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The Few, The Proud, The Geeks
Ethan Zuckerman, one of the founders of Tripod, felt that he wasn't getting as much as he wanted out of what he was doing. He knew from personal experience that a lot of people had achieved personal gain through the Internet, and wanted to donate money or time to a good cause, but couldn't find one that fit. So, along with now-program director Elisa Korentayer, Ethan decided to form Geekcorps, as a way to take burnt-out techies to developing countries, bringing their expertise to places that desperately needed it. Ethan assembled a team of technical gurus -- and international development specialists -- and started gathering funds to make his dream come true. His strategizing and monetary legwork is about to bear fruit: Geekcorps pilot program is beginning this year in Ghana. The Ghana program demonstrates the Geekcorps approach in a nutshell: the group will dispatch techies from the United States and Europe to developing countries to work with local small and medium for-profit enterprises. They're targeting countries with enough infrastructure to use the Internet for commerce, but where that opportunity goes largely unused.
The six techies to serve in Ghana will work with six businesses that work with information technology, whether they turn out to be cyber cafes or small manufacturers that want to get online. In return for providing these services, Geekcorps will ask each business to commit to social responsibility and community engagement. Geekcorps would ask, for instance, that a cafe offer access services for low and/or free rates to members of the local community. The specialists chosen for the program, likewise, are expected not only to help out these start-ups, but also to provide information technology training for the local community.
Zuckerman recognizes that Geekcorps isn't the only organization to do this kind of work; also in the works is a global database of techies who would be interested in volunteering for their program, so techie volunteers can be farmed out at no cost to other governmental and community-building projects. While there is only so much that Geekcorps can do, they understand that by keeping information free and taking the time to do it right, the benefits will be much greater.
Linux and other Free Software products have been extremely popular in developing countries, for their adaptability and low hardware requirements as much as for the absence of per-seat licenses. Is Geekcorps dedicated to using Free Software solutions? I asked Elisa Korentayer, one of the Geekcorps founders and international specialists.
Elisa: We're pretty dedicated. We're a big fan of Open Source, and we're a big fan of taking advantage of free software. The aspects of the Internet that are incredibly conducive to non-profit, saving-the-world kind of attitudes, we're really into that. Think about it -- What we're doing in human terms is very similar to what Open Sourcing is. We're going into a country and we're saying 'We're going to offer you services, but we're going to ask you to give those services to other people.' We're going to say 'You can have access to this, but you need to provide that access to other people who didn't have access before."
Elisa provides a startling example of the scale of the technology divide developing countries face:
Elisa: One of the sad-but-true facts right now is that the United States government has set a goal to have a computer in every school, in every library, and they're about 90% of the way there. The goal that the United States has for developing countries is for everyone to live within one day's travel of a telephone.
Geekcorps is looking for volunteers to build these solutions in developing countries. However, if you can't get three to four months off of work to volunteer in Ghana, there is still a good opportunity to work with Geekcorps in your off-time back in your local neighborhood.
Elisa: A lot of the other stuff we're thinking about in terms of taking advantage of the Internet is that we hope to have an open channel for our volunteers in Ghana to communicate back to volunteers at home, so other techies can log in from wherever they are to help those in the developing countries."
Companies worldwide claim to make the Internet and computers more accessible, but Geekcorps is getting out there and doing it this summer. Geekcorps needs time, effort and rampant volunteerism, and the opportunity for Open Source and Free Software enthusiasts to get involved is there for the taking.
Out of interest - how many /. readers would/will consider signing on to a scheme like this? Personally, at 19, a M$oftie and no exp. I'm probably not qualified.
I'm not sure whether this is brilliant or stupid.
Pros: Technology clearly helps people become more self-sufficient. It's not necessarily a good thing to wait until everything else is in place to give people tools.
Cons: Perhaps the money and resources would be better spent helping people stabilize their economies, get fed, and things like that?
I guess I come down on the "pro" side. We've been trying to "feed the poor" for as long as we've had written history, and it's never really *solved* anything. Now, if we *EDUCATE* the poor, maybe that'll actually change something.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Don't people think that preventing starvation in 3rd world countries would be more important than bringing the internet the 2nd world countries?!?
I for one will not support the Geekcorps.
Don't get me wrong, I think It is a good idea and there hearts are in the right place, but there are other things that are more important.
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If my facts are wrong then tell me. I don't mind.
what happens all too often is that businesses (and individuals)want to donate their old hardware stored in the back closet (XT, AT, etc) made by companies that at no longer around, and/or are no longer supported. Considerable expertise is required to work with these, and many folks are deficient when dealing with command lind interfaces. Often, the expertise resides with a few people who still remember how these things work
of course, knowledgable folks all want the latest toys.
I can still run my business from a dos database program I know (it's relational), but I don't. (I have moved on to better things)
I know I would be considerably under-happy about providing tech support for people ramping up on this. Especially from overseas.
