Foss in Africa
From Community Leadership Summit Wiki
Foss in Africa - organized by Louis Suarez of openoffice.org
some more advanced countries in africa: ghana, kenya,
africa will remain a state subject to control from the industrialized world until it has educated entrepreneur class, so promoting that is a goal
africa challenges: corruption, lack of infrastructure, poor education, chaos
clint schmidt - originally with olpc, now promoting learning bridge(?) usb storage boxes with huge capacity
- record voices etc
inappropriate technology - e.g. pump designed in sweden for heavier people
wifi less of a problem than power. ==> solar power
hard questions (based on experience growing up in mexico):
- what about sandstorms (kill photo cells)
- what about stealing or melting down and reselling solar panels?
olpc
peace corps lessons:
- build a latrine - big project, but people find it smelly, avoid it
- build a water line - people tap in rendering it useless
address local needs, culture, preferences. What does both village and goverment want?
- literacy - learn to read an write
- economic development
bali - tv introduced - scary - but the appropriated it, one tv per village like shadow puppet show
moblin distro - good for novice communities, like in africa?
- stripped down fedora
most people don't distinguish desktop from the crowd
african union standards - health records on portable device
software is perceived to have no value
so tangible stuff like a mid device is more likely to be successful
