
Powerful, cheap and Cambodian: Computer dreams being born in the kingdom - sohkamyung
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/cambodian-computer-koompi-cheap-10364288
======
wjossey
My mom moved to Cambodia full time two years ago at the age of 60 to become a
librarian at a rural orphanage on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, where
electricity is often scarce and access to the internet is a luxury. She's a
remarkable woman, doing a remarkable thing, with some remarkable children.

Access to laptops, such as the one described in this article, could play a
huge role in helping the youth of Cambodia find good work in the global
economy. Children from her orphanage are fortunate enough to have an
opportunity to learn english, complete high school, have meals every day, and
have access to quality health care; however, many still end up struggling in
their early adulthood, such that they find themselves often working as
prostitutes to survive.

A single family member having access to a high paying job for that area can
absolutely transform generations, so anything any of us can do to help make
that a reality goes a long way. If you have an opportunity to hire a remote
worker, think about hiring from Cambodia!

~~~
desireco42
Where would you even look for such workers? Is there a good place? What kind
of jobs Cambodians specialize in?

~~~
bitcoinbutter
The infrastructure just isn't there yet really. Many SEA countries have a ton
of students in the IT field though. Vietnam has a ton of young people learning
to code in University.

The difficulty is finding someone with the appropriate communication skills. I
think there are plenty of devs with decent technical skills, but they usually
need firm guidance on projects and they do lack in creativity.

~~~
itake
I live in vietnam and I agree with you mostly but I find that a lot of the
talent leaves to work in Singapore or Malaysia.

There definitely our communication problems with tech workers here.

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3131s
I guess it's running Linux? I had never heard of this, maybe because I never
go to any of those co-working spaces.

There is a lot of interest among young Cambodians in programming and new
technology, though unfortunately the corporate tech world here is stuck using
old, proprietary tools. The average salary for a web developer / programmer at
a Cambodian company is somewhere in the range $400-$1000. A couple friends of
mine with better English speaking ability have gone freelance and had success
though.

Some of these dinosaur Cambodian tech companies will also advertise programmer
job postings as 'male only'.

~~~
cncrnd
Do you mean $400-$1000 per month or per year? And what is the quality of
programmers in Cambodia compared to the US, if you have some opinion on the
matter.

~~~
Freeboots
USD per month, and id actually say that's high. Overall the quality is much
lower, although of course there are some great coders. That's mostly due to
poor education institutions. The best coders are largely self taught or have
been trained in house.

~~~
cncrnd
So companies are doing active in house training (like talks, lessons) rather
than just learn as you go?

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Abishek_Muthian
This article details about the philosophy behind the laptop (which is
commendable) but I wasn't able to find any details about the actual
specifications other than that it will run windows with Macbook aesthetics.

Even Mr.Rithy's twitter page[1] doesn't seem to mention about it; at-least I
wasn't able to find any.

1:[https://twitter.com/rithythul](https://twitter.com/rithythul)

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abrowne
If I had to guess from the screenshots, that's Budgie desktop. Googling
"koompi" led me to this Budgie fork repo: [https://github.com/tellsela/koompi-
desktop](https://github.com/tellsela/koompi-desktop)

~~~
karmakaze
It seems to be a bit of a disservice to be running such a flashy GTK 3+
desktop. I would have picked a stock Lubuntu with just a branded desktop
wallpaper/theme. Haven't personally used Budgie Desktop so maybe it's fine.
Anyone have experience with it?

Of course I'm not in sales or marketing so the appearance of the latest Mac
(even if on insufficient hardware) may sell well and work well enough for
casual users. Actual developers should quickly find ways to make it more
usable.

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tpaschalis
From the description, I thought they were going with elementary OS [1].
Pantheon as a DE is reasonably lightweight [2] (for me, it uses ~400 MB of ram
when idle), is _absolutely_ gorgeous, as well as very user friendly.

[1] [https://elementary.io/](https://elementary.io/)

[2]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5l39tz/linux_distros...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5l39tz/linux_distros_ram_consumption_comparison_updated/)

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forapurpose
> The initial roll-out of 500 computers will cost US$369 each

I was expecting a around a third of that number. How affordable is $369? (I'd
appreciate anyone who better knows economics or Cambodia chiming in.)

Wikipedia says per capita GDP using PPP (which I believe is the appropriate
conversion for this purpose) is ~$4,300 per year, so the computer costs around
a month of typical income (as distributed to everyone, not just to the
workers).

At that level of income, people probably don't have much that's disposable; I
would assume almost all goes to necessities. I could imagine a developer
spending a month's income on a badly needed computer, but their market is
people who haven't used one before. How many of them will invest in one?

Of course the person behind this project knows Cambodia far better than I do
and must be well aware of the affordability issue. I wonder what their
solution is. Maybe the target is a wealthier subset of the population and
maybe there's a good reason; for example, maybe that level of wealth is
required for reliable electricity.

