Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Geeking in the Third World

Posted by michael on 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."

3 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I'm all for technology, but... by El+Pollo+Loco · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  2. Technology donation in developing countries by girl_geek_antinomy · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  3. 1500 refurbished Macs to Kenya by Henriok · · Score: 5, Informative

    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 :)

    --

    - Henrik

    - when the Shadows descend -