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Technology

Geeking in the Third World 183

Posted by michael from the thar-be-dragons dept.
suzipaw writes "Geekcorps founder Ethan Zuckerman, late of Tripod, gets some well-deserved media attention for his good works via an interview on oreilly.com. What he and other volunteers are doing on behalf of developing nations is pretty darn cool. And humbling--makes this first-worlder grateful for a regular power supply."
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Geeking in the Third World More

Geeking in the Third World

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  • I'm all for technology, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Thursday May 15, 2003 @11:55AM (#5965399) Homepage Journal
    isn't there still an issue with things like, well, food, medicine, clean water, stuff like that?
    • There's probably more money to be made out of poor people with computers than poor people without computers, so it's bound to be a good idea.

    • Re:I'm all for technology, but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by El Pollo Loco ( 562236 ) on Thursday May 15, 2003 @12:00PM (#5965469)
      It can depend. For example, most of my distant relatives live in small villages in India. Having visited them, food isn't really a concern. There's plenty of that. Clean water? Maybe. However, their immune systems have adapted to the water, so only american born people like me needed to boil it first. Like it says in the article, power was key. At 9pm, every night, the power to the village would be shut off, so the city could have power. That, is the real technical hurdle.
      • I have relatives in rural Tanzania and it's pretty much the same situation. Food, water are not really a problem since the food is grown locally and the people are adapted to the water.

        But only recently has electricity been introduced, and it is not that reliable.
        • The guys I work with have pictures from some 3rd world country they visited 5-6 years ago with high voltage power lines just running along the ground. I can't remember where for sure. Any curious kid is not safe around there. They also don't protect their equipment in any way like circuit breakers. Just wait till it cooks something, and replace it if they can afford it.
      • Yes, local water can upset foreign stomachs but most locals can tolerate it. However, not the young, the old nor the very ill.

        Fun thing is that juts stick the water into a clear polythene container (not too large), leave it for eight hour in the sunshine and the UV kills most of the bacterial spores

        Once you have the runs, it is nasty as you dehydrate and it kills the vulnerable, again, easy to fix with the right sugar/salt ration in soime relative clean water (see above).

        All of this, plus many other t

    • Re:I'm all for technology, but... (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well, if you RTFA you will find that they help local companies and such which are trying to set up their own IT but are lacking in expertise, such as the Ghanda ISP mentioned in the article. They are not walking into a third world village and saying "Hey starving villagers, how about a computer?"

      On another note, people should contribute acording to their particular skill set. If I am an expert in Linux and networking, should I go teach a poor African modern agricultural farming techniques? No, I should

    • Re:I'm all for technology, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by zakezuke ( 229119 ) on Thursday May 15, 2003 @12:48PM (#5965887)
      These are issues as well, but there is also

      Education.
      1. How to grow food
      2. How to clean water
      3. medicine
      a. How to treat the ill
      b. preventive
      i. diet
      ii. HIV!!!!!

      One major issue with 3rd world contries is the massive HIV infection rate. Had a friend working for peace corps who's major irratation was the fact that it was so hard conviencing people that HIV was infact a disease... one which kills. It's somewhat hard to believe, but dispite it's existance in the 1980s it wasn't something people believed either.

      Communication between the 3rd world and the rest of the world would promote little trivial things like taking preventive measures to stop the spread of HIV and other infectious diseases. Hardcopy and people take resources to move... digial communciations takes only power and equipment, equipment the likes we replace every 1.5 years.

      Communication would open the door to the global market place. While under developed countries lack much in the way of industry, there is art, music, and stories. All of these are marketable products.

      Technology is what seperates us from animals, wether it be the basic Bushmen of the Kalahari level that is excelent to insure survivial in a very harsh enviroment, or the high tech that we who can read this enjoy.

      I see a great benifit of raising the global I.Q. of a planet of roughly 6 billion people.

      • >> I see a great benifit of raising the global I.Q. of a planet of roughly 6 billion people.

