$7 USB Stick Aims To Bring Thousands of Poor People Online

dryriver sends this BBC report: "The USB flash drive is one of the most simple, everyday pieces of technology that many people take for granted. Now it's being eyed as a possible solution to bridging the digital divide, by two colourful entrepreneurs behind the start-up Keepod. Nissan Bahar and Franky Imbesi aim to combat the lack of access to computers by providing what amounts to an operating-system-on-a-stick. In six weeks, their idea managed to raise more than $40,000 (£23,750) on fundraising site Indiegogo, providing the cash to begin a campaign to offer low-cost computing to the two-thirds of the globe's population that currently has little or no access. The test bed for the project is the slums of Nairobi in Kenya. The typical income for the half a million people in the city's Mathare district is about $2 (£1.20) a day. Very few people here use a computer or have access to the net. But Mr Bahar and Mr Imbesi want to change that with their Keepod USB stick. It will allow old, discarded and potentially non-functional PCs to be revived, while allowing each user to have ownership of their own 'personal computer' experience — with their chosen desktop layout, programs and data — at a fraction of the cost of providing a unique laptop, tablet or other machine to each person.'"

Comments

How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[Irate Engineer]

Can someone explain to me what dumping piles and piles of computers into Africa is going to accomplish?

In Africa I see waves of ethnic turmoil coupled with basic infrastructure problems, all played by the governments to keep a few powerful folks in power.

Are we trying to turn Africa into our next call center and need to get the kids up to speed with computers? I don't think that is going to happen until something resembling stability (i.e. taking care of food, clothing and shelter for entire years without fear of a machete attack) takes hold.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[BitZtream]

No, not really, because it will only end up in the hands of warlords and anyone caught trying to make themselves better will be 'punished', which may mean killed, or worse.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[Nidi62]

something is better than nothing

And that something should be access to reliable electricity,clean water, and most importantly physical safety(seeing as how even teh 3rd richest state in Africa-Nigeria-can't even guarantee safety for its citizens as roughly 300 kidnapped girls can tell you) before it is access to a personal computer. Africa needs infrastructure, not internet.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[retroworks]

That's because of the news cycle, or your news sources. "If it bleeds, it leads". Your emphasis on "machete attacks" shows you should read the Economist instead of whatever you're getting your news from. Here's an article with some simple graphs and pictures about what's going on in Africa internet today. http://o3bnetworks.wordpress.c...

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[Hognoxious]

A kick in the nads is something. What would you rather have, that or nothing?

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[JoeMerchant]

A lot of the demand for safety, clean water, healthcare, etc. comes from constant, believable exposure to the concept that it is a human right that people should expect. This is why communist countries wanted to control the media and prevent exposure to decadent western cultures. Getting people in Africa "online" and otherwise educated in how the rest of the world really functions, day in and day out, will go a long way to motivating the oppressed into doing something about their condition for themselves.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

The key component is: Education.

With the Internet, and a proper software suite, you can learn anything known to man.

The software suite isn't there yet, but that's okay, neither are the computers and connectivity.

The world is working towards them meeting though.

Some say it will happen through smart phones over computers though.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[Kjella]

Africa is a pretty damn big place, it's a whole continent full of different nations. In this case we're talking about Kenya, the last conflict of note was in 2007-2008 and ended in 800-1500 killed, before that 60 were killed in 2005 and before that there's nothing of note since the 1980s and this is in a country of 44 million people and seem to have a reasonably functioning but rather corrupt democracy. The literacy rate is 85%, they don't seem to be short on food or shelter but they seem to have a way to go on sanitation and healthcare. Sounds to me like they're at the right level and what's wrong with making them call center workers? English is an official language and it could bring potentially very good money into their economy, even if only the "elite" speak English well enough to do it. Not adjusted for purchasing power they have a GDP per person of $1017/year.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[frovingslosh]

Don't you understand? They got $40,000 on Indiegogo and all they had to do was give an African village 5 old worthless broken computers and a few flash drives. Clearly this is a life lesson for the starving Africans. If they would just take something that has already been done many times before and claim it was new, and send their old trash to someone else, the chumps on Indiegogo might give them $40,000 too. That's over 54 years worth of African wages. If the Africans are too focused on how to get food, somewhat clean water and staying alive to follow this example, then its not my problem. They should learn from this and, now that they have flash drives and those 5 crappy computers, go on Indiegogo and post some scam of their own.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[Elfich47]

Problems: No food, no water, no money, no electricity. Anything not nailed down is stolen, anybody who has a claw hammer steals everything else.
If you want to help these people, you get them something from the following list:
More of the straws that filter out the guinea worm. Google the guinea worm yourself, it is a horrid way to die.
Clean drinking water
Food
A permanent shelter to live in
And if you have any of those three things, expect to have to defend it with tooth and claw because someone with a gun will shoot you for it.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[voss]

This is Nairobi, Kenya. Its a multiparty Democracy. Yes they are poor but Kenya is a developing nation not a failed state.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[m00sh]

Can someone explain to me what dumping piles and piles of computers into Africa is going to accomplish? In Africa I see waves of ethnic turmoil coupled with basic infrastructure problems, all played by the governments to keep a few powerful folks in power. Are we trying to turn Africa into our next call center and need to get the kids up to speed with computers? I don't think that is going to happen until something resembling stability (i.e. taking care of food, clothing and shelter for entire years without fear of a machete attack) takes hold.

What they are hoping to accomplish is that the will all be able to connect to sites like MIT Opencourseware, learn science and engineering and find the cure to cancer and invent technology for cheap limitless renewable energy.

The result will probably be lot less but how much less is what is up for debate. Since we can't see the future, we don't know.

So, the point is, somebody is doing something to help. Be constructive and lend help if you can. Snarking isn't helping anyone.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[pslytely psycho]

"That's because of the news cycle, or your news sources. "If it bleeds, it leads"."

Such a good point. I admit, this was my view of Africa before I met a couple of real Africans. One from Liberia, another from Somalia.
They both paint very different pictures of the Dark Continent.

Fungbey, my friend from Liberia, paints a modern picture, tarnished only by the civil war that ended in (I think) 2003. The country is nearly indistinguishable from any western country, but much poorer. Education is very valued and easy to obtain and for many emigrating to the west they're education is the only thing they bring with them. Yes, they have a lot more problems and poverty than most of the west, but it is nowhere near what you see on the news, which focuses on the problematic interior, where warlords are still the problem .

Kannah, my friend from Somalia, paints a picture of abject poverty, corruption, and pretty much everything you see bad about Africa.
You almost never see Fungbeys Africa in the news. Except for the civil war, Liberia is just too normal and boring to be interesting.

For the worst of Africa, yeah, no electricity, internet, food shortages, etc, the PC is a no starter. But a lot of Africans live in modern Africa. Ignored by the mainstream news until something bad happens.

  And I personally think Africa will become the next China, just as China replaced S. Korea, that replaced Japan and so on for cheap labor.
I see it as a good thing. This cycle has left all of those countries better off than before.

