Wireless Community Summit Tackles Digital Divide

jens writes "More than 150 participants (including Matt Westervelt, Seattle Wireless) from 30 countries will discuss on how to overcome the digital divide building wireless community networks. The freifunk.net summer convention 2004 takes place from 3rd to 10th September in Djursland, Denmark. The convention's location is well chosen -- DjurslandS.net (in Danish) itself is probably the most ambitious wireless community network of the world. About 200 volunteers installed more than 100 masts on the remote area's 32 000 sq mi. Using the wireless standards 802.11a/b/g about 1'500 households enjoy a symmetric 1-2 MBit internet connection via WI-FI (the WI-FI network has 8 direct uplinks to the danish backbone and several DSL fallbacks). The wireless4development track organized by wire.less.dk will show other projects how to follow the DjurslandS.net example. The convention starts off with a 3 day program including VoIP, development for the meshcube and antenna building and finishes off with a 5 day hands-on workshop."

Comments

Digital Divide, and priorities

[raider_red]

I think it's all well and good that people are looking at these problems, but shouldn't there be more attention directed to more pressing problems. Those problems include 1) food and clean water, 2) accessible housing, 3) medical care and prevention of illness, and 4) dealing with oppressive governments which exist at the expense of their citizens, and not for their benefit.

Also, I'd encourage everyone out there to find some organization which is trying to make the world a better place, and volunteer. (And yes, it can be one working on the digital divide; use what gifts you have, and start in your own backyard.)