Re: Kyrgyzstan bitcoin experiment promises migrant workers big savings

To impact how they transfer money home, the ATM has to work the other way around. Convert BTC into the local currency (or dollars).

I think you misunderstood the concept.

The idea is:
Employee gets paid in FIAT
Employee goes to ATM machine and trades FIAT for bitcoins
Employee sends bitcoins to family member through Bitcoin network like any other bitcoin payment
Family member takes bitcoins and trades for local FIAT

That's the whole process as I would understand it, especially since sending FIAT directly means things like Wire Transfers, international money orders, etc, which get pretty costly at times compared to Bitcoin transfers.

here your "employee" is outside Kyrgyzstan. And the ATM is inside.
For your last step "Family member takes bitcoins and trades for local FIAT" they'd need an ATM that works
the other way around, like I said in my post. The currently available ATM may be useful for many things but does nothing to facilitate "sending money home to Kyrgyzstan"

A bunch of ATMs that do that would be a big leap toward remittances like that. Put a few in poorer areas of countries like the Philippines and watch things take off like a rocket. I buy a gallon of coconut oil every 4 months or so from a company that pays locals to manufacture the coconut oil. I would love to be able to pay the families in the coconut oil business directly so they get more of what I spend and without a middle man the product would cost a lot less. Win-win.