But I understand why so many have the same incorrect view of Africa that I did. No one reports on Africa's good points, or Europe's, or America's. All any of us hear are the bad parts of other cultures. You have to search for anything beyond sensationalism.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[rmdingler]

If you are not to utter never,

it stands to reason,

always is off-limits, too.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[Gavagai80]

A multiparty democracy whose president is wanted by the ICC for war crimes relating to the deadly ethnic riots he caused in the last election.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

Oh most definitely, we should all be working as hard as we can at a moral job, living a frugal life, and donating to the poor. World Hunger is a problem that is going away, the more we can donate to nonprofits, the quicker world hunger goes away. Sanitation and farming give long term solutions. Only 33 cents a day saves a life, so anything we can do to help, we should.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[Charliemopps]

Can someone explain to me what dumping piles and piles of computers into Africa is going to accomplish?

In Africa I see waves of ethnic turmoil coupled with basic infrastructure problems, all played by the governments to keep a few powerful folks in power.

Are we trying to turn Africa into our next call center and need to get the kids up to speed with computers? I don't think that is going to happen until something resembling stability (i.e. taking care of food, clothing and shelter for entire years without fear of a machete attack) takes hold.

Congratulations on never have been to Africa. I had the same attitude as you until I went myself. Africans, in general, are extremely nice people (granted, I only met a few hundred of the untold multitudes) Far more genial than anyone in the west. Their continent boasts one of the most diverse populations on earth. While they are all "Black" they are subdivided into hundreds of small ethnic groups. Look at an Ethiopian and a South African and it becomes immediately apparent that they are both about as different as the Japanese are from Americans. Despite all of this they have relatively few disputes.

Unfortunately, as is with most ethinic wars, the west has decided to step in and save them. As a result wester powers fight proxy wars through Africa. Each opposing western power funds warlords they think they can control. Furnishing them with money and guns. Eventually the warlords do what warlords do and commit atrosities. The west pretends to be appalled and goes on funding the war, trying to rig progress in that country to lead to their desired outcome.

Africa is an amazing place. You should go. You wont die, people there are nice and will look out for you. $100 cash will buy you damn near anything on the continent so it'll be a cheap trip. I highly recommend it. It was life changing for me.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean totalitarian.

And they still do.

Totalitarian or communist is a distinction without a difference.

At least the way the GP posted. There are totalitarian governments that aren't communist. There are no communist governments that aren't totalitarian.

And save us all your No True Scotsman fallacies.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[Geoffrey.landis]

In Africa I see waves of ethnic turmoil coupled with basic infrastructure problems, all played by the governments to keep a few powerful folks in power.

Yes, it apparently is hard for Americans to understand that Africa is a continent, with many countries (48 of them, actually), and that they're all different.

This might help a little:
http://africa.dlora.nl/mapverg...

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[complete loony]

If you can find someone motivated to use them, anything could happen.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[Geoffrey.landis]

with many countries (48 of them, actually)

(I should add: that's for the mainland, not counting the island nations, and not counting several disputed states.)

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[rrohbeck]

Bravo. I wish I had mod points. Running an OS off a USB stick is not exactly novel - it's been done for years. I can remember my first experiments with Knoppix and a persistent home directory, maybe 5 or 6 years ago.
The one thing that's novel is exploting this idea to make money.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[Ol Olsoc]

If you want to help these people, you get them something from the following list:

Sure, why not?

Unfortunately, you appear to believe that you can only do one thing at a time? Some reason that you cannot do things concurrently? If so then you can help them live longer and give them your old computer. At the same time. It's amazing!

Imagine if you will.......

Some African goes to the internet - say Youtube.p> He or she sees a Youtube video about making clean drinking water

He or she sees a Youtube video about growing Food with implementable ideas

He or she sees a Youtube video about making a good shelter

That's just Youtube. They can get information via email orrelevant webpages. All manner of things. Information is a very powerful thing.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[epyT-R]

No. Anarchy is a stateless society. Ever notice how communist countries never seem to move beyond that 'transition' period where a small party elite has absolute power and control over 99% of the country's resources?

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[epyT-R]

No. Anarchy is a stateless society. Ever notice how communist countries never seem to move beyond that 'transition' state where a small party elite has absolute control over 99% of the country's resources?

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[wvmarle]

And I personally think Africa will become the next China, just as China replaced S. Korea, that replaced Japan and so on for cheap labor. I see it as a good thing. This cycle has left all of those countries better off than before.

There is a major difference between most African countries and most Asian countries, and that is a strong, stable government. This as political stability is a requirement for businesses to thrive. In too many countries, larger companies need their own private army to protect their factories. You don't need that in China, or even Myanmar. Those countries are far more stable than most African countries. (note: in this argument I don't care about WHAT KIND OF government there is, just that it is STABLE).

Secondly, China alone has a far larger population than the whole of Africa. And even China is currently suffering from serious labour shortages, with factories not being able to take on more orders as they don't have the people to manufacture them.

I agree with you that Africa is a great candidate to become the next low-cost manufacturing hub, however first they'll have to get their politics in order. A stable government, that is firmly in power, and that rules the whole country, not just the big cities. Factories need space, they're not in the cities, they're out of the cities. Without proper safety there, and at least a half-decent protection of land ownership, it's a no-go.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[wvmarle]

For a large part of Africans, those problems have been solved long time ago (if they every really existed to begin with). That's the part of Africa this project is useful for - and likely by pushing up the standard of living of those Africans, there'll be a trickle-down effect to other parts of the continent. Overall more and overall better paying jobs means more people can get to work, and those that work get better income, which hopefully is self-reinforcing.

The best help for those countries is to help them to help themselves, and helping them improve their Internet access and computer literacy is one of those ways. Sending large quantities of free food and clothing is great for emergency relief, after that it's becoming destructive (as it kills off any local food/clothing production).

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[inflamed]

Right. Most people in Africa have no electricity. Gotcha. And those without electricity are the ones paying for used PCs, $15k per container, to dump them to save Americans recycling dollars. Gotcha. The urban electrification rate in Africa is 59%. Nigeria had 6.9 million households with televisions in 2006. You are more likely to be hit by a Mercedes than to die from a machete or burning computer. This e-waste hoax never stops giving.

I don't know what your intent is in that statement but you forgot to mention that the distribution of Africa's population is 2:3 urban:rural, so the overall electrification rate is 24%. If your intent was to highlight that Africa has far bigger needs (and needs coverage of more pressing issues than) live USB thumb drives, you should have mentioned that.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[pslytely psycho]

Oh absolutely. Stability is indeed a major issue for them to overcome. And of course you're correct, it does not matter what label that government comes under, just that it is stable and not seen as a threat to the rest of the globe. If your leaders are psychopaths, you're not going to attract industry.

It is rather amusing thinking of the most populated country on earth as having labor shortages. I understand why, it's just an amusing thought.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[pslytely psycho]

" Running an OS off a USB stick is not exactly novel - it's been done for years"

If this is what you think the article is about, you have completely missed the point.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[AmiMoJo]

There is a major difference between most African countries and most Asian countries, and that is a strong, stable government.

What do you mean? Somalia is a libertarian paradise! In fact much of Africa benefits from minimal government interference and high levels of gun ownership.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[wvmarle]

Oh sure, and those with the high gun ownership rates and absence of government are the best places to do business, of course!

