US Geeks Recycle GNU/Linux Boxes for Ecuador

An anonymous submitter writes: "According to this article on Salon, geeks involved with Indymedia are recycling 300 GNU/Linux boxes to send to independent media activists in Ecuador. The machines will be used to create free public computer labs across South America, networked with donated wireless 802.11b cards. Anyone wanna chip in to help cover the shipping costs?"

Comments

FreeGeek in Portland does something similar.

[Spy4MS]

They make Linux boxes out of donated parts and volunteered time. They also recycle monitors, motherboard parts and steel.
Please be gentle

Re:FreeGeek in Portland does something similar.

[gampid]

FreeGreek is actually helping out on this project a lot! They put together a bunch of the computers and helped us with the install. Despite the salon article we actually used Debian for the install not Mandrake. It was the FreeGeek folks who put together the netinstall.

Re:Shipping? We Don't Need No Stinking Shipping!

[N3WBI3]

The problem is these leftest freaks think the ANG and other military personel are all baby killers. These people are left of left of left. They are as extreme as the militia groups everyone wants to go after..

Re:must have uninterruptible power supplies

[gampid]

Yeah we have tried to include UPS's but the problem is that by the time they get donated they are often bad. We don't want to send down a UPS which will break and then we leave people with a toxic waste problem they can't deal with cleanly. Unfortunately we were able only to send a few UPS's in the container.

more info

[akb]

Also check out this video interview with one of the organizers.

Geeks getting into development

[electroniceric]

I am profoundly glad to see the merging of techies with global development.

As a note of caution:
My own experience doing this (built a computer lab in Nicaragua) sort of thing suggests that these folks will run into many political and economic complexities in the places they go to install computers e.g.:

• Computers tend to end up in homes and offices of well-connected people who tend have electricity and a place to put a computer
• Often they molder away unused for lack of some kind of hardware or software fix
• When you start asking how to robustly improve the welfare of a lot of citizens, it becomes a lot less clear whether donations simply improve the lot of a couple people, or are a band-aid, or really do something. No matter what, changing the fabric of a society takes years and years, a kind of progress us internet-speed twenty year-olds don't have much experiencew with.

In any event, I hope everyone involved will learn a lot from the process and it will motivate more geeks to get involved with those who have much less than themselves (not the least of the reasons being that it makes you happier).

Re:Humanitarians

[SethJohnson]

Ecuador does not need food. It is the largest banana exporter in the world. It is a hugely agricultural nation which is not suffering from droughts, etc. Ecuador does need infrastructure. These computers are part of that needed infrastructure. They need to leap beyond agrarian subsistence farming to get the country out of its economic hole.

What can accelerate this change? Education for sure. Books, schools, etc. How about a computer and internet connectivity? We've got a lot laying around here gathering dust. Probably more so than textbooks written in spanish.

I've visited Ecuador several times. Once I was helping some women at a library set up a VCR and TV that was recently donated by some wealthy Ecuadorians (I was a friend of the donors). The women working in the library were nicely dressed and educated pretty well from what I could tell with my limited spanish. They were the Ecuador equivalent to minimum-wage office workers in America.

When it came time to put the batteries in the remote control, I realized the value I was bringing to the VCR-TV-setup project. These women had never held a remote control. They needed some batteries (2 X AA), which they also had no experience with. I gave them a dead AA from my walkman so they could take it to the local shop and make sure they were buying the right size (with money provided by the donors). When they returned with the batteries, I had to explain the pictures inside the battery compartment so they'd understand how to install the batteries in the future.

I guess I am relating this anecdote so people can better understand the technological chasm that seperates people around the world. Sure, booklearning is a key part of a third-world country's development. At the same time, these free computers are going to help as well.

Seth

Re:Computers and Anti-globalization

[lysurgon]

Also, why are they against free trade?

Anti-Globalization != Anti-Free-Trade

Of course, that's assuming by "free trade" you really mean, "fair and mutually beneficial commercial relations that do not result in the exploitation of one party by another," and not "corporate imporialism/hegemony."

People who oppose "globalization" are generally greatly in favor of international dialogue and cultural exchange, but oppose commercial and cultural dominance/exploitation.

Incidentally, sending computers and other communications equipment to a needy country, if done correctly and followed through on, is actually a far better initiative in terms of improving local conditions than sending the same dollar amount of food. There's a general tendency in foreign aid and foreign charity to create a state of dependence rather than foster indigenous production, commerce and enterprise. Give a man a fish vs. Teach a man to fish, etc etc etc. That's what communications and technology can do.

The bottom line is that "These People" don't trust extra-national corportate interests to improve the conditions of third world countries and seek to improve the conditions there by fostering more robust local economic conditions rather than a state of international dependence.