So the EPC needn’t threaten the taxpayers with a major burden. By essentially exporting knowledge instead of people, it in fact would increase the impact of economic-aid dollars. The EPC could emphasize basics like public health, agriculture, transportation, construction, manufacturing, and communications.
In carrying out the idea, a government or international agency might keep computer files listing:
● The skills and information required in specific underdeveloped countries.
● People abroad who needed help.
● Those who might be able to offer it.
Most of the corpsmen wouldn’t even be computer experts—just people with the right technical knowhow. Some might be ex-Peace Corpsmen. Others might receive special cultural indoctrination similar to traditional Peace Corps training.
Once in the EPC, the corpsmen might regularly correspond via E-Mail at nights and on weekends or on occasion “talk” instantly to Third World counterparts. Of course, not every Third World beneficiary might use a micro. Some might submit written questions that local Peace Corps offices could pass on electronically (one way to mitigate the language problem).
E-Mail, incidentally, needn’t be the only form of computer communications available through the EPC. The organization could offer electronic bulletin boards with the names of people either needing or offering information on subjects like biological pest control or solar power. That way, the EPC’s beneficiaries would feel as if they had more of a choice.
In addition, there might be ongoing computer conferences on topics of common concern.
Obviously, the EPC wouldn’t replace foreign-aid experts in the field, and it wouldn’t aid people directly at the village level. It wouldn’t hand out lap-sized portables to barefoot farmers. Rather, the EPC would help engineers, doctors, scientists, and other people engaged in development in their own countries. Corpsmen in the field would work with local governments to make certain, for instance, that a New Delhi slumlord didn’t use the EPC to automate his dunning operation.