        Why do so many posters insist on equating geek knowledge with higher IQ? IQ has nothing to do with how much you've stuffed in your head. Slogging through a dozen computer science courses won't raise your IQ anymore than a dozen English lit courses.
        • This has NOTHING to do with geek knowledge or any sorta propriority facts.

          Inteligence is a good balance of aquired knolege and applied knolege. Roughly translated it's knowing shit, and knowing how to do shit.

          I thought I made it clear that I consider technology to be all forms of shit. If we raise the collective inteligence, we as a planet can do more shit!

          Computers are only a tool... one DAMNED good application of this tool is education. You don't need to be really smart to operate a computer, in fac
          • Sorry. Intelligence has nothing to do with knowledge, applied or acquired.

            Intelligence has to do with the ability to reason, comprehend, conceptualize and understand. A baby born with a high IQ doesn't get any smarter by getting a doctorate in quantum mechanics, or grow any less intelligent by living alone in the woods.
            • Reason.... applied knowledge
              conceptualize.... applied knowledge
              understand... acquired knowledge

              A person who goes further applies his aquired and applied knowledge does increase his/her ability to reason, comprehend, and understand. It's only through the chalange of one's own abilitys do we grow as a person.

              Only via communication can we become more intelligent as a species, increascing our global knowlege and ability to reason, comprehend, conceptualize, and understand the world and universe as we know it
              • Still wrong. Acquiring and using knowledge does not raise a person's intelligence.

                Intelligence is an inate attribute. In other words, we're born with as much intelligence as we are ever going to have. Everything you mention is a worthy goal, but none of it will make anyone more intelligent.
                • Nah, I can't believe that. While I agree some people have natural limitations as far as learning go, but being able to chalange your self does serve to increase your ability to solve problems.

                  If you don't ever bother to use your mind, you don't gain the ability to reason. You enter a state of mental aphtropy.

                  Without knowlege, what use is intelligence? Intelligence can be described by those who can learn, do, or teach. All the attributes you described can be taught... atleast socrates thought so :P
    • Yes, people in the third world do need everyone in the West reminding them how to live and what their priorities should be. Thank you so much for this insightful observation.

      Yes, I'm trolling.
    • The Third World needs a lot of things. But, what it really does not need is naive Westerners deciding what's good for it.

      In a more specific note, consider the role that IT plays in delivering food, medicine and clean water. Yes, some people get their water by walking to a village with a pipe sticking out of the ground. And other people don't have safe water because the equipment that runs the municipal filtration system broke last year and no one in country knows how to repair it. Or that doctors can ma

      • Then, you mean the First World industrialized nations should completely ignore the Third World and their problems - let the Third World decide and solve their own problems by themselves?

        I'm in the First World and naively believe I have some things to make my life better and would like for other people in the Third World to enjoy those things, too.

        But if you say that I'm merely an armchair quarterback with no firsthand experience of what it's like to live in the Third World, then I'll believe you. If you

        • >> Then, you mean the First World industrialized nations should completely ignore the Third World and their problems - let the Third World decide and solve their own problems by themselves?

          No, that's not what I said and it is not what I mean.

          What I mean is that Westerners should not imagine they have a clue about what the Third World is like unless they've spent some time there. Westerners should not parachute into some country with a magic answer bag full of aid and force feed it down the throats
          • But about when Third World issues threaten the rest of the world, like was the case with Polio. The magic bag had a vaccine and all but eliminated it from the planet.

            While yes, it should never be our goal to change the third world based on our image, or run the risk of having a India Pakastan situation. But there are issues such as the HIV epidemic that require us as a species to get together and resolve it. And who knows... many a drug breakthrough has been made by going to far out of the way regions a
    • Yo. I am a geekcorps volunteer here in ghana. I'm not certain that your comment qualifies as "insightful". It is the obvious thing that everybody says.

