[wsfii-discuss] What content might help one set up a wi-fi network?

Fri Aug 24 22:15:46 UTC 2007

I want to ask, What content might we put on flash drives and distribute 
in Africa that would be useful for people who want to try to set up 
their wi-fi network?  In particular, we're working with Samwel Kongere 
in rural Kenya to build a local wi-fi network there.  Andrius 
Kulikauskas, ms at ms.lt

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I have purchased a dozen USB flash drives to send to our participants in 
Africa (and potentially to other places with marginal Internet access, 
please speak up!)  My purpose is to understand how much they might be 
sold for and what they might be used for.  Here in Lithuania I can buy 
256 MB flash drives for $9 and 512 MB flashdrives for $11.  And we have 
an opportunity to buy 300 flash drives for about $5 each directly from 
Shenzhen, China.  Whereas in many places in Africa the cheapest flash 
drives sell for $30.  So we want to practice selling them and learn more 
about the market and the capability of our network.  This is also a step 
towards organizing the manufacture of a device for displaying the 
contents of a flash drive and editing them with a standard keyboard.

Furthermore, this is an opportunity to publish content which might be 
shared in Africa.  What do we suggest we put on these flash drives?  
They should include a combination of our own concerns and those of our 
African participants.   Here is what we have considered so far:
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?FlashDriveContent
Thank you to Sasha Mrkailo for helping!

I will make a CD-ROM and distribute that and portions can be put on the 
flash drives.

We will certainly have available the activity of our lab:
- Our email archive, about 20,000 letters and 200 MB.
- Our wiki, http://www.worknets.org, about 3,500 pages and 100 MB.
- Our chat transcripts, http://www.worknets.org/archive/, less than 3 MB
- Our food stories http://www.myfoodstory.info 5 MB text plus photos
- Our videos, or at least some of them!

Note that the materials need to be in the Public Domain or encourage 
sharing.  Among the copyleft licenses, for the purpose of distributing 
content, the GNU FDL license (used by Wikipedia) and the Creative 
Commons "attribution" licenses are fine.  The Creative Commons 
"noncommercial" and "share alike" licenses are not.  Unfortunately, we 
can't use many good sites because of copyright restrictions.

Our African participants Samwel Kongere, Fred Kayiwa, Helen Mahoo, 
Josephat Ndibalema, David Mutua, Wendi Losha Bernadette, William Wambura 
have endeavors that I think reflect their interests:
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Endeavors

* Health: AIDS, Malaria, Community clinic
* ICT: Assembling computers, Internet, InternetCafe, Video, Websites, WiFi
* Economics:  Aid, BottomUp economy
* Rightful living: Brickmaking, KnowledgeWork, Shoes, Crafts
* Inclusion: Deaf, Orphans, Refugees, Street Children, Women, East 
Africa regional network
* Education: Literacy, ICT for Education
* Agriculture: Integrative Farming, Poultry, Beekeeping, Urban Agriculture
* RuralUrban: Kibera, Neighborhoods
* Local languages: Kiswahili
* Values: Motivation, Selfishness, Sports

We should also share materials that reflect our own interests including:
* Appropriate technology
* Community currency
* Global villages
* Architecture
* Renewable energy
* Flu pandemic
* Solaroof
* EcoBnB
* Nonviolence
* Loving God
This will help us engage each other.

Below are some resources that we have so far.  Please add your ideas!  I 
especially would like to include more works on:
* Health
* Appropriate technology
* Textbooks for children
* Local languages
* Agriculture
* Computer tutorials for hardware (assembling computers, setting up 
wifi) and software (using computers, making websites, simple programming)

Thank you!  I will send out the flash drives some time next week, and 
then we'll keep adding to our collection.  If you know of any 
collections so far that's a great help.  I was a bit surprised that One 
Laptop Per Child doesn't have any collection yet, they are just 
organizing themselves, I think.

Andrius

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

http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?FlashDriveContent

    *  Wikipedia or parts of it
    * Bible (Public Domain), New Testament (Luo), New Testament (Kiswahili)
    * Quran in Arabic, English (which text?)
    * Other scriptures, classics
    * http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

also there is a CD for download with the most recommended books, lots of 
classics there. Textbooks

    * Mit Open Course Ware
          o Democratization in Asia, Africa and Latin America, Fall 2001
          o 21A.460J / SP.620J Medicine, Religion and Politics in Africa 
and the African Diaspora, Spring 2005
          o AIDS and Poverty in Africa, Spring 2005
          o Information and Communication Technology in Africa, Spring 2006
          o 21M.293 Music of Africa, Fall 2005
          o 12.453 Crosby Lectures in Geology: History of Africa, Fall 2005

Languages

Kiswahili

Lou

Luganda

MinciuSodas Archives

    * Letters - at least 178 MB for about 15000 letters, per day about 
20 letters =
    * Wiki - 267 MB for 3500 pages (including all changes) for 3500 
pages, per day about
    * Chat transcripts -
    * Food stories - 2000 stories

Programming Manuals

    * PHP
    * Perl

Pictures

Sound

    * Public Domain Audio Books
          o The Federalist Papers
    * Interviews
    * Gospels spoken in various languages

Video

 From SamwelKongere, KennedyOwino, ...

Software

    * Gimp - (possible moneymaker)
    * other FOSS software