Third World Computing Roundup

Here in the US, we tend to take it for granted that we can get to a computer whenever we want to. We also take for granted access to the Internet, and the bounteous information and misinformation that it serves us for profit and pleasure. However, in other parts of the world, this is obviously not the case. Now that this problem has been seen and recognized, several groups of concerned citizens have vowed to do something about it.
Let us begin by examining the OLPC group, named for their mantra of “One Laptop Per Child.” Starting with a project out of the MIT media lab, OLPC has reinvented the laptop, given it the ability to be social (via mesh networking), and has provided a full ensemble of kid-friendly educational software. All of this sits in a brightly colored, virtually indestructible package encrusted with ports, a camera, and WiFi antennae. Not only that, but you can even give one to a disadvantaged kid in a third world country via their website (laptopgiving.org), and the whole thing is tax deductible.
Now for the home team: here at Penn State, a research group has devoted a considerable amount of time to developing a solar-powered 30-station computer lab for a school in Tanzania, in Africa. This has become a reality, and will be installed this spring, and while nowhere near as cost effective as OLPC’s solution ($900 per station vs. $200 per station), is a wonderful addition to the classrooms that it will be helping.
But the question remains: how do you connect people in disparate, rural locations that have no real infrastructure, to a worldwide network? The two things that you need are electrical power (usually in the form of solar power), and a network connection. The second of these has been brought to the deepest bits of the Himalayan foothills in Tibet by another wireless mesh network: the Dharamsala Wireless Mesh, put together by the Tibetan Technology Center (tibtec.org). Yahel Ben-David started out in Silicon Valley, and then went overseas to work on networking Tibet. To date, he’s not only succeeded in getting a wireless mesh up and online, but also in educating students to the point where they are now helping him create and implement the mesh. His greatest success to date may be the fact that there are now those in Tibet who could make their own meshes.
Finally, to come full circle, the issue of why. Why would people who don’t have electricity or running water on a stable, day-to-day basis, want the Internet? How can they use something that is so technologically intensive? Our final detour for the day goes back to a time when the Internet was young. Its inventors, such as Tim Berners-Lee, decided that there must be a better way to collaborate and to share knowledge. The result is the World Wide Web and Internet as we see it today. With socially collaborative websites (i.e. instructables.com) and other knowledge bases (wikipedia.org), to help these people in the third world help themselves, the question becomes more one of why wouldn’t they need the internet? After all, giving people food and shelter is one thing, but teaching them how to jumpstart their own technological revolution will keep them satisfied for a lifetime.