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Still More on Connecting Laos
Rackemup writes "A story on Wired has some updated information on the progess made by the Remote IT Village Project attempting to connect several isolated villages deep in the Laotian Jungle to the rest of the world using wireless networks, pedal-power and Laonux (customized Linux installs translated into the Laotian language). Power surges can be a hassle when the nearest computer store is hundreds of miles away, but they're shooting for a May 18th "go live" date."
Looks like they're planning on using 802.11b... Wouldn't there be range issues? I'm assuming these villages are a decent distance from each other or wherever they could get a transceiver...
the first bicycle powered linux computer?!?
don't they have hamsters in Laos? or are they lacking hamster wheels?
Our Remote IT Village project responds to villagers express needs for telecommunications, business opportunities, and enhanced education for their children through the development of a solid-state, low-wattage computer that can be powered by a foot-crank, a high-bandwidth wireless network, and support for village small businesses.
Farmers in Ban Phon Kam and nearby villages are now able to grow surpluses of rice and other crops-thanks in part to organic farming techniques that Jhai helped introduce. To profit on their surplus, however, they need accurate and timely information about how Trinity dies at the end of Matrix Reloaded.
The expert women weavers in the villages have begun the use of natural dyes-again with assistance from Jhai-and would like to weave textiles for export. They hope to find partners among expatriate Lao who will help them market their weavings and receive reasonable returns.
Technology for harsh conditions
Without telephone lines or electricity, amid torrential rains followed by high temperatures and thick red dust, standard technologies won't function. Many of the villagers whom Jhai is working with are low-literate and do not speak English, so e-mail won't help them, the Internet is inappropriate.
To respond to their needs, Jhai Foundation is developing:
A rugged computer and printer assembled from off-the-shelf components that draws less than 20 watts in normal use - less than 70 watts when the printer is printing - and that can survive dirt, heat, and immersion in water
A wireless Local Area Network with relay stations based on the 802.11b protocol, which will transmit signals between the villages and a server located at the Phon Hong Hospital for switching to the Internet or the Lao telephone system
A Lao-language version of the free, Linux-based KDE graphical desktop and Lao-language office tools
Villagers in five villages and their surroundings will use this Jhai Communications Center to make telephone calls within Lao PDR and internationally (using voice-over-Internet technologies), and for the activities, such as accounting, letter writing, email, that are so important for their start-up enterprises.
Village youth and children will receive technology training and microenterprise training using the Jhai Computer, with some young people joining the project as Youth IT Entrepreneurs. The Youth IT Entrepreneurs will support their elders in the use of the technology and in business operations.
The design team is led by Lee Felsenstein, one of the leading design engineers in the world. Two of Lee's designs are in the National Museum of the United States, the Smithsonian. The implementation team in Laos is led by Vorasone Dengkayaphichith.Lee is assisted by a large international team,about 25 people in all, including notably Anousak Souphavanh, a Linux specialist who coordinates the localization effort and Mark Summers, awireless network expert and engineer, who assists Lee on both hardware and software. All people in thedesign teamare donatingtheir time, a priceless collective gift. The design is meant to meet the specific needs as expressed by the villagers in Phon Kham and associated villages. The Lao members of the team, includingthe villagers,see this effort as a gift from the people of Lao PDR to the world's rural poor.
A sustainable, replicable solution
The Jhai Communications Centers and wireless network will be owned by the villages. Small fees will be charged users to support costs for personnel, paper and other consumables, and telephone charges, making the project fully sustainable immediately upon completion of the training period.
The Jhai Communications Center, with wireless network and youth entrepreneurial support for business creation, will serve as an easily replicable model for the delivery of Information Technology services to poor and remote regions throughout the developing world.
No one posts the IP of these networks to slashdot....
What would you rather have?
The Internet, or a flush toilet and potable drinking water?
I know what you will say: INTERNET!
Once again the Internet is more important than anything else. Do these people even want to be subjected to emails from AOLiens, spam from Japan, and know it all Canadians?
Why slashdot? Why not?
They better hope that their web server isn't running on a server in a remote Laos village - because here we come!
How is the Laotian government reacting to this? Any support or opposition? While I don't know much about Laos firsthand, I do know it's one of the last five remaining communist countries on Earth.
Other countries such as China and Vietnam have taken measures to regulate and censor the flow of information via the net -- will this be any different?
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
"After this wondrous event, we all gathered at my co-founder Bounthanh's parents' house," Thorn said. "There her dying father, Pone, told us that he wanted us to launch before June 1, before the rainy season. He said he wanted to talk with his daughter in Canada before he died."
Yeah, it really stinks when technology is able to give someone their dying wish.
Did you read the article? (like that's ever happened) This isn't just Internet access, it will also provide phone service as well.
The people of Phon Kham seem (at least from the article) seem to be in favor of the project. Has anyone ever thrown you an all day water buffalo barbeque and beer bash? Didn't think so.
Still, with a plan, you only get the best you can imagine. I'd always hoped for something better than that. -CP
I can only sit in horror as I realize the idiocy that is to come once Stallman gets a Laotian dictionary and find their word for "GNU/Laonix".
