Almost a year back, we started working on an exploratory research project “Pyr.mea.IT: Permeating IT towards the bottom of the pyramid”. (The bottom of the pyramid is the largest, but poorest socio-economic group. In global terms, this is the four billion people who live on less than $2 per day, typically in developing countries.) Since almost all of our research in Computer Science and Information Technology has until recently focussed on the top of the pyramid, we thought it might be a good idea for us to get at least somewhat acquainted with our end users. All of the authors have lived and grown up in India, so we have a reasonable understanding of the people around us, or so we thought. We conducted some initial surveys, in about 10 cities and towns in India, with fruit sellers, milk delivery men, auto rickshaw drivers, plumbers, and the like to get a firsthand idea of the way technology, not just IT, impacts their lives and their level of comfort in using it…