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[AgentElrond]

It sounds similar to something I wanted to do a few years ago. I see a ton of comments here attacking the idea as a pointless stunt, and pointing out that there are much more basic problems that need solving. I'm in Africa (South Africa) so I thought I'd chime in with where this can really make a difference:

Yes there is a large problem of poverty here, even in this relatively wealthy country (by African Standards), but have a look at why that is. Our official unemployment rate is 24% and the reality is probably much worse. Most of the unemployed are pretty much unemployable, with no useful education or skills. There is a mindset of entitlement bred by decades of political manipulation of the poor. Although we spend a lot per learner on education our outcomes are amongst the worst.

So how can technology help? By equipping people to participate in the job market, and in higher level jobs. Basic computer literacy is a barrier, as is being able to search for jobs online, compile and email a CV, etc.

My plan was to use the usb flash drives as basically your home directory, which allows you to carry your digital identity around and access the net, be able to print, etc. at locations that have a handful of computers, equipment and an Internet connection set up for the purpose. You are issued the flash stick on completing a basic intro course, taught at these same locations.

That goes some way towards levelling the playing field in terms of basic infrastructure access, but the it's part of a broader plan, the idea being to use the system as a platform for running training courses aimed at equipping people with the basic skills to operate a small business, possibly an online business. Today with the rise of high quality free online education facilities like this become even more valuable.

I've seen people set up (informal, technically illegal) businesses on the sidewalk offering passport photos while you wait outside the government buildings requiring them (home affairs, licensing etc). Their equipment is a deep cycle battery and inverter, a camera, computer, printer, a chair and an umbrella. Or a hair salon, or phone booth offering cheap international calls (presumably VoIP based). This is the sort of mindset I want to enable and encourage, and being able to participate in the computer age is a big part of that.

Does something like this fix all the problems of Africa? Of course not, no one thing can. But there are a thousand fixes to smaller problems like this that make a difference. This instance is aimed at two of the most serious root problems - education and national productivity (employablility), so it definitely has value.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[bluegutang]

Nigeria has roughly the 3rd largest economy in Africa. But they also have Africa's largest population. Per capita, they have a quite mediocre GDP.
See table...

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[pslytely psycho]

It's better than yours.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[Blaskowicz]

Even with dial up and a crap PC Africans can at least access English and French Wikipedia - those two languages are lingua franca for most of the continent, even a common native language. That is useful. A browser or extension that would display images on request (show the image frame with ALT text and show the image when clicking on it) would further reduce bandwith and RAM utilisation. Adblocking is another option.

Then you have forums, mail, slashdot and whatever home-grown services that can tell about market prices and such.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[pslytely psycho]

Yes, I was.

Bringing information to people via connecting them globally in the hopes of improving their impoverished state is a far more important part of the story than the details of what tech they may or may not use.

But of course, the details of what tech you use is more important than enlightening someone with access to information that may be life changing. How could I of missed that?

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[pslytely psycho]

"hard for Americans to understand"

Please do not blanket statement all of us like that. There most certainly is a very large contingent of my fellow countrymen who are uninformed and don't wish to be informed. But not all of us. The problem is the ignorant are so much LOUDER than the rest of us.

[offtopic]
I looked at your homepage, I have read some of your short stories. ( used to subscribe to Asimov's SF from graduating HS in 77 until about 1990),
I have never read one of your novels, I shall have to correct that oversite. (I haven't checked for availability, I hope most are still in print.) Do you have a favorite? A 'swan song' if you will?

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[Richy_T]

There's still plenty of text out there if you take a look around. Pictures are not that awful. Unfortunately though, a lot of instructional stuff is going to video which is not only an annoying format but also typically requires a certain level of performance and usually speakers.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[Geoffrey.landis]

[offtopic]

Thanks!

I've only written one novel, Mars Crossing, so if you want to read one of my novels, the choice is easy. Currently out of print, but in this modern world of internet bookstores, it's still easy to find.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[vandamme]

I was in the mountains of Uganda last summer and brought a few Linux CDs just in case I found somebody who could use them. I visited a school in Sipi Falls and talked to the "computer teacher" who took them gladly. They had a whole roomful of XP-era machines and flat screens, which was impressive. A classroom full of adults was learning basic computer literacy. (And I mean, basic, not Basic.) I asked what they were going to do with their knowledge? Well, nothing really, he said, most people don't even have electricity, much less being able to pay for internet (over the cell phone). But there's always the future.

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[ToddInSF]

All those old slow unusable computers have to go somewhere, right ?

Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help?

[hobarrera]

Indeed, starving children's situation will change greatly with a bootable USB drive.
Having a $7 USB stick is definitely better than their current situation for people in regions with no electricity as well!

"something" is the same as nothing if you don't even cover the basic necesities first.

"Poor People"?

[ctheme]

Who are these people? What is so poor about them?

Are they in poor condition? Did they perform poorly in school? Are they pitiable in the sense of being a poor, poor person? Are they generally inferior to other people, who are superior people?
Or maybe the titles is referring to Kenyan laborers who earn less than $2 a day and live in corrugated-steel shanties in one of the more impoverished districts of Nairobi which only gained access to electricity two years ago.

Maybe not. In any case, I prefer to imagine myself not being one of these "poor" people. Sounds rotten.

Ssshhhhh

[ArchieBunker]

You're going to ruin the liberal feel good circle jerk. Yeah someones discarded PII-266 box will boot Linux and get Africa online. Now they just have to fix the other issues like drought, drug trade, poaching, blood diamonds, genocide....

Re:Ssshhhhh

[bondsbw]

To be fair, getting them online and sharing knowledge can be a catalyst for those kinds of changes.

Re:Ssshhhhh

[rmdingler]

Indeed. And the difference in quality of life between the average Kenyan and poor westerner is so vast that it's difficult to comprehend. Two dollars a day, AKA 174 Kenyan Shillings, is a salary below the level even magnanimous companies can sell any meaningful life-changing technology.

Cellphones, and by that I mean budget portable computers, are plausibly more affordably practical and they are a multi-function device that requires less hard-wire infrastructure.

Re:Ssshhhhh

[ArchieBunker]

Oh yeah that old Linux box really filters water or prints money. How the hell do you even power it when you have no electricity? Whatever you send there will be seized by whoever is running the country this month and sold for profit.

Re:Ssshhhhh

[OneAhead]

OK, I'll bite: what does "liberal" have to do with this? "This is something I don't like, and liberals are something I don't like, hence this must be something liberal?"

To clue you in, fixing issues like drought, drug trade, poaching, blood diamonds, genocide in Africa is more often seen on a liberal agenda than the conservative one, and if conservatives want to do something, it is usually something like:
(1) Some intervention that directly benefits the US (actually, nowadays it's more "benefits the oil or weapon industry that paid for our campaign")
(2) Let the magic of the free market do its thing
(3) ???
(4) oh never mind, we already had our profit at step (1) and now our term in office is over, suckers!

Re: Ssshhhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Not saying this has anything to do with a true liberal/conservative line but W. did far more in humanitarian aid to Africa than most presidents. Obama has seemingly done much less, with his biggest headlines in the area being drone related.