      Clearly, there are huge problems here associated with poverty. The way to combat them is to try to boost the economy. Computers here are relatively cheap. There is an opportunity here, particularly if the infrasrtucture is improved (and alot is being done in that direction) to create at the very least a viable industry in offshore consulting and so on, much
      • It wasn't particularly insightful, I'll agree... it was just the first thing that popped into my head. But it's a relevant question, and I appreciate your answering it.

        I don't mean to bust on you guys at all. I think it's pretty cool work, and requires a level of commitment most people capable of doing it couldn't possibly provide.

        My deeper concern, which goes beyond my flip question, is that we're laying the infrastructure for exploitation by American companies without providing the benefits I feel a

  • but at what cost? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Thursday May 15, 2003 @11:56AM (#5965415) Homepage
    makes this first-worlder grateful
    for a regular power supply."

    Our computers are horrible power hogs for what they do. if you had to conserve your electrical power like they do in a 3rd world or even a 2nd world you would realize this.

    Try living off the grid, it is possible and many 1st world people do it.

    What you are grateful for is the fact that you are spoiled by the luxuries we have in the modern countries.

    many of the advances in personal powering and conservation is created by these people that are trying to get the 3rd world countries closer to where we were in the 60's.
    • I was reading about one guy (lost the link) who set up solar cells to power his server cluster. I'd give it a try if it was a little sunnier here -- sounded like an interesting project and a way to see if something like this would be feasible on a larger scale.

      They don't look too good to the neighbors, though.

      • Re:but at what cost? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Zathrus ( 232140 )
        Solar Cells still cost more energy to produce than they'll deliver in their lifetime too. It's a negative sum game.

        Wind power is all well and good if you have the area to set it up in... in my area you wouldn't be able to set one up without removing a few dozen old growth trees in the first place.

        • Your claim is false; the company Solarex demonstrated this 20 years, ago, by constructing what they called a "breeder" factory for solar cells: the only power input was solar. If, as you say, solar cells cost more energy to produce than they deliver in their lifetime, the concept would not work. And photovoltaics have gotten more efficient since then.

          • Incorrect. The Solarex plant in Fredrick, MA provides 200 kW of power, which is only a "significant" portion [able-solar.co.nz] of the energy needed. It also doesn't do 100% of the manufacturing onsite -- which would be difficult since most of the rare metals needed for solar plants probably aren't found in quantity there, and the refining processes needed to extract them would be significantly more than the 200kW they generate.

            • I can build a solar collector that generates more energy than it requires, but it won't be a fancy photoelectric film. No, it'll be a polished mirror folded around a water pipe, with a steam turbine at one end.

              • Don't forget to include all the components of that system in the calculation then -- I suspect you'll find that the manufacturing costs of the mirror, pipe, turbine, and other components will be greater than the energy you'll extract out of the system. No, it won't last forever. And when you need to replace a part you'll need to recoup the energy input from it too.

                No, I'm not being unrealistic. If you want to suggest moving to another energy source it must be self-sustainable -- otherwise you're spending m
    • "Our computers are horrible power hogs for what they do. if you had to conserve your electrical power like they do in a 3rd world or even a 2nd world you would realize this."

      If energy efficiency were the only factor in the equation then I might agree, but it obviously isn't. I'd certainly prefer to have many people using lots of cheap, relatively inefficient computers than fewer people using more expensive, somewhat more efficient computers.

      Besides, a stable electrical grid is vital for lots of things bes
    • It's really all relative. If my only power source is a couple solar cells, then yes - my computer would start to seem like it uses "far too much electricity" for what it does.

      On the other hand, it irks me when I get preached to by the eco-crowd about how "wasteful" our technologies are. The fact is, 99% of us in the U.S. *do* live on the power grid, and we do so because it's very cost-effective and economical.

      If I leave even 3 or 4 computers running all the time in my house, as opposed to only powering

  • Pet Peeve (Score:2, Informative)

    by uberdave ( 526529 )
    It's Old World, New World, Third World, not First world, Second World, Third World.

