Internet hookup for a seminar with students at IIT Guwahati, who are hosting an annual technical festival at the same time. Join the online discussion forum@Techniche
Date: September 5, 2004. Time: GMT 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM (in Denmark, 10 AM to 11:30 AM)
Other participants, including students from other parts of the world and people interested in contributing to furthering the concepts presented below are most welcome.
To bring your ideas to this workshop, please register by clicking on the link above. You will get a short form - filling it is easy, but remember to choose at least one day's participation, and mention in the comments section that you will be a virtual participant. Registering enables you to edit this page in order to introduce yourself into the list below, and to present your ideas.
Background
Water, water, everywhere, not a drop to drink: how students plan to tackle global drought in telecommunications for the poor
The spread of wireless communications has taken the developing world by storm. However, the majority in these countries cannot afford a phone.
Digital watches showed that even twenty years ago, electronic hardware was cheap enough to reach the poor. But manufacturers and service providers believed, in a self-fulfilling prophesy, that the poor could not afford telecommunications. Yet, some poor people found ingenious ways, such as only using Caller ID or SMS, to get some benefit of technologies that were priced to exclude them, and proved the industry wrong.
Fortunately, the situation is now rapidly changing. For instance in India, Professor MS Swaminathan spearheads an initiative to bring telecommunications to every village by the year 2007. However, if you multiply 600,000 villages by the cost of a mobile telephony base station, or divide the cost of a phone by the income of people in extreme poverty, you quickly realise that cheaper solutions have to be found. At the same time, telemedicine and distance learning cry out for broadband, for the doctor to be able to see the patient, and the teacher her student.
A characteristic of any industry based on microelectronics, is that the latest technology is also the cheapest. That this does not necessarily reflect in the prices we pay, is largely because of software development, intellectual property and marketing costs. But for a large campaign such as the Indian one, all these costs can be made to disappear.
There are people with knowledge in the latest technologies, students happy to write software for free, microentrepreneurs from among the poor to distribute products and run services, and organisations that can put all these parts together, to trigger an explosion in the usage of telecommunications by the poor. On September 5, 2004, we attempt to bring together a critical mass.
From September 3-10, the freifunk.net summer convention takes place in Djursland, Denmark, where activists have reused some optic fiber, made some wireless antennae and other gear themselves, to put together a massive community network in one of the world's least populated areas. Meanwhile from September 3-5, Techniche 2004 brings together top students from India's engineering colleges for a technical festival.
Taking advantage of this overlap, Radiophony is facilitating an online hookup on September 5 at IST 13:30 - 15:00 (which other experts and interested students from around the world will join . The objective is to put together actual projects that will develop solutions to the communication needs of the poor using state of the art technologies that actively involve students and faculty, with outside activists who can help find missing pieces of the puzzle. In the process, the students will also learn how to make proposals that can attract funding, get hands-on experience with the latest technology, and appreciate the power of the Internet in making such projects possible.
People who may wish to participate include technology students, their teachers, those interested in open source technology development, the use of ICT for development, etc.
People wishing to contribute or participate may post to this freifunk wiki, or mail Techniche:techniche at iitg.ernet.in, Arun:mehta at vsnl.com, Vickram:vvcrishna at radiophony.com, or Sebastian:sebastian at less.dk . Leading up to the online event, participants are expected to postideas and proposals for projects, highlight difficulties and their possible solutions, and discuss the agenda for the online workshop. All are welcome to contribute.
Agenda:
1_ A brief description of what has been achieved in places like Djursland
We learned that the community in Denmark has successfully pulled in about 1,700 households over a wide area. A lot of the work has been cooperative discovery of innovative solutions, including low cost antennae. The terrain, which is very low lying, has actually added to the cost since it is necessary to try and mount antenaae as high as possible for wider reach. These households were not well or economically served by existing ISPs. Now that the network is running, users are mainly charged for Internet connectivity (which is provided by vendors), and have shared the cost of the infrastructure, which was not major in comparison to the cost of living.
2_ Why does this sort of activity not happen in India? What are the problems?
It was quickly clear that while many of the students were aware of WiFi? and some had worked on associated technology, no-one had any personal experience and it seemed very hazy ideas of the benefits. The equipment already procured in Guwahati has been a) very expensive and b) not yet installed (the department is about to shift to new premises, and lack of space in the present work area is a hindrance to ongoing projects).
3_ Evaluation of the ideas and proposals, to pick one or two that Gauhati can undertake.
Several undergraduate students have shown interest in doing work in this area, while some post-graduate students are actively working on protocols and system design for a rural network.
4_ What help would be needed to undertake these projects
Drujsland has offered interested students visting facilities to come, see and work in a real rural network in place. Aside from this, the BBS at http://www.iitg.ernet.in/techforum will continue live now.
5_ How can students and faculty in India and elsewhere become part of the global community wireless movement.
Aside from Djursland itself, there is a crying need for adept persons to come and work in establishing networks in Africa, namely Senegal and Mali, where already work is ongoing. .Participants will be:
(please add yourself!)
The Wireless4Development group at the Denmark event
- Sebastian Buettrich - wire.less.dk
- Prateek Dayal - IIT Guwahati
- Sumit Suman - IIT Guwahati
- Bandaru Uday Kumar - IIT Guwahati
- Archit Gupta - IIT Guwahati
- Prateek Mittal - IIT Guwahati
- Arun Mehta, Radiophony, Delhi
- Arun Reddy Kandoor, IIT Guwahati
- Ashish Sharma, IIT Guwahati
- Sameer Narang, IIT Guwahati
- Vangala Praveen,IIT Guwahati
- Soumya Das, IIT Guwahati
- Gautam Roy, IIT Guwahati
- Nivedan Nigam, IIT Guwahati
- Vickram Crishna, Radiophony, Mumbai
- Amit Qusba, IIT Guwahati
- IIT Mumbai, contact person Professor Uday Desai
- Jehan Ara, Enabling Technologies, Karachi
- Samudra E. Haque, PraDeshta, Bangladesh (via Internet)
MSN Messenger ID: pradeshtaspace@hotmail.com
back to ProgramSunday