I've heard of things like that, where Indians who don't speak English have the job of writing transcripts for English voices. They just have to guess how to spell the words. I can't remember any more details though.
Maybe they only knew how to program in Conway's Game of Life.
On a complete side note, I was once on a lecture by Conway in which he explained a mathematical logics theorem using his game... he told us when learning the game they used chessboards, and when they ran out of space, they used chalk to draw squares to "continue" the boards.
So, for Conway's game of life you don't even need a computer - just lots free time and chalk.
I also remember he screamed off the top of his lungs "Silence" in the beginning of the lecture to get us to shut up; quite an eccentric dude...