

84-Year-Old Volunteer Rebuilds and Sends Linux Laptops to Africa - notsony
http://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/200-libby-clark/827669-video-84-year-old-volunteer-rebuilds-sends-linux-laptops-to-africa

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88e282102ae2e5b
I worked at a high school in a relatively small (electrified) village in West
Africa. After some months of working there I was telling my principal that I
would keep in touch with my family by email, usually at a cyber cafe in a
nearby city. To my surprise he told me I could just use the school computers,
which I had never seen or heard of.

"But don't tell any of the other teachers I let you do this."

So he gave me the key to the one building in the school that was locked, which
contained six (!) working computers that had been donated by some European
organization, all with dial-up internet access. The room was also full of
brand new textbooks, which the children didn't have access to. In fact, the
room's only real purpose seemed to be as a home for a large colony of bats.

When I asked the obvious question "why aren't you using any of this?!" the
answer was that no one knew how to use the computers, and that they were
waiting for an IT teacher to get transferred to the school.

Eventually the students were given access to the books, though this seems to
have been looked upon very skeptically because the administration wasn't sure
how they were going to let the students use them in a way that they wouldn't
end up ruining them (by getting them wet, writing in them, etc).

It's important to understand that scenarios like this do occur and also how
they work, if you're giving away free stuff to developing nations. My rule of
thumb is that if you don't want to put any thought into how your donation is
making the world a better place, it's probable that it either won't be used at
all, or it will just be resold. The latter possibility at least in my mind is
not so bad, but others may not be so happy about that outcome.

~~~
nrao123
This is common in India as well. Almost every village in India has a
government school which provides free education. However, most of these
schools have "less than stellar" facilities & infrastructure.

However, some of the larger government schools, have computer & labs.

But...

Just as you mentioned, most of them are unused because they don't have a IT
technician/lab instructor.

I spoke to hundreds of government teachers & asked them the question of- why
don't you just open the lab & let the students figure it out, the smarter/more
responsive kids to tech can become the IT/Lab instructors?

Almost- all of their response was about trust, if the kids will break it etc.
I think it boiled down to control & trust.

~~~
aaron695
Having worked in a first world school I was surprised by the lack of vandalism
and theft.

It did exist but was very minor. But this is still enough for a large body of
students to destroy a small lab over a few years.

But the main issue was game playing and entertainment. Kids will do what kids
do everywhere, just play games when left to their own devices.

If you're taking away from other time this becomes detrimental time.

Here's a negative review on the hole in a wall scheme for instance -
[http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=mitra](http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=mitra)

Not to say you can't design a system for kids to actually learn in
unsupervised at a reasonable cost, just it's yet to happen.

------
FrankenPC
I wonder about doing this with older Android phones. Once rooted they are
powerful platforms with multi-core processors and every wireless tech
imaginable pre-integrated. They are insanely power efficient as well. I guess
the point is to get children access to full on business platforms so this is
not the same thing. But still, many have USB/Bluetooth keyboard/mouse support.
So, it's still very similar.

~~~
bane
Android does have keyboard and mouse support. An Android device _can_ in
theory make a decent Linux-ish device -- some even have monitor out.

Desktop-like apps (along with browsers):

* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andropenof...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andropenoffice)

* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.octave](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.octave)

* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.icecoldapp...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.icecoldapps.serversultimatepro)

* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jackpal.androi...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jackpal.androidterm)

* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=stericson.busy...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=stericson.busybox)

* [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hipipal.qp...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hipipal.qpy3)

I haven't tried all these (never needed to), but I can see some scenarios
where these might make a passable desktop alternative.

~~~
drethemadrapper
I keep seeing people making this wrong assumption that an Android device makes
a linux-ish device.

Android is a component-based linux. It can't play the role of a full-fledged
OS that the diff. flavours of linux play.

~~~
bane
hence the "-ish"

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eupharis
Free Geek is a great organization. Like this guy, I knew very little about
Linux or programming before volunteering there. Fast forward five years and I
spend all day monkeying with Linux boxes at work. Free Geek was a perfect
introduction to this wonderful world.