    • Re:Pet Peeve (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Where did you hear this? First World, Second World, Third World are perfectly valid. First world == US "side" in Cold War, Second World == USSR "side" in Cold War, Third World == unaligned in Cold War. Most highly-developed countries chose sides (or had a side chosen for them), so the Third World was all the underdeveloped countries.
    • Developed Nations, Developing Nations. Communists are basically ignored.

    • Old World, New World, Third World

      But, which is which? If you say New World then most 'Western' focused thinkers will say that's the Americas, maybe including Austrlia, with Europe (and probably much of Eurasia and some of Asia) being the Old World. However much of Africa had advanced civilisations and agriculture back when Europeans were still figuring out that rocks weren't good to eat. So is Africa really the Old World? And what of Asia? Many Asian nations developed advanced military tactics and

  • Help (Score:4, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Thursday May 15, 2003 @11:57AM (#5965431) Homepage Journal

    child: papa, will we eat today?
    father: no my son, but we will get to search the internet for information on food and food-like products.
    • I'm sorry, but that joke's been done here [satirewire.com].

    • Re:Help (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ColaMan ( 37550 ) on Thursday May 15, 2003 @12:24PM (#5965708) Journal
      father: no my son, but we will get to search the internet for information on food and food-like products.

      I know you were just being glib, but let me amend that for you:

      "but we will get to search the internet for ways to stop our crops from dying off, so we can eat tomorrow."

      Of course, you could put in other lifestyle improving search terms, like say, how to build a sewage treatment plant so your village doesn't dump raw turds in the river that you drink from, or using all that pig/chicken/cow shit around the place to make enough methane for a small generating plant. Or even how to construct a nice cheap house that'll hold up to cyclonic winds and monsoon rain.

      Living in a modern country, and going to a even a second-world country (never mind a third world one) is a real eye-opener - things that I've said:

      (This is when I was staying in a town of about 300,000. Picture a small idyllic fishing village, then cram 25,000 people and cars into it)

      "What're all those tanks on the roof for?"
      "Oh, the tap water's just bore water - it's not really fit to drink. We get the drinking water trucked in."

      "Damn! What's that stink?"
      "Dead cow in the open drain outside the window there, see?"

      "How long will the power be off for?"
      "Oh , two or three hours... it normally comes back on around 10."

      "Howdy'a get a line out here? I need to ring home"
      "I'll book you a call, the guys at the exchange will ring us back when it's hooked up. There's only 15 lines out of town."
      • Newsflash: the second world has ceased to exist.

        This message brought to you by the Internet Wayback Machine, circa 1991.

        • Sigh. Let me put it to you this way:

          The average person knows what a "First World " country is (technologically speaking). Reliable food and water supplies, good standard of living , low mortality rate.

          The average person also knows what a "Third World" country is. Unreliable (or non-existant) food and water supplies, crap standard of living, high mortality.

          What I was attempting to imply by my use of "Second World" was a country with technological expertise in between the two.

          Yes I am aware of the "offica
          • Er...no. Second World has an established definition, and it has nothing to do with being "between" First and Third world standards. You're not "tweaking" the vocabulary, you're misusing it. Invent a new word if you need to.

            FYI, Second World living conditions were great. No cause for complaint among anyone who lived under them. I know it's true because I read it in the New York Times and the New Republic.

      • "but we will get to search the internet for ways to stop our crops from dying off, so we can eat tomorrow."

        This is all well and good, until they discover /. and the productivity of the community does down the drain.

