This is interesting: Danny O’Brien’s Oblomovka
Felsenstein got to work. He’s built the solution. It’s a bicycle-powered, ruggedised luggable, with a localised version of Linux and constructed from cheapo commodity parts. It’s got an aerial, too: it uses WiFi to connect to a central Internet hub in the market town.
Using it, villages that currently have no electricity, telephone or decent roads can monitor the prices of crops, negotiate group purchases with other villages, and make business deals without spending days away from the farm. And with email and built-in VoIP, the families will be able to make direct contact for the first time with the Laotian Diaspora – the relatives who left the war-torn zone to earn money in the capital and beyond.
It’s an incredible project. The New York Times named it one of its best ideas of 2002. And Felsenstein, using his old-style Silicon Valley wiles, has brought the cost of full five village system to just $25,000.
OK, I’ve got two questions: how do Laotians in remote villages learn to read and write English (necessary for use of the Web), and who fixes the damn things when they break (or need tech support)? From what I know about Felsenstein (strictly a big picture, techtopian guy), I’d bet these details aren’t covered, and if they aren’t we’re looking at a flash in the pan.
For $25K from private donations, I say give it to ’em and see what they can do with it. At the worst, someone is gonna have to peddle all the way through the LOTR DVD.
Wow, the Web only works in English.
You know those domain names that end in .jp and fill your screen with funny characters? Do you think the .jp might stand for japan? how about web pages from france? They don’t have the web in france?
English “necessary for use on the web”? Huh? Oh yeah, sites such as Yahoo Asia and Google Vietnam are soooo obscure. No one in Laos could figger that out.
The claim was that the Laotion coffee farmers are going to learn advanced coffee cultivation techniques by searching the web for sites devoted to this topic. If you boys are aware of any such sites in the Laotion language, please fill us in.
It’s also curious that some of the these mountain people are probably Hmong, who don’t even have a written language. So at the end of the day, these PCs will probably be used for downloading porn, like most machines on the web. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’d rather spend my $25,000 on tractors than PCs.
I went to a talk by Felsenstein on Wednesday, so I might be able to help with this.
First question: they’ve localised KDE to the local language (sorry, I don’t know what it is). Thanks to a prior education initiative by the Jhai foundation, while the adult literacy is still very low, literacy amonsgt the next generation is close to 100%. The whole system has been designed for the schoolkids to use – they can pedal the bicycle, they’re literate enough to use the machine, and it doesn’t take labour away from farming (they’re at school; the Jhai PC is in the school. No the best porn-downloading environment in the world, although, hell, it’s been known 🙂 ).
The main use of the Net – which I hadn’t realised until now – is to get in contact with the Laotian diaspora. There’s about a million Laotians overseas: an important part of the plan (and one of the parts that was worked out by the villagers themselves) was they wanted to use this setup to stay in contact – and trade with – this Laotian market Apart from the coffee market, these villages have a big trade in weaving, and a big potential market in the diaspora for their products.
(Of course part of the problem with that is that the Laotion diaspora have pretty low literacy rates in the native language themselves. This is one of the reasons why the system has VoIP designed into it from the word go. Having struggled with VoIP myself, I’m not entirely sure that’s going to work out. But it’s improving all the time.)
Fixing the damn things: Felsenstein’s designed everything with components that have a ten-year lifespan, and can be replaced with other commodity components. The guy who wrote the Laotian port is moving back to the central town to do this, and other support. There are a couple of Laotian engineers being trained by – I believe IBM – in Sweden on the tech. The Jhai Foundation has been working with these villages for five years, and sees this as part of their long haul project.
To Richard Bennett –
Koj xav li cas es koj thiaj hais li kod? Muaj ntau nej cov neeg twg tsis paub sau nej tus ntawv thiab ev. Hais qhia rau koj tias ntawm no yog ntawm Hmoob. Cas koj yuav mus ruam ua luaj…niag ntsej muag. I know that you don’t know how to read Hmong, but at least you know that we do have a written language. Yog koj tsis paub read Hmoob than let me write Hmoob thiab Miskas ua ke so that you might have a clue trying to khag siab txoj peb cov lus that I have to say to you or tell you. Wish you can do this, but sorry you can’t rau qhov koj yog ib tug neeg ruam even though you may be smart.
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It’s also curious that some of the these mountain people are probably Hmong, who don’t even have a written language. So at the end of the day, these PCs will probably be used for downloading porn, like most machines on the web. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’d rather spend my $25,000 on tractors than PCs.
Posted by: Richard Bennett on January 7, 2003 03:19 PM
Look Richard Bennett (tsej muag dhuam), out of all the difference of people in Laos, you pick Hmong to be the one using PC to download porn. The Hmong people are not like Americans; they have values and self-respect. It is because of Americans that drags the Hmong into the Vietnam War that caused our people to suffer. Unlike your miss understanding without reference posting, maybe if you read this article, at least something can squeeze through your thick ignorant head, http://www.jefflindsay.com/hmong.shtml. Have you ever seen Hmong in porn before? That’s right, there’s millions of adult rated video as Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Black, White, and so on. But have you ever seen HMONG? NO! That is what I thought. For your information, if Hmong are not able to understand PC, how are they able to access program to download porn? Hmong DO have a written language, not only do they use these western alphabetic letters, but also in there own form of characters. Next time you should reconsider your opinion and do a little research before you post an ignorant comment about Hmong people.