We recently did a mapping party in Uganda. That was in Kampala. Uganda is much bigger, so you can travel around and show people a bit about GPS & Openstreetmap.
If you want to code, there is no CDN targetted for Africa, though bandwidth here is insanely expensive. If you want to help us build a trial, you are more than welcome.
And you can always find a computer with a virus that needs to be removed.
By all means, do come to Africa. It's an experience that will change your life. It did change mine. Am stuck here for 6 years and enjoying every single day of it.
And drop me a line when you want to join us for hacking or a beer.
I live in Uganda, which is the target audience for these satellites. We have 4 mobile providers, all providing GSM services. Mobile services are covered.
What is not provided for is cheap IP. 500USD a month for 1 MB is Cheap. Currently the satellite prices are as much as 9000USD. Which is what our ISP would pay. Imagine our pricing or bandwidth sharing scheme! I am currently on a 64Kbps line for 175USD a month. I have a good deal.
While the costs and access to communication services have improved tremendously over the last 10 years, there is a very real and true need for the next step. The step where people here can tap into the immense amount of knowledge that the human species is documenting on the Internet. That knowledge, for a great deal, is out of reach of most people here. And it is that knowledge that will eventually lead to the changes here that are so badly needed.
This o3b initiative is the most beautiful gift to the African continent, ever.
I pay 175 USD a month for a 64Kbps line, with a 4000 milliseconds ping to yahoo, as it is using satellite to connect to the rest of the Internet.
One of the cables that they are promising to arrive next year is coming from Dubai. Really looking forward to that after the parent post:-)
nope. they hire a local guy to fix their KDE. This local guy can now pay his own (and probably also his whole families) hospital bill.
With the money all the KDE supporting guys pay the hospital, the doctors can sustain their hospital.
And we can stop sending money that is made by, for example, illegal monopolistic business models.
a huge amount of time, effort or money to http://civicrm.org/ i guess that would be ok.
then some volunteer can make them a cute pinkish template, and whoopsa!
Have you actually walked those streets? I guess what you will mostly see is people going to school, running a business, doing their thing.
How many angry Muslims fit on you TV screen? And who put them there? Who chose to film the angry Muslims, and not the guy running a shop around the corner from there? (who had to close down for the day, because of the protest, therefore loosing business)
Go to Bali, angry Muslims blew up a few hundred Australians. Ask people what they think about extreme Muslims, now the Australians go there in such fewer numbers.
There are 300 million Muslims in Indonesia alone. It took maybe 10 to do the bombing (and they are in jail by now).
Of course taxes are not free. But they spread the risk of being born stupid, or ending up in a wheelchair equally across the population. That is a good thing (if you are stupid, or in a wheelchair, which can happen to you too.)
And I bet that the Kopenhagen University is a lot cheaper than going to Harvard as well. In the US you also pay for premium service. Difference: only the rich can afford it, so you have a very high illiteracy rate and a lot of uninsured people around. You dont care, but in other countries, people do.
Just watch Sicko from Michael Moore. Yes, its biased, its not a documentary, but more a pamflet, but it does show the differences in the approach that the US and Europe take.
And what the US can do with weapons, we can clearly see in the news every day. Jolly good job.
I would turn the US into Denmark with even more money:
- No guns. They kill people, mostly by accident. - Raise taxes and pay:
- Free healthcare for your fellow americans who are a bit unlucky to get an illness or accident
- Free Education for your fellow americans who are born in a family with somewhat less money than you
- Free Pension schemes for your fellow americans for people who did find that superpaying palo alto job, but worked just as hard collecting your garbage
- Free social security for your fellow americans who got fired because their kid was born with a disability and they have to stay up all night to take care of it, leaving them too tired to work 100%. (or gotten hit by a train and survived in a wheelchair)
competition is if they would have won the bid. They didnt, they lost the bid.
Only after they had lost the bid, and the computers were already shipping, out of the blue, the Nigerians changed their mind. That is not competition, that is a smoking gun, pointing to sabotage.
(I guess dutch education isnt a winner either. Have real difficulties with sentences longer than 5 words. sorry, will drink coffee before postingin future)
"The non English speaking market is generally assumed to be underdeveloped (Africa, Indian subcontinent) "
I think you forgot to mention the European Continent where people speak underdeveloped languages like French and German, and Asia of course, which is just slightly bigger than China alone (Indonesia alone has about 240 million inhabitants)
Besides that, English is rather well spoken in India as well as large parts of Africa, underdeveloped as they might be.
In Kampala, Uganda, we always go to the pub to drink a local bananagin with tonic, and skype to europe for free in a place called The Blue Mango. Pool, couches, nice weather all year round. And Wifi!
The South Korean government is rolling out a homegrown open-source platform to 10,000 schools in the country.
"The project, called the New Education Information System, is built on a Korean-developed version of Linux that already services 190 schools in the heart of capital city Seoul....
Sad to hear that by giving the leader of a poor country a first class treatment in your 'house of the future (but not in your country for the next century)', you can have that leader spend his citizens tax money on an OS which has a free equivalent.
If that would happen in Vietnam, you would call it bribery, and have a demonstration about it.
Just come over!
wireless research starts in may
http://www.fiuc.org/umu/news_events/news.php?l=8
plenty of other opportunities also, and the weather is just great! I tell you, IT is a lot of fun in Africa.
reinier
Kampala, Uganda
Slashdot Mirror
By all means, do come to Africa. It's an experience that will change your life. It did change mine. Am stuck here for 6 years and enjoying every single day of it.
And drop me a line when you want to join us for hacking or a beer.