        I think time will show that the faster global communication comes to an area, the other concerns like quality food, drinking water and power sources will be solved. It's not a cause and effect type of thing, but rather it's a side effect of sharing ideas in a global community.

        oh, and just t

  • Technology donation in developing countries (Score:5, Informative)

    by girl_geek_antinomy ( 626942 ) on Thursday May 15, 2003 @12:00PM (#5965476)
    Actually, with so much old computer kit being donated to the third world by companies etc (there must be a tax break or something - that and it saves paying to dispose of it) there's a lot to be said for sharing expertise, especially if those doing it are competent in working with Free software so that basic things like all the machines in a school running the same stuff can be taken care of. At the moment these machines run with what they came with and are nearly always next to useless. Well, unless you count the ones being used as doorstops and steps.

    Of course there are other important things to do in these parts of the world, but the way I see it, sharing out expertise never did anyone any harm - it's a comodity both free and invaluable.

  • Teach them how to fish...... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lysium ( 644252 ) on Thursday May 15, 2003 @12:03PM (#5965497)
    ...and they won't need to buy Microsoft products later on.

    Something like this fits perfectly with Linux/OS philosophy. If technicically-minded people in developing nations can be shown how to run modern, full-featured computers/networks with the older hardware available to them, you remove the need for pricey (probably American) consultants, newer, expensive hardware, and newer, license-laden, expensive software.

    Basically, I believe that developing nations deserve to get on their own two feet without tithing a percentage of their resources to American technology firms. Yes, I am an American. And yes, I will be volunteering in the future.

    • Re:Teach them how to fish...... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by namtrop ( 667302 ) on Thursday May 15, 2003 @12:31PM (#5965757) Homepage
      Having just returned from three months connecting rural schools in Uganda, let me just offer one (small-sample-size) perspective:

      It's a lot tougher than you think. I visited 16 schools several months after they had received an in-depth, two-week Linux training course. By the time I arrived their Linux computers lay broken, not having been touched for weeks.

      We (geeks and nerds of the developed world) have been suckling at the teet of technology all our lives: drivers, file systems, and the like are now second-nature. However, to someone from another, non-technically-innundated culture, it's extremely difficult to use Linux.

      Proof? In 16 schools, only one Linux machine was still running when I arrived. But every Windows machine was still being used, and loved.

      For the time being, at least, let's give developing nations what they CAN use (Microsoft) not what we WANT them to use (Linux).

      I would love to hear other people's experiences with MSFT vs OS in developing nations.

      • One of the issues is that Windows computers degrade, if not gracefully, at least in a somewhat nice manner. Sure towards the end of the "install, use, reinstall" cycle they may crash every half an hour (or more often!), at least they boot into a GUI and you can load up (most of? some of?) your programs.

        A *nix machine can have X die hard and not boot into a GUI at all. Sure it may be easy for somebody who KNOWS what they are doing to fix, but, err, this is a school, students are there to learn basic life
        • Apart from the usual software armor that gets put in place, how about something like another (smallish) boot partition that holds a compressed image of the filesystem as originally installed? When you boot to that partition, all it does is dd (via bzip) a copy to your other partition and reboot. Use a bootloader menu of "Re-Install System" or something, and a few dire warnings and a password before it begins of course..

          Then you could have a complete re-install in about 20 minutes or so.

          Or maybe just whack
      • For the time being, at least, let's give developing nations what they CAN use (Microsoft) not what we WANT them to use (Linux).

        so why didnt you give them macs?

        Sorry for the joke but that is only a testament to the shoddyness of the linux installs. If I can set up linux kiosks that can withstand the stupidity of the general american public they can easily withstand the teaching of bright poor students.

        Calling linux a failure when the person who set it up was unqualified is very unfair. Get someone ther

      • Dude, I couldn't agree more.

        Last summer I was working on a development project in the Zambian government where I set up the IT department at a government agency. While I did use OSS whenever I could, I really couldn't see anyway around the windows domination 'problem.' For one thing, there is no real support infrastrcture for Linux outside of the technically savvy IT people (of which I saw maybe 2 shops total with linux boxen) whereas there are several Microsoft Partners willing to provide a reasonable lev

      • That's exactly why talented linux geeks should volunteer. Using the feedback you just provided, I would have to say that greater emphasis needs to be placed on reliability and fool-proofing; perhaps an ISO distro or one-click restore CD would help. Or why not scout around for a native would-be-geek, and initiate them, exclusively, in the higher realms of technology? Let them be the bridge between your knowledge and the local mindset.

