Enough of the Billionaires and Their Big Tech. ‘Frugal Tech’ Will Build Us All a Better World
- Author: Eleanor Drage
- Full Title: Enough of the Billionaires and Their Big Tech. ‘Frugal Tech’ Will Build Us All a Better World
- Type:
- URL: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/02/billionaire-big-tech-frugal-elon-musk-innovation
Highlights
- The real pioneering technologies of today are genuinely useful systems I like to call “frugal tech”, and they are brought to life not by eccentric billionaires but by people doing more with less. (View Highlight)
- the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), who are using technologies such as software-defined radios and spectrum sensing to allow people in low-resource environments to stay connected despite limited bandwidth, power, hardware and communication infrastructure. These technologies are the basis of the local community networks that supply coverage to the 2.5 billion people globally who lack internet access. (View Highlight)
- In the Niger Delta, which suffers from toxic levels of air pollution from its oil industry, APC is setting up connections and deploying low-cost sensors that monitor the environment. (View Highlight)
- The new digital divide is the gap between the top end of the global population – who have access to these power-intensive technologies – and those at the bottom, whose internet access, or lack of, remains static. (View Highlight)