Data Entry Company Is
Cambodia's Wedge Into Global Tech Industry
PHNOM PENH (AP)--Eng Naleak was born with deformed feet, and only two
fingers and a thumb on each hand. But she can type a respectable 30
words a minute in English, and that puts her at the forefront of
Cambodia's high-technology hopes.
The proud 20-year-old is one of two dozen poor or disabled Cambodians
hired to type the earliest issues of Harvard University's student
newspaper into a computer for electronic archiving.
"My life was hopeless before this opportunity," she said.
"Disabled persons in Cambodia are never given priority for jobs
in Cambodia."
More than 300,000 of Cambodia's 11 million people are disabled, many
of them by land mines.
Digital Divide Data, the company employing her, opened its local
office Wednesday night with a project to put the 1873-1899 editions of
the Harvard Crimson in databases by year's end and to help spread the
wealth from the high-tech revolution to Cambodia and its people.
The idea came from Jeremy Hockenstein, a Harvard-educated business
consultant who helped start Follow Your Dreams Cambodia, a nonprofit
organization to create technology-related jobs for Cambodians.
Though Internet cafes speckle the capital, there is no high-tech
industry in Cambodia, a country still recovering from nearly 30 years
of civil war that ended in 1998.
Nhev Sithsophary, general manager for Digital Divide Data, said
data-entry jobs are ideal for most Cambodians.
"Our workers here have few skills, and little education, but they
type very fast," he said.
Inputting data for Western multinationals and institutions has become
an industry in India, Ghana and other developing countries, "and
technology today allows Cambodia to compete," said Hockenstein, a
Canadian who lives in Boston.
Opportunities For Disadvantaged People
Hockenstein said he and like-minded friends, business executives who
lend their expertise to nonprofit groups, started the project to give
disadvantaged people opportunities and to help Cambodia benefit
economically from technology.
During a visit in November, he saw many Cambodians in Internet cafes
but "they were not using technology to increase the economy in
any way."
Digital Divide Data signed a $30,000 contract to retype articles from
the Crimson, and Hockenstein obtained the 1873-1899 editions on
microfilm. He had the pages converted to digital images and loaded
onto CD-ROMs for quick shipment to Cambodia.
The Crimson job is projected to employ 20 typists working two six-hour
shifts a day on 10 computers for six months, with more editions of the
Crimson to come if the work goes well.
For the Crimson it looks like a good deal at low cost, while from a
Cambodian
perspective, work conditions are better than usual.
The typists earn $50 a month, better than the $45 minimum wage paid in
the garment sector, Cambodia's biggest industry. The company says it
plans to raise salaries to $65 after three months, will provide
English lessons and pick up workers' medical expenses.
perspective,
work conditions are better than usual.It also hopes to expand into
Cambodian villages. Khive Rotha, 21, another typist, said conditions
at the project's three-story villa in Phnom Penh are "much
better" than those at the garment factory where she worked for
18 months. There she worked double the hours for about the same
wage, she said. "I've always wanted to use English and
computers to earn a living," she said, "So this is a big
success for me and my family."
Associated
Press, Monday July 23, 2001
By
Chris Decherd
|