        I could put a group of my co-workers in linux training for two weeks, and

        • Uh, call me nuts, but I thought that "ease of use" is what several commercial Linux companies have been working on for years. So far, none of 'em are even close. what makes you think that if a company working on it (Caldera, Lindows, etc.) can't do it, a handful of geek volunteers can do it?

          • Re:Ease of use (Score:3, Insightful)

            by lysium ( 644252 )
            The "ease of use" they are looking for is not the same "ease of use" that a Thai peasant using a P-166 (32 megs of ram, lets say) would be looking for. Linux companies (who want money) are looking to capture postindustrial office workers and particularly stupid consumers. So they are not really the best example for this case.

            And by geek volunteers, do you mean the young, idealist sort? Or the older, wiser, professional, and still idealist sort? The GeekCorps website stresses that it generally declines vo

      • I have almost finished a year working in Papua New Guinea for the PNG Institute of Medical Research [pngimr.org.pg] (IMR), helping them to setup a LAN for their Goroka headquarters. I came over with my wife through Australian Volunteers International [ozvol.org.au], roughly equivalent to Peace Corps.

        IMR already had 2 computer support people working in Goroka -- one of them completely self trained -- so I thought that we could probably use Linux at least for the backend and save ourselves a lot of money. However I quickly found that a

  • 1500 refurbished Macs to Kenya (Score:5, Informative)

    by Henriok ( 6762 ) on Thursday May 15, 2003 @12:07PM (#5965544)
    The Swedish Mac-guru Ulf "Omar" Henriksson have single handidly shipped over 1500 used and refurbished Macs to schools, libraries and hospitals in Kenya. Every Mac was donated by Swedish individuals and businesses for this charity purpose.

    In Kenya he have educated quite a lot users and admins in the ins and outs of Mac, the Mac OS and computers in general.

    More info (in Swedish) at http://www.macs-to-africa.info/]Macs to Africa.info.

    If you have any questions, feel free to mail "Omar" at guru.macsupport(at)telia.com.

    And no.. PCs are not welome :)
    • And no.. PCs are not welome :)

      This is arrogant. Here in Guyana, someone donated a bunch of AppleBooks to Amerindian villages in the hinterland. When problems arose, there was (and remains) NO Apple vendor to provide hardware or support. So the machines fell out of use.

      Think, before you donate, about support and sustainability of the project.

      Now, where's that link about the bicycle powered PC's in Vietnam?

  • vim! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dicky ( 1327 ) <slash3@vmlinuz.org> on Thursday May 15, 2003 @12:13PM (#5965594) Homepage
    For those of us who - for whatever reason - aren't going to go help people ourselves, you could do a lot worse than helping one of our own who asks - very politely.

    Bram Moolenaar, the author/maintainer of the amazing vim [vim.org] visited a school/community center/development center in Uganda a few years back, and when he returned to Europe, he, along with others, setup a charity in the Netherlands to support the center. Those who use and enjoy vim (and those who don't!) "are encouraged to make a donation for needy children in Uganda." Go to the International Child Care Fund [iccf-holland.org] and make a donation [iccf-holland.org], or at least click through their Amazon affiliation links [iccf-holland.org] next time you buy something from there. That way, it doesn't even cost you anything...

    Wouldn't it be nice to Slashdot a charity with donations? :-)

    • Am I the only one creeped out by the fact the author of vim is even remotely related to introducing people to computers and computing?

      You vim zealots could try to imagine how you'd feel if RMS strolled around Uganda forcing people to talk about GNU/Clean Water and introucing them to C-x before showing the power switch.