I live in Uganda, which is the target audience for these satellites. We have 4 mobile providers, all providing GSM services. Mobile services are covered. What is not provided for is cheap IP. 500USD a month for 1 MB is Cheap. Currently the satellite prices are as much as 9000USD. Which is what our ISP would pay. Imagine our pricing or bandwidth sharing scheme! I am currently on a 64Kbps line for 175USD a month. I have a good deal. While the costs and access to communication services have improved tremendously over the last 10 years, there is a very real and true need for the next step. The step where people here can tap into the immense amount of knowledge that the human species is documenting on the Internet. That knowledge, for a great deal, is out of reach of most people here. And it is that knowledge that will eventually lead to the changes here that are so badly needed. This o3b initiative is the most beautiful gift to the African continent, ever.
I pay 175 USD a month for a 64Kbps line, with a 4000 milliseconds ping to yahoo, as it is using satellite to connect to the rest of the Internet. One of the cables that they are promising to arrive next year is coming from Dubai. Really looking forward to that after the parent post :-)
nope. they hire a local guy to fix their KDE. This local guy can now pay his own (and probably also his whole families) hospital bill.
With the money all the KDE supporting guys pay the hospital, the doctors can sustain their hospital.
And we can stop sending money that is made by, for example, illegal monopolistic business models.
The new material is being worked on. Release date is set for January 2010. That gives us some time to upgrade our jokes.
a huge amount of time, effort or money to http://civicrm.org/ i guess that would be ok. then some volunteer can make them a cute pinkish template, and whoopsa!
Have you actually walked those streets? I guess what you will mostly see is people going to school, running a business, doing their thing. How many angry Muslims fit on you TV screen? And who put them there? Who chose to film the angry Muslims, and not the guy running a shop around the corner from there? (who had to close down for the day, because of the protest, therefore loosing business) Go to Bali, angry Muslims blew up a few hundred Australians. Ask people what they think about extreme Muslims, now the Australians go there in such fewer numbers. There are 300 million Muslims in Indonesia alone. It took maybe 10 to do the bombing (and they are in jail by now).
Of course taxes are not free. But they spread the risk of being born stupid, or ending up in a wheelchair equally across the population. That is a good thing (if you are stupid, or in a wheelchair, which can happen to you too.)
And I bet that the Kopenhagen University is a lot cheaper than going to Harvard as well. In the US you also pay for premium service. Difference: only the rich can afford it, so you have a very high illiteracy rate and a lot of uninsured people around. You dont care, but in other countries, people do.
Just watch Sicko from Michael Moore. Yes, its biased, its not a documentary, but more a pamflet, but it does show the differences in the approach that the US and Europe take.
And what the US can do with weapons, we can clearly see in the news every day. Jolly good job.
I would turn the US into Denmark with even more money:
- No guns. They kill people, mostly by accident.
- Raise taxes and pay:
- Free healthcare for your fellow americans who are a bit unlucky to get an illness or accident
- Free Education for your fellow americans who are born in a family with somewhat less money than you
- Free Pension schemes for your fellow americans for people who did find that superpaying palo alto job, but worked just as hard collecting your garbage
- Free social security for your fellow americans who got fired because their kid was born with a disability and they have to stay up all night to take care of it, leaving them too tired to work 100%. (or gotten hit by a train and survived in a wheelchair)
It works. Danes are more happy than you are.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5224306.stm
competition is if they would have won the bid. They didnt, they lost the bid.
Only after they had lost the bid, and the computers were already shipping, out of the blue, the Nigerians changed their mind. That is not competition, that is a smoking gun, pointing to sabotage.
And here is the pictures from Kampala: http://hosting.mountbatten.net/news/blog/.-party-kampala.html /., that's our daily reality)
(try our whopping 64Kbps connection
(I guess dutch education isnt a winner either. Have real difficulties with sentences longer than 5 words. sorry, will drink coffee before postingin future)
"The non English speaking market is generally assumed to be underdeveloped (Africa, Indian subcontinent) "
I think you forgot to mention the European Continent where people speak underdeveloped languages like French and German, and Asia of course, which is just slightly bigger than China alone (Indonesia alone has about 240 million inhabitants)
Besides that, English is rather well spoken in India as well as large parts of Africa, underdeveloped as they might be.
American primary education, it's tough.
Yes, that happens to be how a lot of people like their coffee served.
then why is /. not a mailinglist?
In Kampala, Uganda, we always go to the pub to drink a local bananagin with tonic, and skype to europe for free in a place called The Blue Mango. Pool, couches, nice weather all year round. And Wifi!
Just never try to use your notebook in the pool.
http://www.bluemango-uganda.com/
but there is good news too!o urce+to+schools/2100-7344_3-5755892.html
http://news.com.com/Korea+brings+homegrown+open+s
The South Korean government is rolling out a homegrown open-source platform to 10,000 schools in the country.
"The project, called the New Education Information System, is built on a Korean-developed version of Linux that already services 190 schools in the heart of capital city Seoul....
Sad to hear that by giving the leader of a poor country a first class treatment in your 'house of the future (but not in your country for the next century)', you can have that leader spend his citizens tax money on an OS which has a free equivalent.
If that would happen in Vietnam, you would call it bribery, and have a demonstration about it.
Just come over! wireless research starts in may http://www.fiuc.org/umu/news_events/news.php?l=8 plenty of other opportunities also, and the weather is just great! I tell you, IT is a lot of fun in Africa. reinier Kampala, Uganda
If reasonable guys like this are electible, how the heck did you yanks come up with GWB as president?