Re:Ssshhhhh

[bondsbw]

I never said that a computer was all they needed. If you thought for a second, instead of building straw men to attack, you might realize that there are multiple concerns that all need to be resolved and that personal computer tech is just part of the solution.

Why are you attacking someone who is offering part of a larger solution? You do realize that the guy who gets them the tech may not have the expertise to also build up infrastructure? Someone else has to do that part. Besides, in areas that do have the infrastructure, this will help make a case for building other infrastructure and simultaneously help spread the word about abuses of power.

Re:Ssshhhhh

[Hognoxious]

If there was a "hopelessly naïve" mod would it be +1 or -1?

Re:Ssshhhhh

[BitZtream]

When you try to directly compare income, it just makes you sound stupid to anyone with a clue.

While $2 a day is nye impossible to live on in the US, $2/day in this other regions is far more livable because a loaf of bread doesn't cost $2.

Can they buy an Galaxy or Nexus phone on $2/day? No, but they don't NEED something shipped half way around the world to eat, thats something reserved for the stupid people in well to do countries who think Organic is the wave of the future

Re:Ssshhhhh

[BitZtream]

Because you aren't offering a larger part of a solution, you know so little about their problems you're just putting for things that will cause more problems. As I said previously, sending anything like this to these countries will simply get it confiscated by warlords, and if you do try to use it/sneak one in for yourself, they'll rape you to death, eat your flesh and use your skin as cloths, and if you're really lucky, they'll do it in that order.

Re:Ssshhhhh

[pslytely psycho]

If I had not already commented I would mod this up. I see this comparison all the time like it actually means something.

It appears its only purpose is to foster feelings of guilt by directly comparing wages transposed into another currency without the context of 'what does it buy in their economy.' After all, saying they make 171 KES (Kenyan Shillings) per day just doesn't sound so bad....

Organic is just as bad too, after all, it it was ever alive, its organic.

Re:Cloud vs stick

[93 Escort Wagon]

It's not clear to me how a bootable thumb drive is going to resurrect a non-functional computer. Neither is it clear what this will accomplish for all those people too poor to own one at all - although in the article it says these guys did provide five old laptops to a school where they were testing this.

OS on a stick is not novel

[Artifex]

We have other OS distributions that that live just fine on SD cards or sticks, already. If you want to bring computing to slums as a useful resource, the big problems are probably really:

1) actual hardware, shared or not, to run whatever open source OS you pick;
2) electricity to run the hardware and shelter for the hardware;
3) people to train those who have never used computers before, may have other literacy issues besides, and quite possibly speak dialects you will have difficulty getting localization for; and
4) affordable/free network access if these people want to use the internet.

I'll bet these are not the only issues, but if you don't address these, I suspect your money and time will be mostly wasted.

Re:OS on a stick is not novel

[Todd Palin]

I was thinking the same thing, but you said it better than I could have. (you also said it first)

Mod this one up.

Re:OS on a stick is not novel

[JoeMerchant]

There's different ways of measuring the success or "waste percentage" of a program like this. Just putting two boots on the ground costs more than hundreds of these USB sticks, so, if you can air-drop a thousand of them and only 10 find actual use, you're still doing better, efficiency wise, than hand delivering them and successfully personally training 10 people how to use them.

If a village has a solar powered "computer center" with a satellite internet link and 3 ten year old PCs that these sticks can work in, all people within walking distance of that computer center have potential access to a miracle greater than the mythical Oracle at Delphi. Yes, people will have to learn a western language to access most information, yes it would be slicker if they had a satellite linked laptop with a urine powered battery that they could carry with them, but with $40K in funding, this project has the potential to positively impact a few thousand lives, figuring 10 people benefiting from every one that gains useful information from the internet.

Maybe it catches on as a fad and thousands upon thousands start to access computers and the internet this way, probably not, but for the same investment level as a project to put a drinking well into a couple of villages, this project can have a different positive impact on a larger number of people - who might learn how to dig their own wells, among other things.

Re:OS on a stick is not novel

[ColdWetDog]

I'd like to know how reasonable that scenario is. This whole thing centers on having Internet access. A sat link in the middle of nowhere is fine, but whose paying for it? I am willing to bet that it will be the connect costs, rather than PC costs that are going to be the limiting factor.

Unless somebody else is scrounging up old networking gear and helping poor Africans pay for an ISP to link to the backbone, all they can do is play games and type of resumes. In parts of Africa, the cell phone network is going up before anything else - I suppose that one could use that system as an ISP, but you still have to answer the question of who pays for it.

Re:OS on a stick is not novel

[JoeMerchant]

Well, this is a way to leverage a satellite link and make it more accessible to a larger number of people, not to mention allowing them to store their personally obtained information and carry it with them, and even access it later when at a location or time when sat link isn't available.

I don't think this will bring about world peace or end starvation and suffering, but it does strike me as a damn practical thing to try with $40K, something different than another missionary program to go dig a well and hand out bibles.

Re:OS on a stick is not novel

[oldhack]

Yeah, with somebody else' 40k.

Re:OS on a stick is not novel

[JoeMerchant]

That, in itself, is an educational exercise - learning how to raise funds.

If you set your mind to it, you can raise more money for even less worthy schemes - perfectly legally, and even have happy donors when it's over, if you're good at it.

Re:OS on a stick is not novel

[Gallomimia]

These particular guys don't have to address those issues at all. *SOMEONE* Does. But that's what's nice about Africa. Someone will. The place has come up with all sorts of interesting and strange solutions to problems that are unique to their continent. They literally are the bleeding edge. Necessity is the mother of invention, and slums in Africa are the mother of necessity.

Re:Cloud vs stick

[pushing-robot]

It's less vulnerable to keyloggers and other garbage you might find on a shared PC, and there are plenty of computers junked due to bad or malware-ridden hard drives that could quickly and cheaply be brought back to life with something like this.

On the other hand, there's no standard method for changing the boot device on PCs (it's typically a rather arcane procedure) and libraries and Internet cafes often won't let you boot from your own media for security reasons. I'm not sure how practical this would be for someone with no computer experience.

Requires computer

[Anonymous Coward]

People in 3rd world use cell phones for Internet. This is silly idea

Re:Requires computer

[Blaskowicz]

Doesn't rule out tethering or directly using a 3G modem on a PC.

Re:Requires computer

[Blaskowicz]

I have just RTFA : they use a router with 3G modem. That's cheap and tiny, gives you a wifi and wired ethernet network.
The choice of OS is interesting, Android 4.4. They run a cell phone / tablet OS on a desktop.
It's slightly weird but it works, at least. Android laptops and desktops AIO are coming on the market so there'll be software support for it.

The benefit is obvious : a screen big enough to show a page of text, and a keyboard.

pointless?

[bloodhawk]

Perhaps it is just me, but I fail to see any benefit to this whatsoever. seems completely pointless, everything from windows to many distros of linux already can run on a USB stick and a USB stick doesn't solve the problem of internet access, a computer or more importantly the food and water they lack. I guess at least it gives them something to sell at the markets for a couple of bucks to buy something useful.

Re:pointless?

