computing peripherals around a cell-phone hardware core; producing a computer for just a few tens of dollars. ULCC enables computing to reach applications and users that other computers cannot, and it is spinning out in multiple directions. In this column, we will focus on one ULCC development— Raspberry Pi—and one particular direction: use in developing countries.

Raspberry Pi was created to address
the decline in numbers and skill lev-
els of school leavers applying to study
computer science. Eben Upton, found-
er of the non-profit Raspberry Pi Foun-
dation, was an admissions tutor for
Cambridge University. He felt univer-
sity applicants lacked the experience of
experimenting and programming that
was common in the 1980s and 1990s.