When the computer says "No!"

Square pegs and round holes...

The development of computer technology has revolutionised my life. Many people nowadays take it all for granted. Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube, emails... none of this existed when I was a child. If you were not sure whether an elderly author was dead or alive, by the time you found out, he or she probably was!  There is a downside, however. Computer programmes are often inflexible and if they are programmed for round pegs, but you happen to be square, you are well and truly stuck. 

If you missed out because the computer said no, you are not alone  

When listening to the speeches of the representatives of various countries during the UN General Debate, I could not help but chuckle at the one of them. Baron Waqa, the President of Nauru was explaining how he lost out on significant scheme because the UN computer said "No!":

The population of Nauru is a little over 10,000 people. Let me try to capture the challenges of accessing the support available from the United Nations by sharing a story from my days as Director of Education. Eager to participate in an education data tracking programme offered by UNESCO, I logged into their website and began to input the required information for registering my country. The first question was straightforward: number of primary schools. I typed in the number six. Not six-hundred (600). Not six-thousand (6,000). Six (6).
ERROR
I moved to the second question: Number of teachers. I typed in sixty-nine (69).
ERROR
I was not able to register for that promising education programme.

The solution is so simple    

The silly thing is that the problems relating to computers saying "No!" is elementary. All that is needed is an accessible administrator (with common sense), whom one could easily contact in these circumstances. Companies and organisations, however, are often too greedy to bother. They would rather let people lose out on services that they may be entitled to than pay a little extra in order to ensure that this does not happen. Being a typical square peg in a world dominated by round ones, I could write a book full of salient examples. 

Catering for the square pegs may not make financial sense to an company or organisation. Their thinking is often: if the computer cannot deal with it, then tough! Profits come before service. Governments should therefore legislate in order to ensure people are not penalised for not fitting into the dictates of a computer programme. Unless this happens, the situation will only get worse.