[Nyder]

Perhaps it is just me, but I fail to see any benefit to this whatsoever. seems completely pointless, everything from windows to many distros of linux already can run on a USB stick and a USB stick doesn't solve the problem of internet access, a computer or more importantly the food and water they lack. I guess at least it gives them something to sell at the markets for a couple of bucks to buy something useful.

This is the modern day Sally Struthers. Instead of parading little starving kids across the TV, we have "tech" solutions to make our selves better for how life is in Africa since we really do NOTHING to help have a better life.

Because we know having access to computers & internet are going to feed their starving children, just like it feeds ours.

This is how people think they are helping the poor countries by making shit they really have no use for, but it makes us feel better about them starving. Doesn't fix the starving mind you, but it makes us feel better. Not them, but US.

Re:pointless?

[JoeMerchant]

Access to the internet allowed me to file for unemployment benefits while on holidays visiting my family, yes, my employer laid off the entire company essentially the day before Christmas holidays. My grandmother is 96, and I did not feel like cancelling our Christmas visit just because my ex-boss couldn't make payroll nor bring himself to give advance notice of the true nature of the impending problem. In a non-computer-access world, I, sole income for a family of four, would have missed a couple of weeks of benefits, or missed visiting my Grandmother. The same kind of access allowed me to find a new company to work for in just a few weeks, instead of reading want-ads in the paper on a week to week cycle.

So, I could see access to networked information in Africa potentially informing the people of where food and work is available more efficiently than the present systems in a similar manner.

Re:pointless?

[Elfich47]

Then get people cell phones with SMS options. They are portable, easily charged and CHEAP.

Re:pointless?

[ColdWetDog]

So, I could see access to networked information in Africa potentially informing the people of where food and work is available more efficiently than the present systems in a similar manner.

Agreed. Butt that isn't what this show is about. All they're giving people are the terminals.

Re:pointless?

[JoeMerchant]

I had world-class telephone access back in 1988 when I was looking for work also... the internet is better.

Re:pointless?

[JoeMerchant]

The terminals could be networked, or not, as local infrastructure supports... This isn't a panacea, but $40K is a trivial amount of money to get hung up on how it is spent - if these Indegogo funders want to do this, it's a hell of a lot better than an art project to put pink bands around the islands in Biscayne Bay.

Re:pointless?

[bloodhawk]

It actually reminds me of religious missionaries. Tell a church there are starving people with no food or water, serious medical problems, no technology or internet or religion and all they hear is "what they haven't found god yet, we better fix that so they can die in peace", I.T. people are sadly similar, rather than fix the underlying economic and poverty conditions they see the "no technology or internet" as the key thing that needs addressing.

Re:pointless?

[Elfich47]

But in Africa, cell phone towers are popular and the internet is expensive and in limited areas.

Re:pointless?

[bloodhawk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...

Re:pointless?

[bloodhawk]

replying to myself with more info!
I have been running windows 7 embedded of bootable USB media for years now. makes for an excellent portable system with all my tools for fixing family windows machines on them. You can also manually create Windows 2 Go with win 8 pro manually so it doesn't have to be enterprise version (or at least you used to be able to, have not done that for a while).
http://technet.microsoft.com/e...

Re:pointless?

[JoeMerchant]

Absolutely true, I was on the internet in 1988, downloading a patch for a CAD system via Kermit - and, no, Monster.com wasn't out yet.

So, because the internet isn't accessible or useful in Africa today (Nigerian princes, who sent paper letter scams long before the internet, would argue otherwise), we should continue to ignore it and push over aid that patches today's problems? Sounds like air-dropping food to the starving to me.

any computer???

[Joe_Dragon]

Some older systems can't boot usb and other need bios updates to do it.

also what about drivers for all of there hardware?

Re:any computer???

[wvmarle]

Anything I had for the last 15 years or so has been booting from USB just fine. And anything older than ten years is probably not suitable for this purpose anyway, and there are plenty of younger disused computers out there so you don't need so really old ones.

Drivers is usually not much of a problem when talking about Linux. It comes with drivers for all common and lots of less common hardware included, and older (even legacy) hardware tends to be supported best - this in contrast indeed to the latest and greatest hardware.

Re:any computer???

[Blaskowicz]

There's some hardware worth using that can't boot from USB, Pentium 3 with 440BX chipset mainly. I was still using some not long ago. More powerful than a Raspberry Pi, reliable and much less power hungry than a Pentium 4, and run pretty quick on a recent Debian or Ubuntu with LXDE desktop. But they have USB1 unless you add a USB2 card.
Some Athlon XP systems are a lot faster but they tend to be junked or dead already, heard only those with nforce 2 chipset were still reliable.

Else maybe the target hardware needs to be laptops from Pentium M / underclocked Athlon 64 and up, including netbooks. Now that's easier to ship and lowish power. Africans can probably open up and clean them, change thermal paste etc. but hard drives will fail and crappy or borked/corrupted Windows installation is another big hurdle.

Re:any computer???

[NewYork]

https://help.ubuntu.com/commun...

Completely Pointless

[Elfich47]

This is a solution in need a problem. Until the people in impoverished countries have some other things first, a USB stick that can reboot dead computers is kind of insulting.

How about we provide (in this order):
1. Food, shelter, sleep, and sex.
2. Security, employment, health, morality.
3. Friendship and family
4. Self-Esteem
5. Self-actualization

Until all of items in group 1 and most of the items in group 2 are secured, self booting: internet USB sticks is like trying to teach dog to play banjo.
And this is assuming that the local infrastructure can support USB booted computers for internet access.

Re:Completely Pointless

[JoeMerchant]

Ah, but you only need a single banjo playing dog to entertain thousands of people...

Re:Completely Pointless

[tepples]

Information from the Internet can be used to help obtain "employment, health, morality".

Re:Completely Pointless

[Elfich47]

Does it get food and potable water?

Re:Completely Pointless

[wvmarle]

Sex is not the problem - the Africa is the fastest growing continent in the world, by far! We really don't have to provide that. On the contrary, that's something you'd want to slow down. Or at least educate the population on - where the Internet has a great role top play again. Oh, and the churches as well. The "no sex before marriage" moral isn't all that bad. Especially if combined with proper sex education and the provision of contraceptives and condoms as "second best" option.

Sometimes, no computer is needed

[zoffdino]

These people don't need computer, they need food. The project founders seem to assume a lot: that there's electricity in the slums, that they can pay for it, that the computers won't be taken apart for the little scrape metal they hold, that the slums won't turn into a new dump for e-waste, that people are literate enough to use a computer or do anything useful with one (reading local news, for e.g.), etc.

$7 is almost 4 days of work for those poor people. I would rather see charities spend it on food than computers and training.

Re:Cloud vs stick

[Hognoxious]

The difference is clear - you can shove a Google account up your ass, but only when speaking metaphorically.

Re:Cloud vs stick

[CastrTroy]

Its a little more expensive, but you might as well just have a raspberry pi or similar small hdmi capable computer. That way you just plug it in to any TV (raspberry pi even supports composite), and do your computing right on the device.

