India's Om Prakash Fights Child Labor and Wins Children's Peace Prize

He was taken away from his parents at the age of 5. He was turned into a child slave and made to work in the farms and tend to cattle without wages. He was given meals but frequently beaten up by his masters. After suffering the hardship for 3 years, he was rescued by an NGO called Bachpan Bachao Andolan.

Soon after that he started putting his effort on changing the lives of all the other kids who were going through the same nightmare in his home state Rajastan. On 19 Nov 2006 Om Prakash received the International Children's Peace Prize worth $100,000 for leading a campaign against child labour and child slavery. The former President of South Africa, Frederik Willem De Klerk, presented the award.

Since his rescue, the 14 year-old has helped to create a network known as ‘child friendly villages’. In these villages child labor is forbidden and children’s rights are respected. He has also campaigned for children's birth certificates. He says birth registration is the first step towards enshrining children's rights, proving their age, helping to protect them from slavery, trafficking, forced marriage or serving as a child soldier. It seems he has arranged birth registration for 500 children on his own.

In his speech during the award, he said, "This is our right - that they have to listen. This is children's right. And if they are not abiding with that right, we will work harder to make them hear."


http://www.bbasaccs.org/news/biography_om.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6164134.stm
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Victory_at_last_Child_slave_gets_prize/articleshow/498510.cms

Libya to Purchase 1.2 Million Cheap Laptops

Libya seems to have made a deal with Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) for the purchase of 1.2 million laptops to equip it’s school kids. These are specially design $100 wind-up laptops. The cost is estimated to be $250 million and the delivery will be made by mid 2008. The machines will be manufacture by Taiwan’s hardware manufacturer Qanta. And the production is reported to start early 2007. With this deal Libya could be the first country to provide all school kids a laptop with internet connection.

Other countries which are showing interest in the $100 laptops are Argentina, Brazil and Thailand. India has withdrawn from the idea after talks stating that it needs schools and teachers more than such tools.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6040536.stm
http://laptop.media.mit.edu/

Moladi's Casting Based Low Cost Housing Technology

Moladi is a construction technology that was designed to address shortages faced by developing countries in low-cost housing. The problems are lack of resources, insufficient funds, shortage of skills and time constraint. Hennie Botes, a South African entrepreneur, is the designer and owner of the patented Moladi Construction Technology. It is specially developed to speed construction, improve quality, and lower the construction cost of residential housing.

The concept is based on casting technology. First a mould is built from plastic shutter panels in the form of the planned house and is then filled up with a lightweight mortar. The mortar takes only one day to dry and is then ready to receive a roof and other finishes like window frames and plumbing.

It is designed to speed construction, improve quality, and lower the construction cost of residential housing. The conventional brick and block method is not capable of producing an affordable quality product that is comparable to a Moladi. The houses are build better, faster and at lower cost.

Moladi’s technology has improved the lives of poor communities which were without proper housing. It could also improve socio economic development through community involvement and sharing the Moladi technology with the local contractors with little training.

Freeplay – Electricity Independent Electronics

Freeplay is a firm that produces self energy sufficient electronic products such as radios and torch lights. Freeplay says “When Freeplay creates technologies and adapts them to products; our goal is to provide freedom and independence through reliability. The result of achieving this goal is empowerment. We conduct our business in such a way that we help to empower people; whether they are our customers, our investors, recipients of special aid from NGOs, or members of our team.”

Freeplay’s Lifeline radio, for example, is a wind-up energy and solar powered multi-band radio that could be used in rural areas without electricity. It doesn’t require batteries and developed to be used in the harshest conditions. It could play up to 24 hours with full charge and used to provide useful information to the mass and critical information during emergencies. It is something that could be operated by kids and adults and heard by groups of 40. For Freeplay, the radio has been a tool for communication, education and hope in their humanitarian projects.

Freeplay supports Freeplay Foundation, which is committed to providing innovative and practical energy solutions to ensure sustained access to information via radio. The fact is the first Lifeline radios were distributed to Burundian youth living in refugee camps in Tanzania by the foundation.

Links:

http://www.freeplayenergy.com/index.php?section=products
http://www.freeplayenergy.com/index.php?section=humanitarian&subsection=projects
http://www.freeplayfoundation.org

Ndiyo - Networked computing for everyone

Ndiyo is a UK based nonprofit, which is setup to develop networked computing based on these factors.