  • Ghana's New Hope: Ballmer (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As reported here [ghanaguide.org], the economy in Ghana is in serious need of help.

    The town is more like an overgrown and crowded village, with goats, dogs and chickens rooting around for scraps, and herds of bony cattle strolling along the streets.

    Ballmer's travel agent confessed, "With so many poor and helpless goats, Steve will be sure to visit and pump some badly needed funds into the local economy, in exchange for certain favors." Ballmer could not be reached for comment.

  • IT helps the whold country (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kryliss ( 72493 ) on Thursday May 15, 2003 @12:19PM (#5965653)
    If they are able to get internet, power, "e-commerce" etc... up and running then these "3rd world" nations will be able to start making money which will in turn open up jobs where people will have money to spend to buy and produce things like food and shelter or better tools to produce these things.

    That's just my ($1.00 - $.98 tax) worth

  • Fabulous Article (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Demerara ( 256642 ) on Thursday May 15, 2003 @12:31PM (#5965755) Homepage
    I came to Guyana, South America in 1995, having worked in telecoms for 6 years. They had no internet access - not a single link. I used to dial Barbados and collect my email. Surfing was an expensive luxury. Still, managed to get the newspaper I was working for on the web (now Stabroek News [stabroeknews.com]).

    The O'Reilly article is wonderful - clearly shows that the digital divide will not be bridged by IBM or Micro$oft and that hardware is not the answer - skill transfer is. Also shows how reliable power is not a given in developing countries (and, of course post-Enron California...

    Now we have ADSL, satellite, fibre (Americas II). Still regular blackouts though.

    Check out the Guyana SDNP [sdnp.org.gy], the UNDP Digital initiative.

  • Let the Junis [slashdot.org] jokes begin...

    -Sean

  • THIRD WORLD GEEK LUST ITEMS (Score:3, Funny)

    by _ph1ux_ ( 216706 ) on Thursday May 15, 2003 @12:38PM (#5965811)
    Check out my new case modded rice cooker!!

  • Engineers Without Borders (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Theodore Logan ( 139352 ) on Thursday May 15, 2003 @12:48PM (#5965889)
    Maybe these guys deserve attention, but not nearly as much as Engineers Without Borders [ewb-isf.org]. It may be considered trolling on Slashdot, but to most people it is obvious that there are more urgent problems for many of these countries/cities/villages than lack of Internet access.
    • Thanks for the pointer to their web site. I really like what they are doing.

      I'd like to respond to your point though.

      Money can buy food and water and shelter. So if you can make it possible for some of the brighter people in a poor country to earn money, then you are helping with the 'more important' stuff.

      Even in the poorest countries, you will find a lot of bright young people sitting around with nothing to do. Of all the resources going to waste, surely that is one of the most valuable.

      One of the
      • So you teach these people programming so they can do what, exactly...?
        • Start their own business's for example. I mean just because its third world and little infrastructure does not mean that there are no computers. Take Nepal for example, one of the poorest countries in the world. They have plenty of computers and computer systems. Cos while people are starving in the rural areas, Westernization is still taking hold. There are offices to book reservations, inventory to track, orders to fill, transactions to record, etc. Even in the world most depressed countries its not all "
    • I'm involved in an organization which takes corporate-donated computers (and funds), refurbishes them, and installs them in educational centers, schools, Head Start centers, and the like in various cities in the US, as well as on various trips abroad (this summer to Ghana, previously to Ghana, India, Thailand, and Equador). I've often debated that which you mention, whether it is better for me to be doing this or something more important. After all, how can I feel I am doing the right thing when I see a ho
  • this guy should be admonished for attempting to teach IT skills to a third world country. Next thing you know, greedy american companies will be outsourcing IT or programming work to people in Ghana for pennies and letting 3 well-paid American programmers go.

    For the sarsacm inpaired, I think what this guy is doing is great. What I don't think is great is the guild/labor mentailty of some programmers and IT people who think there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world.

