Hole in the wall gang

By Andy Marks

Knocking a hole through the wall of your workspace and putting a computer in the opening, with the screen facing outwards, could be construed as a case of losing the plot. Especially when the hole is facing wasteland in New Delhi where kids play. In the case of Indian academic Sugata Mitra, it was in fact a case of genius, not madness.


Children from the nearby slum were surfing the web and playing computer games within hours despite never having used a computer and the keyboard being in a foreign language, English. Mitra’s hole-in-the-wall experiment to see whether unschooled children would teach themselves to use a computer if left to their own devices, was underway and the emerging results were startling.

The idea was inspired by Mitra’s four year old son, who quickly demonstrated he was more tech-savvy than his dad, when the family got their first home computer in the mid-80s. After glowingly reporting his son’s abilities to friends, he found out that their children too were grasping new technology at a rapid rate.

This was in the late nineties and when Mitra published a paper on his results, the World Bank took notice and gave him £1.1m to repeat and roll out his experiment. Within five years he had expanded the project to 23 sites around India. From Stock, 6,000m up in the Himalayas, to urban Mumbai, to an island in the Ganges where, to safeguard from crocodiles, terminals had to be turned away from the water, thousands of children have now been given the chance to use a PC, and develop skills and confidence. 

Commenting on the initial success of the project, Mitra, who is now Professor of Educational Technology at the University of Newcastle, reported “At the end of five years the (local) schools started reporting that their English, maths and science scores were all going up.” Such is the success of hole-in-the-wall computers, there are now about 600 of them around the world.

This remarkable story doesn’t end there. For Mitra’s idea was the inspiration for multi-Oscar winning movie Slumdog Millionaire. Vikas Swarup, author of Q&A on which the movie was based, publicly acknowledges Mitra’s work as his inspiration. Mitra thanked Swarup for the acknowledgement and said “I loved the film, but I told him my dream is to see a Slumdog Nobel Laureate not a Slumdog Millionaire.”

If you have seen a great way of learning on the streets, please let your fellow VivaCity sages know below. 

why vivacity

This is the century of the city.

Over half the world’s population now live in cities. This is projected to rise to three-quarters of all people in 2050. With population increases, this means 6.75 billion of us will be city dwellers, an increase of 3.75 billion from today. As the future success or failure of mankind lies in cities, new ways of using them are needed.

The city represents an incredible paradox. We have never been closer together physically, but we have never been further away from each other emotionally. At vivacity we celebrate city movements around the world that change and re-define the way we interact with and use cities. Whilst cities cannot cope with the numbers now and the resultant strain on the world’s natural resources and eco-systems are already painfully evident, we believe that human spirit and endeavor will overcome, as it has done before.

vivacity promotes city movements that are connecting people & creating new types of communities. They are typically low impact, highly sociable, enabled by technology, using public and private spaces in new ways and empowering people to act locally.

vivacity promotes new ways of feeling alive, new ways of being invigorated, and new things to be a part of. We call it grassroots stuff in the city. We hope you get involved and share your experiences with us.

who we are

Andy Marks vivacity founder and editor

Social entrepreneur, lecturer, writer and curator, Andy Marks is an agent of positive social change practicing at the intersection or fault-line of business, society and culture. Andy is the founder of research and consultancy network Salad Worldwide, an advisor to some of the world’s leading companies on Corporate Responsibility and an advisor to a number of non-profit organizations. Andy is an expert on grass roots city movements, and a founding partner of an upcycling enterprise launching in 2010.

Julian Broadhead contributor

With a background in advertising, branding and corporate responsibility, Julian works with blue-chip companies from a wide range of industries and sectors, advising on strategy and new ways of connecting with people. He is currently developing a number of new opportunities in the environmental sector, with a particular emphasis on making environmental action more accessible.

Shane Solanki – contributor/distributor/carburettor/carbon-ara

Artist, writer, performer, producer and director, Shane’s first short film was commissioned by the BBC and directed by Peter Cattaneo. His first record was produced by Mercury Prize Winner Talvin Singh. He worked for years to forge the unique identity of independent record label Ninja Tune. We at Vivacity like to think of him as a grass roots detective, covertly operating under the pseudonym of the Last Mango in Paris; imagine him skulking around the world in a beige macintosh, recording and documenting our shift into a society where social responsibility and public creativity are norms.

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become a vivacity scout

As more and more of us live in urban areas, individuals and communities can feel overwhelmed and isolated by the sheer intense-city of it all.

However we at vivacity believe that human spirit and endeavor will overcome as it has done so many times before. That is why we are celebrating movements around the world that are changing and re-defining the way we interact with the city. We would like to hear from you about grassroots movements or activities that bring people together face to face and use cities in new ways. The more original and imaginative the better.

Please email us describing a movement you would like to see on vivacity using a maximum of 300 words. info@vivacity.me