(I have worked in tech support, and the worse cases are the people who want you to help design their system from scratch over the phone, for free. and of course who do not want to learn since you are their intelligent talking book. It is, of course far easier in a course room situation, where you can grow the appropriate attitudes of personal responsibility)
So the issues are:
How are these being managed?
The repair issues alone could be horrific. Something works well for six months or a year, then dies a horrible death, and you need to redo the setup with new obsolete hardware. This could be a death trap for the tech supporting the setup.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Remember the old adage (paraphrased as best I can remember), "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime." I'm all for geekcorps... I'll be checking into their web site further to see how I can help.
First of all, I think the idea of educating people is a good thing. Don't get me wrong!
But, according to Johan Galtung's Rank Disequilibrium theory of war, educating the poor, if done by itself, can encourage violent revolutions.
The theory goes like this: when people are wealthy, educated, respected, and their skills are being well used, they are not likely to revolt. Likewise, if they are poor, uneducated, abused, and ignored they are likely to be resigned to their lot, and be not likely to revolt. However, people who are a mix, eg poor but educated and unable to get a worthwhile job, are unhappy and are therefore more likely to revolt.
This theory suggests that to cause a civil war, one should:
Galtung does not suggest by this that 3rd world countries should be kept in their "underdog" position, but that development should be done on several fronts simultaneously.
First off all, I'd like to say that I come from Trinidad in the Caribbean, which is a developing third-world nation, albeit more on the "developed" side of developing. And this kind of program is exactly what the developing world needs.
The third world needs to catch up with the developed world. This can not be achieved by following in the footsteps of the developed nations: as fast as we develop, the developed nations will maintain their lead and we will always be second-class world citizens.
Information technology has the ability to allow us to leapfrog several steps in the development process by creating economies based on the 21st-century business model from the ground up rather than recreating offline economies and going through the same painful and expensive restructuring process that the developed nations are currently undergoing. And, yes, it would be a good idea to get all our citizens clothed and fed, but to do that we need money and lots of it, and the only way to get that is to get our economies competing effectively with the rest of the world.
But the age-old need-money-to-get-money problem comes into effect: we are too busy preventing complete collapse of our economies to think about beefing them up. We don't have the resources, both physical but especially mental -- third-world countries suffer heavily from "brain-drain" as all our best and brightest get their bloody H1-B visas and ship off to the states as fast as they can.
The developed nations have made all their money exploiting the developing nations for raw materials, cheap labour and relaxed laws of every kind for centuries now: it's high time they started giving back.
I build up net surfing stations using linux running on old hardware and then donate them to people who can't afford a new computer. I also occasionally teach free computer classes for people who need to improve their job skills but can't afford commercial training.
Thad
The Bolachek Journals
Starfleet comes down on my ass about the "Prime Directive"...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I think that it is always a nice thing when humans try to help other humans, but I am not entirely sure what geekcorps wants to achieve. It seems that they want to help local businesses and help them get onto the inet.
Funny that is, who would be able to buy anything from them when noone has inet access(now we are talking about really far away future earnings<g>). Internetcafes are nice, but will, unless properly adminstered be used for gaming, which will also not help the economy.
Even when considering latest economic research, evidence is inconclusive and not entirely on the side of more information equals better living standards. From geekcorps webpage you can't exactly figure out, what they are up to.
Having read some of the development economics papers, it seems that there have been positive relations between enabling them to access to the following kind of sites(incomplete, but you get the notion):
news(which many don't have in their villages and towns)
crop and farming information(what kind of seeds, best strategies against shocks, how to build up credit systems on a village basis,..)
social, political and job education(there are actually a few NGOs I think, that are trying this right now)
What did not seem to be useful is to let them get lost in cyberspace browsing around for hours at amazon&co:)
The Internet by itself will IMHO not help developing countries a great lot, until they can enhance their productivity(which is actually possible), educate people(which is also possible) and let them communicate with the outside world(which most of them have and will never see/experience, being bound to their countries/villages for all their life), which will hopefully open their minds and initiate/support democratic thinking and values of the people in those countries.
The problem it seems has very often been to get Internet access to the villages, service the computers, governments(the inet challenges some of their views, take for instance China) and who is going to pay for all this.
Just to throw something into the discussion here, some people believe, that after having been left out of the Industrial Revolution, that the Third World, might be able to join the Information(Internet) Revolution and simply skip the step to fully developed industrial countries.
This is an interesting point and I think that it might be possible for some countries or better regions, but that this won't be a general solution. Looking at India, which has a few software development hotspots, taking the country as a whole, the Inet has not changed very much, besides inducing dreaming about becoming an inet millionaire, for some of the cs students. Most of the ppl still live in poverty and neither has the inet changed the trend of the population, namely upwards(by 2030 they are supposed to overtake China, according to the UNpop)
Before bla-ing anymore along, I would like to know, what exactly it is that geekcorps will be doing and whether they are planning to help ppl use the inet or get local business into the net(if the later is the case, I doubt they have thought enough about all this).