Smart(ish) phones and solar chargers

[BaronM]

Not that I actually think this is a great idea, but if we really want to bring people online, why not aim for a device that can actually get them online rather than a USB stick that requires a complete PC with network connectivity to do so. By contrast, a low-end smart phone can:

1. Be had for ~$100 USD in quantity 1 ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00CKUBLFQ/ref=sr_1_1_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1399770265&sr=8-1&keywords=windows+phone+unlocked&condition=new ). Call it $75 USD in large quantity
2. Can get online without any other equipment
3. Can be practically recharged with a cheap solar panel
4. Can be used for mobile payment networks that are very popular in the developing world

Yeah, I know that $75 is an order of magnitude greater than $7, but it seems like a far wiser use of funds if you feel the need to buy and supply electronics instead of clean water.

Re:Smart(ish) phones and solar chargers

[Bing Tsher E]

Are you out of your mind?

I can buy an Android smartphone right at WalMart for $40. Single quantity, who knows what the price break would be for large quantities.

That's not a 'sponsored' price, I can take it and use it with just WiFi as if it was an iPod touch if I like.

Cell/Data then costs $35 a month (Virgin Mobile) and it's month-by-month no contract.

Why did you pick a Windows phone at Amazon for your example? To be ironic?

Re:Smart(ish) phones and solar chargers

[Blaskowicz]

Maybe that $40 phone is so much crap that even africans don't want it.
When you're poor you can't afford to buy throw-away stuff. If the phone gets unusably slow, orphaned in six monthes (or right of the bat) and subject to malware that would be quite a bad buy. Of course in the first world you can put it in a drawer or use a full blown PC to re-flash it.

One other aspect is shipping, and a strong money doesn't hurt. With the sheer infrastructure and logistics you benefit from, your Walmart is probably the cheapest place on Earth you can buy that thing.

Mixed feelings

[CuteSteveJobs]

As a geek I love the idea, but to the dirt poor and especially in the third world $7 could go towards more pressing needs like sanitation, clean water and medicine. There are many problems the poor of the world face. We can fix more than one problem at a time, but lack of Internet access is no where close to the #1 position - unless those kidnapped Nigerian girls can adapt a USB stick into an improvised weapon. Problem when the only tool you know how to use is a hammer every problem looks like a nail, and geeks are geeks.

PS Saw a funny motivational of this pic lamenting the poor kid was being deprived of the joys of facebook and twitter: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

Did anybody read the story?

[Anonymous Coward]

As we all know this is Slashdot and what the summary says can radically differ from what they are doing or trying to do. If your going to criticize you might want to read the article first, and second, I damn well know there are few people here even trying to make a difference. While there are some obvious problems it's gotten farther than most projects. Just raising the $40,000 or so is a significant step in the right direction. There are many projects with dedicated people that barely operate with little to no resources. How much did you contribute to ANY effort this year? Yea- I didn't think so.

Dead hard drive or EOL Windows

[tepples]

I could think of two ways this could "revive" a computer. First, a computer with a no-longer-updated version of Windows that is incapable of running Windows 8.1 may be capable of running Xubuntu or Lubuntu or Puppy. Second, a computer with a dead internal hard drive may be capable of running an operating system from USB storage. True, 24 MB per second (Hi-Speed USB effective data rate after various overheads) isn't very fast for sustained transfers compared to something more SATAnic, but flash still has the seek time advantage.

Re:Dead hard drive or EOL Windows

[wallsg]

... compared to something more SATAnic, ...

It doesn't sound that evil to me...

Re:Dead hard drive or EOL Windows

[marcello_dl]

Maybe the answer is even simpler. A personal usb stick lets you use shared computers, without internet, without having to learn which apps reside on each pc. Linux distros already do that, so I'd customize one with some applications that are useful for sneakernet and backups.

Unfortunately we don't have the equivalent of read only floppies, which coupled with a write protection on the BIOS and on peripherals' firmware would make the PC very difficult to pwn.
Because even write protected sd cards can be written to, as you easily discover running some card readers under linux.

Re:Dead hard drive or EOL Windows

[BitZtream]

There are read-only capable USB sticks, as well as dual LUN USB sticks that can have a writable partition and a read-only partition controlled by a physical switch on the USB device to allow/deny writing as the user wants.

Write protected SD cards are just like write protected floppies, its up to the drive/slot you put it into to honor the write protect tab, I.E. theres no such thing as a write protected floppy or write protected SD card.

Re:Dead hard drive or EOL Windows

[Richy_T]

There's no real reason for that to be the case with sd though

Re:Dead hard drive or EOL Windows

[catmistake]

The trouble with old hardware is not whether it works or not. The trouble with it is, as soon as you touch it to see if it works or not, you've already spent more than the computer is worth. If you spend more than a few minutes with it, its like dumping new gold plated rims and a new suspension on a car that is now worth exactly the cost of used rims and a used suspension.

The days of reincarnating old hardware are over (except for the essential computer and system historians out there, who spend their "free" time resurrecting ancient gems for posterity and because its fun... please continue to rock on), and they were over a decade ago or more. The way to go about getting the poor masses to use computers is to make cheap new computers... which they're already doing.

Poor people don't want your garbage, whether it works or not. Poor people aren't stupid or uneducated; they're merely not rich or middle class.

What security reasons?

[tepples]

libraries and Internet cafes often won't let you boot from your own media for security reasons.

What security reasons? If this stick catches on, there won't be much need for internal hard drives in an Internet cafe anymore.

Re:What security reasons?

[Bing Tsher E]

If I can boot from my own media onto a machine that has networked Windows XP I can use one of the utility boot sets to mount the XP volume and change the password or add a new admin account to the XP machine. I suspect it wouldn't be that hard to do the same thing with Windows 7.

Re:What security reasons?

[QQBoss]

It isn't in the interest of an internet cafe, which charges for time logged in, to allow you to bypass their log-in environment (typically some form of cafe management software).

Additionally, using any USB stick that successfully bypassed the management software in China would get the user arrested.

The security reasons gp mentioned aren't related to the user, they are related to 'the man'.

Re:What security reasons?

[tepples]

If this stick catches on, there won't be much need for internal hard drives in an Internet cafe anymore.

If I can boot from my own media onto a machine that has networked Windows XP I can use one of the utility boot sets to mount the XP volume and change the password

That explains why present-day libraries and Internet cafes don't allow USB booting. That makes sense; thank you. But a machine designed primarily to accept these USB sticks won't "ha[ve] networked Windows XP" because it won't have an internal hard drive.

Re:What security reasons?

[tepples]

Bootable USB flash drives "ha[ve] been around for many years". An organized effort to distribute them in specific localities has not, and the featured article is about such an organized effort.

Re:What security reasons?

[symbolset]

If you remove the hard drive this is not a problem.

Re:Cloud vs stick

[Arker]

"It's not clear to me how a bootable thumb drive is going to resurrect a non-functional computer."

No? What causes a computer to be written off as 'non-functional?'

The first thing that comes to mind is a failed hard drive. Plug in a system on a stick and it's functional again.

Very often there is actually *nothing* physically wrong with the hard drive, it's just a corrupted/infected filesystem, but the typical computer user doesnt know the difference and junks it anyway. And system on a stick fixes that too.

