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Geeking in the Third World
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."
I was discussing with a friend of mine last night about organizations such as the peace corps, and my lack of applicable skills to help an NGO (non-governmental-org, I believe). She pointed out that NGOs need people to do all the same things that we need people for here in the first world, citing that the hospital for which she had worked in Haiti required administrative staff and an IS department, despite being a hospital run by an NGO in Haiti.
I agree that there are definitely priorities, the food and shelter bit. Also, it's remarkably difficult to give people technology when there are so many prerequisites for it. It's a tough call to make, whether www access is that helpful to people in the third world, who may not even have the necessary reading skills (language skills, too) to utilize the information they find.
That said, if bringing technology to these people also brings literacy and knowledge, then it can be an important step in enabling these people to grow on their own.
These are issues as well, but there is also
Education.
1. How to grow food
2. How to clean water
3. medicine
a. How to treat the ill
b. preventive
i. diet
ii. HIV!!!!!
One major issue with 3rd world contries is the massive HIV infection rate. Had a friend working for peace corps who's major irratation was the fact that it was so hard conviencing people that HIV was infact a disease... one which kills. It's somewhat hard to believe, but dispite it's existance in the 1980s it wasn't something people believed either.
Communication between the 3rd world and the rest of the world would promote little trivial things like taking preventive measures to stop the spread of HIV and other infectious diseases. Hardcopy and people take resources to move... digial communciations takes only power and equipment, equipment the likes we replace every 1.5 years.
Communication would open the door to the global market place. While under developed countries lack much in the way of industry, there is art, music, and stories. All of these are marketable products.
Technology is what seperates us from animals, wether it be the basic Bushmen of the Kalahari level that is excelent to insure survivial in a very harsh enviroment, or the high tech that we who can read this enjoy.
I see a great benifit of raising the global I.Q. of a planet of roughly 6 billion people.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
It is nearly impossible to stop all hunger and disease - look at many 1st world nations that have not accomplished this.
If your philosophy is not to spend money on anything else until everyone is fed and healthy, then all you'll ever do is give out food and medicine. You'll never spend money on technology or infrastructure because there will always be at least one more hungry or sick person.
There was a program to distribute cellphones to remote villages in India. You might say they shouldn't do that because there is still unclean water, polio, and hunger. But the villages that received the phones prospered directly from them. Most importantly, they were able to call into the markets of the larger towns to find out how much their crops were selling for. In the past, the middle-men who would transport these crops to the market would pay only what they had to and would make lots of money. Now these middle-men make the money for transporting the goods, but the village most often gets a much better price. The village is now more self-sufficient and can make their own improvements in their living conditions.
By your philosophy, this would never have happened and they would be beholden the the middlemen who ripped them off, and the international aid agencies that would only give them food.
And again, there is little I can do to treat an HIV sufferer. But who knows. Mabye I could teach her to develop webpages and she can do something rewarding and even a bit profitable with her life. Would you have her simply waste away in a hospital? What kind of a life is that?
I can only do what I know how to do. I don't know how to teach better farming or even how to set up water purification, and nor could most geeks. These geeks go and do what they can. By improving one aspect, hopefully the whole system improves.