Considering the latest developments in countries like Zimbabwe(was down there just 3 months ago<g>) I would make sure that there are not some nice coup d'etats&co cooking...would give the name Internet Revolution a totally new meaning(you would be very fast revolutionizing your geek ass again out of that country)
-k13
beautiful women hate sigs
Without the internet, how would they know what these things are in the first place?
Hi. Ethan from Geekcorps here. Yes, Peace Corps is starting a couple of programs for technical volunteers - we were down meeting with the Director of the Peace Corps earlier this week and he's pretty enthusiastic about what the Peace Corps can do to bridge the International Digital Divide. But we agreed that Peace Corps and Geekcorps are focusing on different aspects of bridging the digital divide. Specifically, Peace Corps is sending volunteers who can spend a lot of time with communities teaching basic tech skills (word processing, basic web usage, email.) We're sending volunteers for a much shorter period of time (three months instead of two years), but our volunteers are specialists with deep skills in an technical area. Thus, the projects we're going to undertake are more like helping a business set up an ecommerce presence or a wireless WAN than teaching basic email skills. We're really excited about working with the Peace Corps - one thing we talked about with the Peace Corps recently was the idea that we could serve as a resource for Peace Corps when we're working in the same country.
First there is the question of what use the Internet would to people in second world countries. A few people have commented that it would be enable people to learn and gain knowledge, but there is more to it than that.
With the Internet as we currently see it, one of the major uses which we in the developed world have is purchasing things on-line. These purchases are invariably cheaper than they are to buy in a shop, so we save money. In Britain the government has already commented that they want to get more of the deprived areas onto the Internet. They recognise that those people who most need to save money, are loosing out on the chance to do so. Those who can afford an Internet connection can save a lot, thus increasing the economic divide within the country. This divide is obviously even bigger between the developed and developing countries for in part the same reasons.
Secondly. Those people who have questioned the merits of a scheme like this, on the grounds that there are more important things which developing countries need seem to have missed the point. Yes, they do need food, water and shelter. Of course we shouldn't stop giving that and start giving them PC's. But there is a limit to the amount of food and cloths which can be donated at any time, and once this limit has been reached, we should not sit back and say we are doing all that we can, we should strive forward to find more ways in which we can help, which IMHO is exactly what this scheme is setting out to achieve.
To me it makes no sense at all to get a highly skilled computing professional, lugging sacks, building walls etc, when he/she has rare skills which can be put to use instead.
The point is, you can make a huge difference just be working a few weekends, essentially in your own back yard. To see an example of what can be done, check out a site that we have been working on in Baltimore:
http://agape.qis.net/
This site is hosted over the same 56KB modem line that the kids used to surf the web, so be prepared for a wait, ok?
-p.
I seem to be in a rather small minority on /., but I am not a computer type at all. I'm an engineer with some geek tendencies, but I can't program my way out of a wet paper bag.
I have been thinking a lot about initiatives like this lately. Having developed a fairly deep toolkit of skills (water treatment, energy optimization) and a huge karmic deficit (I work in the oil industry), I am looking for a way to apply my skills in a more socially beneficial way.
What really has been my impediment to pursuing a second or third world opportunity is a fairly strong disagreement with the over-riding faith in technology that seems to underly many of these initiatives. To me, it reeks of cultural imperialism that what was good for our society (in my case N. American) will be the way out of hunger and suffering for those around the world.
To be honest, I am skeptical that the modern technological life seen in much of N. America is anything to be envied. As we become further immersed in mediated experiences, we lose our need for community. And community is one thing I have seen in pre-industrial (for lack of a better term) nations in spades.
Maybe initiatives such as Geekcorps address this need for community for the relative few who become involved. And hopefully those who do will bring back a different outlook on what they can do for their own society.
Finally, if anyone knows of any similar initiatives for those of us who deal in atoms rather than bits, let me know.
Laugh while you can, monkey boy!
I'm sort of cynical about bringing/forcing the internet on a totally unaware population. The internet is not some panacea. It won't feed people or make them content. A Kalihari bushman doesn't need a goddamn laptop. In fact the internet is a homogenizing force now that business has discovered it. Think what it could do to other cultures. Remember the Prime Directive ;)
I think we are so caught up in our wonderful palm-pilot-toting, cell-phone-ringing, pager-vibrating, glazed-over-CRT-staring, technological world, that we arrogantly assume that everybody wants or needs it or that it can help everybody in some way. The internet brings all sorts of problems that developing countries don't need to have to deal with. First of all they need to stop being exploited by first-world countries. They need to be self-sufficient, in whatever their interpretation of that means (in many cases that doesn't mean exploiting natural resources for export so you can import that latest first-world Pokemon products). They need to be self-determining...not supported by stupid puppet regimes that the West patronizingly thinks will be the best for them.
There's a whole hell of a lot of more real problems that these countries face than the mythical problem of not having "enough" technology. If you're so concerned, join the Peace Corps, donate money (to an unconditional charity preferrably). Don't insist you know what's best and go in and institute your own changes. Help people help themselves. They need helping hands, not expensive crutches.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?