"Neither is it clear what this will accomplish for all those people too poor to own one at all"

It will allow them either a) pick up a 'dead' computer either free or a a very low (scrap metal value) price and use it or b) borrow/rent computer time but still be able to boot their own system on the temporary hardware, maintaining some semblance at least of their privacy.

Copepods, gotta catch 'em all with folded cloth

[tepples]

Yes, Internet access gets information useful for acquiring "food and potable water". It gets how to MacGyver up a water pathogen trap out of cloth. And it gets learning materials for how to grow an effective vegetable garden.

Re:Copepods, gotta catch 'em all with folded cloth

[rmdingler]

Access to truth over accepted wisdom, conventional or otherwise, is a life changing event for the open mind.

There is some elaborate conjecture regarding our intellectual superiority over all the mammals, and this selfsame overcompensation is present regarding the African people in more minds than most folks would be willing to admit.

How could access to the combined knowledge of the human race not help you?

Re:Copepods, gotta catch 'em all with folded cloth

[Elfich47]

Some of these areas are so poor that if you show *any* signs of attempting to improve yourself, or get up in the world you will be beaten, or killed for attempting to upset the current powers that be. And since powers that be are the local strongman, warlord or government you keep your head down and avoid drawing the attention of the guys with guns.
That's an awfully nice garden you have there, mind if I take all the fruit off of it? And sometimes not even that, just having to defend your improvements from the locals who want your improvements for yourself.

Re:Copepods, gotta catch 'em all with folded cloth

[tepples]

just having to defend your improvements from the locals who want your improvements for yourself.

"You want your own victory garden? Here, I'll show you how to make one."

Re:Copepods, gotta catch 'em all with folded cloth

[Elfich47]

I hate to sound dumb but, where you do plan on finding the seed to start these gardens, let alone the water infrastructure?

Re:Copepods, gotta catch 'em all with folded cloth

[robsku]

After getting frustrated seeing dozens of ignoramus comments like your having nothing else to do than parrot their view of what it is like to live in "Africa, The Country", while apparently not even bothering to check which *country* are they doing this in and how things are there. But nooo, "this be Africa, here be warlords".

They only raised shit money

[aliquis]

Seriously.

LIVE USB stick.

What a great new idea!

Free OS! What a great new idea.

Promises of being able to use an old PC. What a great new idea!

Fact is running OS from USB stick is slow as fuck and if you already have a PC why not install it on the HDD in said PC? Now they said personal and fine. Are there a requirement for that? Maybe they could store their files on the USB stick instead? both is ok.

How do they get actual Internet connection?

What about electricity?

If they have limited electricity then something more modern would likely be better.

Also how do they take care of old electronic goods in Africa? Environmental safe recycling? ..

Re:They only raised shit money

[aliquis]

.. also WTF is this doing on the front page of /.

If you've never heard about running a free (?) OS from a USB stick what are you doing at /. to begin with?

No I won't sponsor your project. Slashvertisment?

Re:They only raised shit money

[aliquis]

BBC isn't news for nerds.

Well, Slashdot don't claim to be any longer either but it used to be.

And nerds don't get excited about "someone have put an OS on a usb stick and want to sell it" (No I haven't RTFA and I don't know if they are collecting money as a charity to give people drives or are selling the actual drives or what they want to raise money for or what OS it will run and whatever the OS will be a free one but I guess so. As said this is Slashdot and I'm a regular and we don't read the fucking articles we possibly read the summary and then we go into the comments - read and post!)

Re:They only raised shit money

[LongearedBat]

About electricity... Perhaps pads would be a better focus, given all the pads that soon will be outdated in the West and East, because they use much less power than old PC's and probably will be more numerous. A solar panel could charge a pad during the day so it could be useable in the evening, much like rural areas use solar panels to charge evening lights.

About networking... Perhaps ad-hoc networks could work for the cities...?

About the other problems... computers help people find information and communicate. So perhaps a project of this ilk could help the populace find and spread solutions to many/most problems - solutions that work for them, from their perspectives, rather than from the perspectives of outsiders.

I dunno. Perhaps I'm just an optimist. But at least one should try, rather than not giving it a chance. Either it will work, or one can learn why it doesn't, so that one can make a better attempt next time.

If we really want to help Africa...

[caseih]

If we in the west really want to help Africa, there are a few things we can do right here that will make a difference. Eliminate agricultural subsidies, stop buying African diamonds, and stop using cheap African-sourced conflict minerals. Right now food prices are so artificially low that African farmers can't afford to grow food for their own countries. It's quite literally cheaper to buy food from abroad than to grow it locally. And the US is happy to give Africa food. In exchange for favors. Food quite literally has become a weapon and it's certainly part of what keeps Africa in a cycle of poverty and abuse. Meanwhile China has been buying up farm land in China to raise food that will be exported from Africa without really benefiting Africans themselves, except for a few that directly benefit.

Conflict minerals, including diamonds, also concentrate a tremendous amount of African wealth in the hands of just a very few who are quite happy to use this wealth to buy whole governments. Most times they *are* the governments. But hey, as long as we can get cheap goods made in China with cheap African resources, life is good, right?

But I guess my idea to not buy diamonds and kill the farm bill has about as much merit as handing out usb sticks after all. I doubt western policies that hurt Africa are going to change any time soon. Good luck to these folk. I'm personally quite skeptical.

Re:If we really want to help Africa...

[TrollstonButterbeans]

Look, you probably don't realize this but everything you said is horseshit. You just don't know why.

The countries that have risen from out of the abyss in the last 30 years did it through jobs relating to export (Look at East Asia).

Exporting things to the rest of the world.

And let me tell you, food is certainly not what Africa will be exporting --- the rest of the world has heavy machinery that reduces the costs of food, Africa will never be able to compete against heavily capitalized nations in cost of food prices in production.

The permanently screwed up countries sell simple natural resources --- oil, diamonds, whatever --- and to fix Africa they need to be exporting something that is a product of at least semi-skilled labor.

Even child shoe assembly factories would be a start, as grotesque as that sounds.

Re:If we really want to help Africa...

[caseih]

You're completely misunderstanding what I'm saying. I'm not saying Africa is going to be a bread basket exporter of food. I'm simply talking about principles of self-sufficiency. Growing one's own food internally is one thing that can break the poverty cycle (if only the attitude part). Look, many people in Africa are completely dependent on western handouts, which wouldn't be so bad but for the strings attached to the food which western nations do pull on a regular basis. That's what I'm getting at.

Perhaps my sarcastic remark about cheap goods from China misled you, but I never said anything about export-related jobs and Africa. You are correct about that of course. But it simply wasn't a part of my comment.

Either way we both seem to agree that handing out USB sticks to work with garbage computers we dump on them isn't going to do a thing to help with poverty.

Cool!

[AndyKron]

So we can dump our old computers on them soon? Cool!

Billing infrastructure can be changed

[tepples]

It isn't in the interest of an internet cafe, which charges for time logged in, to allow you to bypass their log-in environment

PCs designated for use with bootable USB mass storage would have a different billing infrastructure that could be as simple as putting the display's power supply on a timer. It could be as simple as putting coins in a coin mech, in much the same way that dryers at a coin laundry work. There would be a cost to make a transition to this sort of billing, and I admit that cafe operators' willingness to pay this cost would depend on sufficient demand for use with bootable USB mass storage. But the featured article is about an organized effort to create such demand.

