[wsfii-discuss] Chat about incremental infrastructure (and more)

Thu Aug 9 03:07:34 UTC 2007

Hi! I lead the Minciu Sodas laboratory http://www.ms.lt for serving and 
organizing indepedent thinkers around the world.  I see in the archives 
some familiar names, Jeff Buderer, Asif Daya.

We have participants on-the-ground in Africa, notably Samwel Kongere in 
Rusinga Island, Kenya, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mendenyo/ who are 
interested in setting up wifi networks locally. 

Recently I've realized that my own interest in software for better use 
of marginal Internet access would be very relevant for helping people 
like Samwel apply the knowledge and online assistance to roll out such 
local networks and slowly link them up to the global Internet.  I also 
like Ethan Zuckerman's term "incremental infrastructure".  I write about 
that more and I invite us to a chat to work on that and a proposal that 
I am writing with Jeff.  I'm especially interested in what business our 
lab might work for that would benefit from the business value.  Our lab 
is excellent at organizing global teams of people who meet us halfway as 
they work on what they care about.

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms at ms.lt
+370 (699) 30003

I invite us all to a chat http://www.worknets.org/chat/ on Thursday, 
August 9th, at 2:30 pm London time, 9:30 am New York time, about 
"incremental infrastructure" and a proposal that I am working on with 
Jeff Buderer.
Incremental infrastructure is a term that Ethan Zuckerman has recently 
introduced.  I share a quote below from his article.  It's about 
infrastructure that can be rolled out in Africa by focusing on the value 
of a local network and then stitching together the pieces.

This is very timely for a proposal that I am working on.  My first idea 
is to create social software that would serve people with marginal 
Internet access.  Imagine living in rural Kenya and walking 5 km to use 
an Internet cafe which might cost $3 per hour to participate in our 
online networks.  I would like our participants to be able to download 
our weekly activity (about 1 MB of letters, chat, wiki pages) onto their 
flash sticks and then read them on a used computer they may have at 
home.  Then write their responses (or do other kinds of knowledge work) 
and upload that the next time they are online.   This would let us work 
much more effectively together.

One example of the business value of this connection is that they could 
pursue low-capital knowledge-intensive endeavors such as setting up a 
local wireless network.  Such a wi-fi network could serve their local 
needs even if it is not connected to the Internet.  Wireless access 
points (100 USD) and used computers (200 USD) can be gradually added to 
the network so that it expands one kilometer at a time.  Indeed, local 
calls (and services) are more important for business than long distance 
calls.   Thus the local network would grow stronger and after a few 
years it would hook up with the global Internet.  Furthermore, local 
skills and services would grow with the network and thus be well primed 
for the global opportunities.

I invite us to join in our proposal.  
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Offline  How might we like to 
participate?  Also, I appreciate thoughts on who to approach that might 
fund work on this (about $24,000).  What business value might we 
generate?  Where might we start?  And what are other examples of 
incremental infrastructure that we'd like to see?  Our lab is pioneering 
the funding of small projects for 100 USD or so.

I'm very interested in our laboratory working closer with the Rising 
Voices group.  Perhaps we might host one of the Rising Voices chats? 
That would be great.

Additionally, I'm looking for people who we might video Skype on Friday 
and Saturday (my skype is minciusodas).  On Friday, August 10, at 2:00 
pm London time, 9:00 am New York time for about three hours our young 
Lithuanian poet Tomas Taskauskas will investigate What is creative work? 
and we will share ours and also try to create a song.  Juan Carlos De 
Martin of the European Union thematic network COMMUNIA for the Public 
Domain will be there, too. Please join us!  And on Saturday, August 11, 
at 7:00 pm London time, 2:00 New York time for a few hours I will 
investigate How might prayer in twos and threes provide a climate where 
we might helpfully challenge others and ourselves?  Benoit Couture will 
join us from Canada. Perhaps we can pray together.

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms at ms.lt
+370 (699) 30003
Vilnius, Lithuania

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/08/05/building_big_starting_small/?page=1 

Building big, starting small by EthanZuckerman.
Conteh's project (Vodacom Congo, with 3 million mobile phone users and a 
market valuation of $1.6 billion) offers a new model. While it's very 
expensive to blanket a nation in mobile phone coverage, it's quite 
inexpensive to build a single tower. With even one tower in a major 
city, Conteh found that customers would queue up to buy phones, giving 
him revenue to finance additional expansion. In an incremental 
infrastructure model, each investment starts generating revenue quickly, 
allowing an entrepreneur to finance more infrastructure. The 
availability of mobile phones has had unexpected economic impacts. 
Farmers check prices in the market before putting their harvests onto 
trucks or boats for sale. Carpenters, welders, and other technicians no 
longer need shops -- they have their tools and their mobile phones, and 
travel to work where it is available. Leonard Waverman, a professor of 
economics at the London Business School, has found that an increase of 
10 mobile phones for every 100 people in a developing country leads to 
an increase of 0.59 percent in GDP per capita. The existence of a 
communications infrastructure benefits the whole economy. Governments 
that encourage foreign direct investment -- especially investment from 
their diasporas -- are more likely to see incremental infrastructure 
develop. Successful Internet and phone projects suggest that there are 
at least three common characteristics of successful incremental 
infrastructure projects.

* These projects are atomic: A small part of the infrastructure is 
useful by itself, like a single mobile phone tower that allows people in 
a single city to make calls to one another.
* The projects are financed in part by users, lowering the costs for the 
operator: Mobile phone users buy their handsets and Internet users 
purchase their own computers.
* Finally, these projects are providing capabilities that weren't 
available before: they're new services, not an upgrade of existing systems.