  • Geek out of place (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Surely this is a contradiction because geeks are the very products of our very rich, western world.

    eg: People with too much time and money.

    How many Africans do you know that waste huge loads of time and resources on creating scale-models of popular star-ships?

    eg: You damn Star Wars fans!

  • Other problems (Score:2, Informative)

    by asadodetira ( 664509 )
    Beyond power, other problem in dev. countries is harder or expensive to get parts when you are building something. I worked in a data acquisition project in south america and we used to request free samples from chipmakers. Now it's harder, some only ship to U.S.

  • geeking for an isp in 'third world' (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I worked for an ISP in Dar es Salaam for a little over a year. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys having responsibility, freedom to innovate and a steep learning curve. This whole 'does a lot of work for charity' thing gives me the creeps though. Businesses are businesses, even in Africa. Sure, there is a huge skills gap - so if you want to plug it flash your CV around every ISP you can find and you're bound to get lucky. NGOs are just a source of free money/skills and they don't make business sens

  • 3rd-world countries are an eye-opener (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 4minus0 ( 325645 ) on Thursday May 15, 2003 @02:42PM (#5967001)
    If you've never been to a third-world country and you have a chance to go, please go.

    I recently (fall 2002) went to Nicaragua to do research for a website for a Nicaraguan mission group. In reality I somewhat disagree with what they're doing, my friend and I joked that it was the Inquisition all over again. Anyway...

    The first thing you notice upon landing in Managua is how unbelievably poor everybody is. Sure there were a few people in suits but most people were wearing T-shirts that had obviously come from the U.S. (high school reunion shirts, prom night shirts from high schools in Virginia).

    We stayed in Leon and the people there had no concept of a computer, they damn sure knew what a camera was though! It's completely unbelievable to someone from the States to see how they live. But they don't know any different, so they're happy, or at least content.

    Some of the kids had never seen television so when we taped them on DV and played it back for them on the spot they went apeshit. Most of the people in the outskirts of Leon just steal electricity by throwing wires across the main lines. We saw a dog that had been in the way of one of these wires and it was burned clean in half. The poles that hold the wires up are usually just sticks or the wires are stapled into a tree. Unbelievable.

    A country like Nicaragua needs more infrastructure before a truckload of computers would do them any good. Good luck getting that truckload of computers through customs anyway. The mission group we're doing the website for had the damndest time getting a container of clothes and miscellaneous goods through customs.

    The best part of the trip was riding around the streets of Managua with our driver California... that kid could outdrive Colin McRae, I shit you not. We'd be doing 120KM/hr through the busiest street I've ever seen anywhere and he's hanging out the window singing Nelly (andale andale uh-oh... you know the song) Christ that was funny.

    I should probably tell my side of the trip on my own site but I guess the mission site will have to do, due to my laziness.
  • Just like Catholicism and the other Christian religions, the IT industry knows that a
    significant part of its future lies in the third world.

    Only difference is that they send nobody missionaries, we send somebody millionaires.

  • "Nerds" only exist here (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fractaltiger ( 110681 ) on Thursday May 15, 2003 @06:46PM (#5968964) Journal
    It is interesting that in the third world there is no such thing as the nerd. Before coming to America, people who were socially inept and shy were just that, socially inept and shy... and studious. There is no derogatory term for them like nerds and geeks here in the us.

    This brings up another point: why make a term for something that should be good for our society since it brings social change locally (a community grows more advanced and probably more educated) and globally at the scale of the country, when we can go into technical jobs that pull the economy forward?

    Actually, if my parents knew of the connotations of the word geek or nerd when I was growing up, they would probably have rubbed it in and warned against it. But they just wonder why I spend so much time working on CPUs and reading and find it strange, not knowing how many equally conditioned people we have out there. Good that they could not call me a "geek" in spanish, even in good will because the lack of the CONCEPT helped me to not feel singled out in society.

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