Help Wire Remote Laos Villages

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Help Wire Remote Laos Villages

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 2, 2003 @08:36AM from the net-drop-in-every-pot dept.

rODbegbie writes "Lee Felsenstein is appealing for donations to help provide Internet access to remote Laos villages. The New York Times considered the idea one of the best in 2002, but they need to raise $25,000 to get this in place before monsoon season. Donations can be made using Paypal (mention that it's for "Remote IT")."

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I'm sure AOL... by craenor · 2003-01-02 08:37 · Score: 5, Funny

Would be more then happy to send them a bunch of CD's if that helps.
Weirdly appropriated money by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-02 08:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

People need food and shelter before they can worry about getting online. I know that it's stupid to say that they should be donating something else, but...it just seems like there's a huge push to get underdeveloped areas on the 'net instead of taking care of necessities first.
CommentAnticipator: by mumblestheclown · 2003-01-02 08:42 · Score: 5, Funny
CommentAnticipator says:
- Will the computers run open source software?
- Aren't there more valuable projects that we could spend money on?
- Jokes about the guy pedalling running out of power just as half the pr0n picture is downloaded.
- In soviet russia, computer bicycles you
- Comments about pop-up ads, spam, and the fact that internet access is no guarantee of anything.
- A few semi-related comments about land mines.
More important things than the Internet by stevejsmith · 2003-01-02 08:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

I don't think that Laos needs free Internet connections. I think what they need is houses, and a literacy rate above 60%. How do expect a small village, only 60% literate, to know how to use the Internet? In a country where the phones to people ratio is well over 1:100, I doubt that the Internet will be of must use.

I'll repeat what I said about India regarding the Simputer: there are more important things than the Internet. You know, food, water, shelter during the monsoon season
1. Re:More important things than the Internet by plierhead · 2003-01-02 08:54 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I don't think that Laos needs free Internet connections. I think what they need is houses, and a literacy rate above 60%. How do expect a small village, only 60% literate, to know how to use the Internet?
  I agree theres a whole lot of other stuff they need more than internet access. But, if thats whats on offer, I wouldn't say it is useless because of high illiteracy rates. It might only take one semi-literate person in a small village, AND some compelling content, to plant the seeds for others to teach themselves to read. It might be surprising just what people can teach themselves, and perhaps the internet could be the key to reducing illiteracy.
  
  --
  [x] auto-moderate all posts by this user as insightful
2. Re:More important things than the Internet by stevejsmith · 2003-01-02 09:00 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  However would you disagree that $25,000 worth of teaching jobs would probably be at least twice as useful? When teachers get paid less than $500 per year, that could buy five teachers for ten years. A much better investment, I would say.
3. Re:More important things than the Internet by Draxinusom · 2003-01-02 09:07 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Did you bother to read any of the linked webpages? First of all, there are plenty of useful applications for the internet: to get accurate and timely information about crops pricing, to stay in touch with relatives scattered by poverty and war, to bid on things like construction jobs. The bare necessities are also desperately needed, but it's not completely inconceivable that one communally-owned computer could bring much more cost-effective and immediate benefit to a village than, say, literacy education, which while necessary in the long-term is expensive and doesn't pay dividends for years. Secondly, if you take what's been written about this project in good faith, this is something that the Laotian villagers asked for. It's fantastic that you seem to know better than the people themselves what they need, but unless you're going to put your money where your mouth is and pony up some housing, why deride the efforts of people who are actually trying to help?
4. Re:More important things than the Internet by raju1kabir · 2003-01-02 09:11 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I don't think that Laos needs free Internet connections. I think what they need is houses, and a literacy rate above 60%. How do expect a small village, only 60% literate, to know how to use the Internet?
  
  So you don't think that anyone should be able to do anything beyond subsistence until everyone has been raised to their level?
  
  You have to keep education and opportunity moving forward, or else there's no room for people to grow into.
  
  Among the 60% who are literate, some will do great things given the opportunity. They will also be able to prepare their society for a smoother transition into greater capacity when more resources are available, because computers will not be alien to them.
  
  Of course, you and Trotsky are free to disagree with me.
  
  --
  "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Who initiated? by tau_bada · 2003-01-02 08:44 · Score: 4, Interesting

Is this project at the behest of the villages or an outside person assuming only positive things will result? Cultures have been quickly torn apart by ideas which seemed positive to outside initiators.
1. Re:Who initiated? by ntk · 2003-01-02 10:16 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It's my understanding that it was initiated by the locals, who asked for access to information and knowledge about stuff like crop prices.
  
  I wrote a bit about this in my Irish Times article on the project:
  
  Farmers will be able to monitor the price of crops in the town markets, negotiate group purchases with the other villages, and make business deals without having to spend days travelling away from the farm. And families will be able to make direct contact for the first time with the Laotian Diaspora - relatives who've left the war-torn area to earn money in the capital of the country, and beyond.
  
  Cheap technology like this, dropped into the very poorest of countries, may provide a chance for these nations to leapfrog into the digital revolution.
  
  Of course, there'll always be someone who'll argue that providing this kind of technology to the least developed countries of the world is missing the point: that we should, as Bill Gates said recently, be spending our money instead on medical and food projects. And, of course, everyone involved in the Jhai project suggests we should do that too. But it's notable that it was the rural villagers themselves who asked for ways to communicate and gain knowledge, not the foundation.
  
  Info about donating via Paypal here.
You're Joking Right? by _Neurotic · 2003-01-02 08:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

Remote Laos villages?
Sorry but speaking as an American, I'm more worried about wiring remote US villages and schools.
Get to know Lee by ch-chuck · 2003-01-02 08:51 · Score: 5, Informative

Read an interview here.
Lee was involved in getting public access terminals deployed in the early 70's in San Francisco, created the Pop 'Tronics "Penny Whistle Modem" project, and the highly collectible SOL-20 personal computer, member Honbrew Computer Club - this guy was /there/ during the genesis of the personal computer revolution.

--
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Aye ... welcome to the slashdot donation network . by SuperDuG · 2003-01-02 09:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

I think we need a new category with the Southpark Salley Struthers head as the icon for all "Cries for monetary help".
And of course ... more of my opinion on the post ...
Like I said to mandrake (a company) and many before on the slashdot donation network, NO ... the only thing that I donate to is things I can directly control. IE scholarships, trusts, etc. I wanna know who I'm benifiting not the well dressed president of the NON-PROFIT organization. I still can't believe the black-tie events I've been invited to in the name of "Charity" ... I love the fact that "feeding children" requires a fucking charity dinner ... how about this ... invite everyone to a charity dinner and then don't have one, make them see what it's like to be hungry.
As far as internet in Laos ... laughable ... I would really like to see the benifit of this ... not from the begging for money site too. Plus ... $25,000 because grants won't come in time ... pretty optimistic about those grants coming in.
You all really have money to burn after the holliday season? Why dontcha look at what's happening in your own backyard. Call your old college and tell them you want to start a scholarship (they won't mind really). Education is the key to it all, don't care what you say.

--
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed