Category Archives: soft-core

Network Effects

Let me tell you a story:

Sese is worried. Her son Kaltaso has his heart set on getting a new toy for Christmas. She’s not quite sure what it does, exactly, but it’s the latest thing overseas. At least, that’s what Kal says. He tells her all his online friends have them, that it’s really fun to link them on the Internet and play together.

The toy is expensive, but not too expensive. Sese has talked it over with her husband, and he agrees that it’s good for the boy to spend time online with friends from around the world. If this toy helps with this, then it’s worth it. But there’s a problem: It’s not for sale anywhere in Vanuatu, let alone here on Pentecost.

Sese knows that you can buy things online, but she doesn’t have a bank account yet, let alone a credit card. So she sends an SMS to her cousin-sister Lily in Port Vila, asking for help. Lily works as an administrator for one of the online banking operations that opened up after the fibre optic link was installed. She knows about these things.

Lily texts back, saying that she’s checked on eBay and found exactly what Kal wants, at about 30% less than anywhere else. She’ll just send the cash from her PayPal account. She knows Sese doesn’t have a lot of cash so she asks if Sese could send 20 kilos of kava on the next ship. One of Lily’s boys is going to be circumcised soon, so it will save her a lot of expense. Kava costs about 40% less if you get it straight from the island.

Sese checks with her family, then writes to Lily to say that she’ll put the kava on Wednesday’s ship. But Lily has to promise not to say a word to anyone. Kal chats online all the time with Lily’s second born son, and if he gets word about the gift, it will spoil the surprise.

This little story is fiction, of course. It’s a description of how things could be in two or three years, if we do just a few little things.

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Riding the Tide

For almost a month now, the Vanuatu IT Users Society has been conducting demonstrations of the One Laptop Per Child Project’s XO laptop. These demos have led to numerous conversations about computers, the Internet and access to information. What affect is this going to have on the Vanuatu way of life?

Most people assume that as a geek, I see technology as a Good Thing, one of the miracles of the modern age. That’s not always the case.

The professional life of an ICT professional is fraught with dangers. They’re not personal dangers, of course. There are few safer things to do than plunking down in front of a computer for several hours each day. The risks a geek faces are risks of responsibility. Every choice we make has implications, some of which can be quite serious, especially in places where resources are limited.

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Black Smoke and Storm Clouds

Every weekday morning, in every street in Port Vila, we see a steady stream of people walking into town. On the road beside them, innumerable buses and cars drive by, belching black smoke into their faces. Just as regularly, we see complaints in the local media about this smoke. But nothing ever gets done about it.

Police and inspection officials don’t enforce the laws, and the drivers don’t make any real effort to clean up their act. Everybody knows they should. Everybody knows that this pollution causes health problems. Even the simplest metrics, like the dirt it leaves on our clothing, on our skin and under our nails, makes it impossible to deny that there’s a problem. And yet we do nothing.

Why? The answer is simple….

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OLPC Q&A

OLPC Q&A
There’s been a ton of interest in the OLPC laptop ever since the Vanuatu IT User Society (VITUS) obtained a prototype to demonstrate to people here in Vanuatu. A few readers will have already attended one of the VITUS demonstrations. In the interests of raising awareness about this new approach to learning technology, here are a few common questions and answers about the laptop, the project, and OLPC-related activities in Vanuatu.
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Talking Technology

This week’s column starts with a mea culpa. The column about Microsoft’s meeting with the Ministry of Education raised some eyebrows, and both Ministry employees and individuals wrote in to point out that there were inaccuracies in the reporting. They rightly observed that the author did not attend the meeting in question, and was therefore presenting hearsay evidence. While efforts were made to corroborate the details presented, it is an unfortunate truth that no public record was available. If any of the facts were incorrectly reported, the responsibility for this lies entirely with the author.

In the course of discussions about how to properly correct the record, two points kept recurring, both explicitly and implicitly: So-called ‘geeks’ often focus far too much on technology and not nearly enough on what it’s actually for. Additionally, there’s often a lot of talk – some might say too much talk – based on speculation. Making blithe assumptions can spell disaster for any project, but those with high-tech as a principle ingredient are even more prone to failure because of their inherent complexity.