Re:Billing infrastructure can be changed

[pslytely psycho]

It could be even simpler, Pay deposit on computer A, use, deduct charge from deposit based on time spent on the computer.
Or simply pay an hourly charge in advance and manually notify customers when their time is expired.

No additional equipment required, as a bonus, less maintenance on the computers...no HDD means no virus problem. Plus the computers themselves should be less expensive to purchase.

WOW

[Hugonz]

WOW, Did they just invent Puppy Linux? pfffffffffffff

Re:WOW

[ruir]

Better comment I read today. i think this project is a scam.

Re: Cloud vs stick

[uncqual]

And, in recent years, many newly "dead" computers don't even have a graphics card/discrete IC to fry. The percent of discarded computers that are "dead" due to a failed (and non-existent) graphics card is going to steadily decline.

Re: Cloud vs stick

[Anonymous Coward]

in my experience, the most often cause of "truly non-functional" pc is a bad psu. The psu is nearly always the first thing to die in an unsalvageable way. After that is the HDD, third is ram/mobo chips that got too hot and desoldered. I rarely see discrete gfx go bad in an unsalvagable way where I work (it nearly always is because of overclocking/tinkering with voltages. Almost nobody monkeys around that way with their work pc).

Anyway, my point is that truly non-functional machines can't usually be brought back to life without significant hardware replacements.

give a man a fish

[technosaurus]

feed him for a day.  Teach him how to fish...

Re:What a bunch of bigoted crap

[ButchDeLoria]

By Americans, India IS judged by its poorest 200 million, and Mexico is judged by the violence of the cartels.

Re:What a bunch of bigoted crap

[pslytely psycho]

Really? I didn't know European/Asian or wheresoever else's media only reports butterflies and unicorns for India?

Your judgement of America is as unfounded, biased and inaccurate as the media attempts to make my judgement of your country. The only difference. I know it's bullshit.

Blanket statements like that are almost always false and reek of the bigotry you're complaining about.

Time for a mirror.

Donating old computers?

[jones_supa]

Are there viable solutions to simply sending my old computers to Africa?

Re:Cloud vs stick

[Mr D from 63]

and $7 is way too much to pay for bulk USB flash drives.

A "computer"

[nurb432]

With no way to use it. How many of these 'poor' have a TV and network access ( assuming that these can be used standalone in some way like most every other generic USB android device )?

Worse yet, how many have anther computer to plug it into as its being pushed in the BBC article? And if they did, why spend 7 dollars more which might be a 1/2 a year wage in the area?

While a flawed idea, at least things like the OLPC came complete and functional out of the box and wouldn't be a huge disappointment to the child.

Clueless do-gooder idiots.

Re:A "computer"

[Blaskowicz]

Fun fact : more people have access to a cell phone than to decent water and sanitation.

Re:A "computer"

[triso]

Fun fact : more people have access to a cell phone than to decent water and sanitation.

I blame Steve Jobs for that.

Re:A "computer"

[nurb432]

Steve didn't force anyone to buy something.

or there is another agenda at work.

[aurispector]

It's also not clear if this is just another get rich quick scheme using poor africans as fodder. When they start talking about selling "inexpensive" devices that are "affordable" your bullshit detector should go off. A while back someone was flogging a solar powered usb battery used to charge cell phones that was going to "revolutionize" etc., these poor african communities for the low low price of $125 or whatever. A quick check of amazon.com revealed a product with identical specs retailing for about half that much. Hence actual cost was probably 30% or more lower.

In this case, puppy linux has had this capability for several years and thumb drives bought in bulk cost pennies. Exactly whom does this project benefit the most?

best game

[nikola_850]

bad ice cream 3

Shit, am I the only one that can think around here

[Hognoxious]

How the hell do you even power it when you have no electricity?

You make a generator using your 3D printer.

Whatever you send there will be seized by whoever is running the country this month and sold for profit.

Warn that nasty dictator man that if he's naughty again Elon Musk will smack his bottom good and proper.

Shit, am I the only one that can think around here?

Re:What a bunch of bigoted crap

[ButchDeLoria]

I figured I could judge America well, given that I am an American.

see if you can spot the real problem

[NemoinSpace]

Their solution involved hanging the router in a carrier bag nailed next to one of two plug sockets in the school.

FTFY

Re:Cloud vs stick

[MooseMiester]

The fact that many of these folks don't have electricity doesn't matter when applying for government grants to help the world's poor get online, apparently...

When they get online, what, exactly do we anticipate they will do?

Re:Cloud vs stick

[Samizdata]

"It's not clear to me how a bootable thumb drive is going to resurrect a non-functional computer." No? What causes a computer to be written off as 'non-functional?' The first thing that comes to mind is a failed hard drive. Plug in a system on a stick and it's functional again. Very often there is actually *nothing* physically wrong with the hard drive, it's just a corrupted/infected filesystem, but the typical computer user doesnt know the difference and junks it anyway. And system on a stick fixes that too. "Neither is it clear what this will accomplish for all those people too poor to own one at all" It will allow them either a) pick up a 'dead' computer either free or a a very low (scrap metal value) price and use it or b) borrow/rent computer time but still be able to boot their own system on the temporary hardware, maintaining some semblance at least of their privacy.

But, this STILL doesn't seem to beat the real gorilla in the room - availability of bandwidth. So, you have your USB stick, and your busted ass old computer, but no connection. How useful is this? As usual, most mainstream media posits a free OS on a stick as the be all end all solution to third world connectivity issues.

Re:Cloud vs stick

[Samizdata]

Hear hear, that's a good one, but, again, assumes there is infrastructure to use.

Re:Cloud vs stick

[Shirley Marquez]

"Too poor to own a computer" really doesn't exist any more, at least not for anybody with a fixed address. (The homeless are another matter; even if they were to be given a free computer they would have no place to keep it.) Usable computers are GIVEN AWAY nowadays; a 10 year old desktop PC is adequate for basic internet access and it has zero market value. The catch; they mostly have unsupported OS versions on them, so they have to be wiped and the software replaced with Linux. Or they can be used with these thumb drives, eliminating the need to install any software.

Too poor to afford internet access, sadly, does exist. There are programs like Comcast's Internet Essentials ($10 internet service for low income families) that are available to some, but others live in areas where no such services are offered, in some cases where no broadband service other than satellite is available at all.

Re:Cloud vs stick

[Arker]

"But, this STILL doesn't seem to beat the real gorilla in the room - availability of bandwidth. So, you have your USB stick, and your busted ass old computer, but no connection. How useful is this?"

Do you REALLY not see any way a computer can be useful without an internet?

Staggering.

Re:Cloud vs stick

[Samizdata]

"But, this STILL doesn't seem to beat the real gorilla in the room - availability of bandwidth. So, you have your USB stick, and your busted ass old computer, but no connection. How useful is this?" Do you REALLY not see any way a computer can be useful without an internet? Staggering.

I do see the point of computing without internet, but, this discussion seems driven largely by the idea of empowering people through access to information, so I ran with it. And, of course, what happens if one of the included apps has a showstopper bug? No internet means no patches.