• simple
• affordable
• open
• less environmentally-hostile
• less dependent on intensive technical support

Ndiyo (nn-dee-yo), means ‘yes’ in Swahili, an African language. They’ve developed a computer network system that consists of a number of ‘nivo’, which are unltra-thin clients connected to a server PC, operating on open source software. Currently they seem to be using Ubuntu. The system is based on sharing the power of a PC between several users at once. This means, one PC serving between five to ten terminals, which operate just like PCs. Technology to support multiple users at once using a single PC is available via operating systems like Ubuntu. The ultra-thin-client allows an extra display, keyboard and mouse to be connected to the PC via a standard network cable.

Ndiyo has join ventured with GrameenPhone, a Bangladesh mobile operator, to open it’s first Community Information Centre (Fultola CIC). It’s an Ndiyo based four-screen internet cafe with internet connectivity via an Edge-enabled mobile phone. So, a mobile phone connected to one PC is giving four people access to the internet simultaneously. Newnham Research, a company created out of Ndiyo project, is producing and supplying the thin-client devices for the CIC.



Links:

http://www.ndiyo.org
http://www.grameenphone.com
http://www.newnhamresearch.com
http://www.grameen-info.org/grameen/gtelecom/index.html
http://www.grameenphone.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=3:11:1 [Bangladesh Village Phone Program]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Data_Rates_for_GSM_Evolution

Radio in Timbuktu

Geekcorps has setup radio stations in the remote areas of Mali which are stimulating communication and economic activities there. The radio stations are equipped with Desert PC systems, which use VIA Mini-ITX form factor as the base of a hardened, satellite Internet-connected PC. For radio programming they have digital audio broadcasting equipment and antennas made of plastic bottles and tin cans. Geekcoprs brought a wireless expert, who then developed the cheap antenna making technique. Bottlenet is the given name for this sort of cheap wireless networking. The locals have learned to make them and there is already a small company that makes these antennas for around $1.

Mali’s radio journalists used to ride for two days by bus to deliver cassettes of important recorded news to their radio stations. Same thing goes to anyone living in Mali’s remote. Geekcorps has changed this for good. Now, a villager could send a message to a friend in another part of the country via the radio stations. His message is emailed by a DJ, from a local radio station to another radio station closest to his friend. A DJ of that radio station then announces on the radio that he should come to the station to receive the message.

The stations are gaining revenue by selling ads and charging for the e-mail service. A number of them are also providing services to broadcast wedding ceremonies live. It seems a station created by the organization in the village of Boureem Inaly makes $50 a month. That’s quite a lot in terms of Mali’s standards and in the extreme remote. Plus, not so surprisingly, DJs at the radio stations have began to use their computers to answer listener questions using information found on Wikipedia or other Web sites.

This Geekcorps project has brought huge improvement in the way the people of Mali got informed and communicated.

Links:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/03/01/8370556/index.htm
http://news.com.com/2100-1008_3-6043635.html?part=rss&tag=6043635&subj=news
http://mali.geekcorps.org

VIA’s PHD Appliance

The computer chipmaker, VIA Technologies, Inc., has developed a computer system called PHD Appliance, which is designed for developing and rural areas with harsh environment. PHD stands for “Power, Heat, Dust”. It’s capable of running Windows XP with a 12V car battery or solar power where power grids don’t exist or power supply is not reliable. This has been made possible by VIA’a highly energy efficient processor platforms such as VIA pc1000 processor and VIA C-Series. The system is developed for VIA pc-1 Initiative program, which seeks to bring down the digital divide by introducing and facilitating ICT in the developing world.

PHP Appliance uses no fans and this has several benefits, there is nothing to suck dust and particles inside the box. One of the new designs of PHD has outer casing that incorporates broad heat-dissipation shell which makes the system effective and reliable in extremely warm climates.

PHDs are being used by Geekcorps in Mali. Geekcorps is an international nonprofit organization that promotes stability and prosperity in the developing world through information and communication technology. One of the programs that they have developed and implemented in Mali is “Cybertigi”. Cybertigi is a mobile computing kiosk based on the VIA PHD Appliance to sell cyber services such as email, voicemail, copying, digital imaging, printing, etc. The services are offered to people in rural Mali without access to basic information or communication services.



For latest info please follow the links.

http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/empowered
http://www.viapc-1.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=330&Itemid=1
http://mali.geekcorps.org/2006/06/15/cybertigi-a-recap