~~~
vijayr
The best volunteering opportunities are those where one can learn something
new and/or interact with those people which normally they wouldn't. I've
washed dishes, worked in a warehouse, written code etc - they were all fun,
but the dishwashing became boring after a few weeks. If every volunteering
opportunity mentioned what people would learn, they might increase
participation.

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samchang1
This is amazing. You won't like to hear this, but this guy is probably doing
more important work (literally world-changing) than about 95% of Silicon
Valley startup employees reading hackernews.

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notsony
I hope the laptops make it to the kids in schools and not harvested by traders
looking to flog them in the local market.

~~~
88e282102ae2e5b
Even if kids somehow got the laptops, there would be overwhelming pressure in
a lot of families to sell them (not just because it could earn one or two
month's salary, but you'd also shed the risk of having it destroyed or stolen,
and the neighbors might otherwise assume you have more money than you really
do because you seem to be able to afford expensive electronics).

~~~
sangnoir
An actual African here, I apologise in advance for the rant.

Your comment is an amazing over-generalization of 1.1 billion people in 54
countries, Africa is a very diverse place, but you only see the worst of it
("feed these sorry kids for only a dollar a day")

The article itself was rather vague on where exactly the laptops are sent (to
schools? NGOs? families?), not even the country (or region) are mentioned. No
sir, 'computers are being sent to Africa'.

I think you're projecting western values (strong individualism) to the African
context, and your conclusion "neighbours jealous of expensive electronics".
How about "neighbours kids also share in using the expensive electronics"? In
rural areas, residential clusters are typically made of extended family, so
that neighbour is probably a sister or cousin.

I have lived in 3 countries in southern (small 's') Africa, I can assure you
that education is seen as more important that "2 months salary", some parents
pay way more than that in annual school fees.

~~~
88e282102ae2e5b
You're definitely right, I should have added more qualifiers to that comment.
I didn't want to paint the entire continent with a broad brush, but rather
caution against blind giving with the expectation that things will go right.

The mentality that I described is absolutely prevalent in Benin, where I lived
for several years. So what I should have said was, there's at least one
example of counter-intuitive social dynamics in one African country, so it
would make sense to explore those in the place where you intend to make a
donation.

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agumonkey
I smile thinking these guys will be as productive and probably use these
laptops longer than most people in the 'developed' world.

Only drawback, power consumption; something that may matter more for them than
for us.

~~~
88e282102ae2e5b
If someone is rich enough that selling the laptop wouldn't be the best option,
they can probably already afford the electricity.

~~~
agumonkey
At the risk of sounding cliche, I thought regular access wasn't guaranteed
everywhere.

~~~
88e282102ae2e5b
Sure, but you only need a few hours of electricity to keep them on all day. If
the battery is at the end of its life cycle, you can always buy a UPS.

------
yitchelle
I am on freecycle.org. I keep seeing request from this one guy that request
for any old computers that are being "recycled" because it is too old. He
rebuilds them, and then, donates it to families that are not able to afford a
computer. Occasionally, he would put the rebuilt computers back into
freecycle.org as a "freecycled" item.

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jrapdx3
Very nice story. FreeGeek has been a fixture here in Portland for many years
doing great work in the community, promoting open-source long before gaining
wide acceptance enjoyed today.

FreeGeek sells stuff to the general public--I have several laptops I bought
there for my business. A real asset is the steady volume of old components on
hand, things like floppy disk and optical drives, controllers, IDE and SCSI
cables, the kinds of items that are needed to keep equipment running, or
necessary for reading old archives.

I keep thinking, one of these days, when I have the time, I'll volunteer at
the Geek. I anticipate it will be a very rewarding experience.

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M8
Linux? Don't you think that's cruel - they have suffered enough!

~~~
88e282102ae2e5b
You should try Xubuntu 15.04, and look at it from the perspective of someone
who's never used a computer before. It's got a simple, clean interface that
any kid can figure out. And when the computer crashes (which it will) you
don't have to pay for a pirated copy of Windows.

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finnjohnsen2
my brain saw: "84-year-old rebuilds [himself] and sends linux laptops to
africa", and was confused how he was able to fix his old body