~~~
freddie_mercury
> Wikipedia says per capita GDP using PPP (which I believe is the appropriate
> conversion for this purpose) is ~$4,300 per year

No, you shouldn't use PPP adjustments in this situation. The price for laptop
is what it is. And the only money they have to buy it is the money they have
(without any adjustment).

So the laptop is more like 3 months of salary. For a typical US programmer
making $120,000 a year that's (kinda sorta) equivalent to buying a $30,000
car.

~~~
julienfr112
Computer used to cost months of salaries. In around 1995, in France, you could
buy a 10.000 Fr computer whereas minimum wage was around 3.000 Fr per month.
Still, my parents made the financial effort to buy one.

~~~
oblio
Yes, but your parents probably had a house, a car, good healthcare access,
etc.

Edit: Almost forgot - and they didn't have to take care of their elders,
financially.

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myro
I don't believe in this, after the series of OLPCs and similar...

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shabinesh
Products like these will change the future of how learning and new skills will
come out of Cambodia.

I just returned from Cambodia last week. I have been around the provinces with
my Cambodian friend. What I came to know is many young people who are also
smartphone users are not able to read or write Khmer, let alone English. The
smartphone usage is mainly around using facebook, mostly to post pictures and
watch videos. Though the internet infrastructure is good in Cambodia, it's
underutilized.

What I wish to see is how localization and learning software powered by TTS/AI
along with inexpensive hardware would inspire them to learn and acquire global
outlook.

~~~
apatters
Wouldn't it be more practical to just teach them to read and write? The model
for getting out of poverty is well established at this point and literacy is
an essential component.

In fact I'd argue the stakes are pretty high because if we don't help these
people become literate they'll end up little more than attention batteries
plugged into Zuckerberg's Facebook Matrix.

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dalerus
Specs from the SmallWorld Facebook page:

“Our current test version is 4GB RAM, 1.1Ghz CPU mobile version, 128GB SSD.

The final specs we want for $369: \- 8GB RAM \- 256GB SSD (minimum 128GB) \-
Core i3 (final confirm in a couple week, but that is the goal)

Hope we can hit that target. Will update more later.”

[https://www.facebook.com/smallworld.kh/](https://www.facebook.com/smallworld.kh/)

~~~
koompi
[https://koompi.com/#/specs](https://koompi.com/#/specs)

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kuwze
I’ve always wanted to visit Cambodia. They suffered so much from our carpet
bombing during the Vietnam war. The unexploded ordinance maims so many people
each year.

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devappbkk
It's made it China...not in Cambodia.

~~~
sleepyhead
Designed by Koompi in Phnom Penh - Assembled in China.

------
then
sound more like a money making scheme:
[https://www.gearbest.com/laptops/pp_620750.html](https://www.gearbest.com/laptops/pp_620750.html)

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syntaxing
Wished that the article talked more about the specifications of the laptop.
I'm curious whether it is ARM based or not. It looks quite similar to the
Pinebook and equivalent.

~~~
koompi
Please see [https://koompi.com/#/specs](https://koompi.com/#/specs)

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voltagex_
Looks like a Chuwi machine - anyone got any more info?

~~~
baybal2
It looks like a reference design from Intel that they were giving off for free
to volume buyers 2 something years ago. There tons of companies other than
Chuwi doing the same design, though Chuwi is on the better side on quality

~~~
voltagex_
Ah right - thanks for that. Are there any good articles explaining the
industry, or the supply chain? I know about Clevo and Winstron and that's
about it.

~~~
baybal2
Despite its enormity, I believe there is nothing amounting to the "OEM
electronics industry: annotated manual"

Just like the work culture in a big dotcom is something totally alien to the
remaining industry, the way thing work in the Pearl River delta region is very
different to the outside world.

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brisance
I'm not convinced this project will do better than OLPC did, and that had a
lot of credible backing and resources.

~~~
linuxkerneldev
> OLPC did, and that had a lot of credible backing and resources

OLPC had massive resources but it had such an arrogant "leader/founder", Nick
Negroponte that it was doomed to failure. I can't believe this guy still
suggests that journalists should describe him as the father of the netbook and
tablet computing now.

~~~
StudentStuff
OLPC did for Netbooks what Raspberry Pi did for Single Board Computers,
essentially creating a new & much larger market for devices that existed, but
had been priced much higher before either of those entrants had entered the
market.

I don't think this upstart will see much success though, as the price point is
out of reach for most locals. Refurbishing laptops en masse for less than half
the cost would likely get more powerful hardware into the hands of notably
more people as compared to buying new hardware from an ODM.

~~~
kuwze
Are you kidding me? First of all, the OLPC did not create the netbook market,
capitalism did. Secondly this is a great project because he probably plans on
trying to locally source the construction of the laptops.