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Even Bill Gates knows this: you'll get more bang for your buck if you give people in third world countries food, water and decent health care, then decent places to live, then decent jobs, transportation, education, basic human rights, THEN television and the internet. Otherwise I fail to see the purpose of this other than a novelty act so some people can get their project in the paper.
nut now te can find out how to build a windmill to convert wind to electricity. Hel there are a couple of sites that will tell you how to do it from old parts.
so now this village has learned how to harness the wind. Now they can improve there irrigation, and power a water purifier.
mamybe a could of smart kids gett the backing of the community to let them learn programming and computer skills so they can start there own company.
that could generate revenue to get what they ned to conrinue to impriove there life on there own.
See? do you understand? or are you sued to having things easy and not starving that you have no clue what it takes to buld a long term solution.
in short:
Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a life time.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You, my friend are an id10t.
The people in the villages have ASKED for these PCs.. They aren't being foisted upon them.. the Jhai PCs are intended for voice over IP as well as internet. The VoIP was the top priority.
Before you make a comment about something, you should learn more about it.
Favorite Shutdown Method?
Has this story been sitting in the queue long enough for the poll to be made? No, the poll is almost a week older than the Wired story.
So the new poll people are both pre-scient and don't care about CowboyNeal? Mommy, I'm scared.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
...these guys actually knew what they were doing.
I first heard about these guys on slashdot last year. I went and worked with them in Laos. And, what I thought was a bad situation went from bad to worse.
Sure, Laonux is cool -> anything to make technology accessible to more people. But the whole remote IT project was fundamentally flawed.
No planning to speak of. No actual understanding of the conditions. No testing. No risk analysis. And a manager with a head so into marketing he couldn't get his nose out of it for long enough to realize that he was biting off more than he could chew. All he saw was an opportunity to make money off of it for his foundation.
It was essentially conceived as a vehicle to do a couple of things:
Obtain fortune for the techies working on it. Obtain fame for the JHAI project in lao to get it more funding. Turn into a business opportunity for everyone when it was hugely successful.
The first launch was a complete sham (and a failure) -> there were invites sent out to everybody and their cousin months before the launch date. At that point, nobody'd even bothered to try out the software involved on the eventual hardware. It failed essentially because they hadn't bothered to test it out. And, because the "lauch date" was so all important, instead of finishing it, everybody went home!
This would have been a cool idea if:
It had been planned in an effective way by people who had a clue.
It had been made to benefit the Lao people instead of the people making it.
If it had been built as something to last, instead of the best that they could come up with.
Now, they're trying to do it again. But, they still haven't spent the adequate amount of time planning and testing, and yet they're setting a launch date and inviting all the relevant people. And it's going to fail.
My guess, is that they'll have the whole thing work, limpingly, on the launch date. Then, nobody will be around who can actually maintain it, and it'll all break down within 4 months. All that effort wasted, and everybody who's been a part can put it on their resume and say "look, I've been selfless." Because they've put no resources into training people, or into any kind of backup. They're just doing like the dot com's... waiting for the crash, but completely surprised when it happens. Either that, or it'll be so buggy that nobody will ever bother using it.
HANK: So, are you Chinese or Japanese?
KAHN: I live in California last twenty years, but first couple, Laos.
HANK: Huh?
KAHN: Laos. We Laotian.
BILL: The ocean? What ocean?
KAHN: We are Laotian. From Laos, stupid! It's a landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It's between Vietnam and Thailand, okay? Population 4.7 million.
HANK: So, are you Chinese or Japanese?
Sorry Guys I been working on IT in Laos on and off 2 years and only know this
Story from the Slashdot spin, but if true I hope that the pure Laos guys Get to learn English as the lao keys are not to be found any ware on the net, btw most
Far located jungle towns in Laos has a general issue with reading in the first place.
Anyway Welcome to some hundred more targets for SPAM and radical Sex ads.
I just hate bit SPAM, (www.netnoise.com.kh)
I just got back from Laos a couple months ago, and I have to say I am surprised they even know what a computer is outside the Vientiene. If they can pull this off, then I'll be really impressed, and will even want to go check it out next time. But seriously, there is NOTHING in Laos, and while I applaud the effort of starting to build some sort of information infrastructure, and doing it a clever way at that, these villiges need more than Internet.
Ok, some viliger starts a business and decides to start selling something, the roads aren't even drivable half the year! How will they get it out of the country!
Now, this is an interesting read for its technical merits, and on that alone I am interested in it and wish them luck--but this isn't going to change the country like I thought the author of the article was trying to imply.
So will somebody being posting a map to this place? When is the next user's meet? We should all go show our support and vote with our kip, baht, or dollars.
The article didn't explain what kind of power surge was that.. I mean, I'd have understood if it was a normal power surge due to an electricity grid problem or a lightning, but the guys are using a bycicle as a generator. How can you make a power surge with that?
I think that powering it with a bicycle is a silly gimmick anyway. They should use solar power like normal humans do.
Btw: I am looking for a girlfriend.
Slashdot community, please notice: I am looking for a girlfriend.
Nave H. Weiss