Devices that grow with the user.
So last week I ran into an interesting fact from my favourite tech savvy:
Which got me thinking that, even if we try hard, this is something that was supposed to happen: technology is going everywhere and fast, faster than our own learning curves, family planning, even our efforts to try and wrap our heads around what's new.
What I do know, is that this growth, aside from the concern on content and education, is that affects "in-development" countries 10-fold.
If smartphones are to be a norm among 8-year olds, maintaining the device's integrity is going to be even worse than solving the issue about constantly buying clothes for a growing kid.
As a Mexican, I do understand my culture, we like to buy stuff that lasts, families struggle to buy new clothing for their ever-growing toddlers. Growing up, my mom and aunts gathered up to exchange clothing from their kids, so I ended up reusing my cousin's jeans for the next couple of years. And I can say that thankfully, I was born in an average mid-class family and we didn't struggle as the whole majority of the population in my country.
This may not be something that happens on more developed countries, but durability is a necessity that is written in the back of mind. And my soul fills with joy when projects like Petit Pli are introduced and thriving in the world. Where you can buy one set of clothing that a baby can use from 9 months to 4 years old.
What if we can try doing something like this, but on phones?
I'm sure that we have the content restriction covered, and we can have a solution of filtering and creating strategies on learning-centered content for growing kids. Now, how can we address the problem of disposability that our times have been on technology?
Growing Phones!
Aside from content, we may need to standardize the "Smart-Growth" Phone. A unique hardware platform where companies come together to one cause: serving add-ons on a skeleton that transform over iterations of the same user.
Now, I do know that there was this project from google called Ara, and because of production and manufacturing costs, the project came to a close…
but if we would revise this and think of the premise of the modularity, apply durability to the base skeleton, and focus the market to families that have growing kids. Even create some kind of government and private companies supported communication, security and learning devices for the children of our countries, all in one affordable, scalable product.
Just food for thought.