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Software and the New Colonialism

A colleague of mine recently attended a meeting between the Ministry of Education and representatives for a new initiative sponsored by Microsoft. On the face of it, the offer on the table was compelling: Microsoft Windows and Office licenses for sale at about 700 vatu each for educational institutions. Huge investment in flagship schools in Vanuatu, with hundreds of new PCs in total running all the latest software at prices never seen before. How could anyone refuse?

Microsoft is not the only company to come to the sudden realisation that there are about 5 billion people out there who don’t buy their product. Many major IT corporations have taken a look at the mature European and North American markets and decided to begin developing markets elsewhere in the world.

It’s a great opportunity for them. Junior and intermediate managers trying to make a name for themselves are leading the exploration. Rather than navigate the shark-infested waters of corporate HQ, they’re establishing new territories, trying out new tactics and creating new opportunities for themselves and their customers.

This is not a bad thing in and of itself. But it does need to be understood.

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A Matter of Trust

“We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know, because they have never deceived us.” These words belong to Samuel Johnson, a wise man indeed. St. Augustine looked at things from the other side and famously observed, “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

We in Vanuatu have a distinct advantage over our neighbours in other countries. Our community is small enough that we can really get to know the movers and shakers in our society. It may take us time to become familiar with them, but if we have a mind to, we can learn the quirks and the capabilities of most of the people and organisations who can influence Vanuatu’s course and its future.

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Pink Dolphins

Pink dolphins are my idea, and I refuse to let anyone else think of them. Anybody who does think of pink dolphins must pay a royalty fee for each time they think of pink dolphins, multiplied by the number of pink dolphins they think of.

That last paragraph is a simple – and absurd – example of why so-called intellectual property is an oxymoron. If it’s intellectual, it can’t be property. The concept is based on the premise that ideas can be treated as things, and that’s just not true.

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Randall Biliki, 1963 – 2007

I just found out at Randall Biliki has died, apparently murdered in an attack on his family.

I met Randall for a brief time, when he came to Vanuatu to help get the ball rolling on our leg of the People First Network. He was a conscientious, quiet individual whose intelligence quickly made itself shown through the clarity of his questions and comments. He was always tactful and soft-spoken, so perfectly disarming that I thought he was one of those people who would always sail through smooth waters.

I’m going to Honiara next month for the annual PACINET conference, a regional ICT get-together sponsored by the Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society (PICISOC). I was really looking forward to buying him a beer (he didn’t like the kava at all). Now I’ll have to go and pay my respects to his family, if they haven’t fled Honiara.

A note about PFNet – they were virtually the only media presence on the ground during the civil strife in the Solomon Islands, and their Internet café was for some time the sole means of communication with the outside world for a number of people.

Randall, David Leeming, David Ma’ai and many others created a viable nation-wide communications network using technology that most others thought beneath them. Comparing their approach[*] with, for example, an Asian Development Bank-funded telecentre (at USD 125,000 a pop) provides an object lesson in sensible, sustainable development.

People often toss about the phrase ‘He will be missed‘ when speaking of the dead. But Randall’s death does exact a price. It can be measured directly in the ability of people on some of the remotest islands of the world to speak with one another.

This is probably the final straw for the Vanuatu extension of the project. Randall was to have come in and help run things for the first six months. I honestly don’t know how it can get off the ground without him around.

Gates vs Shuttleworth

Some childish name-calling recently erupted on a forum that I frequent, which resulted in a philanthropy pissing contest. Some people said Bill Gates is saving lives through his generousity; some said Mark Shuttleworth is building futures.

Some were silly enough to suggest that Ubuntu is just a bunch of geeks getting their rocks off playing with their tech toys.

I replied:

I work in development, in a country that’s internationally known as a malaria hotspot. Several people I know are employed by Gates Foundation money, and everyone here agrees that this is a Good Thing. But there’s a limit to how much good this kind of thing can do.

One friend of mine once politely mentioned to a Gates Foundation researcher that we don’t really need to know much more about malaria in this country. All we really need is trained and equipped medical staff within a day’s walk of every man, woman and child. Malaria isn’t a terribly dangerous disease if it’s treated properly. I’ve had it myself, by the way, so I know whereof I speak.

The big problem in disease prevention around the world is an almost unbelievable shortage of health workers and medicines. Very little is being done to address these fundamental issues. Here’s an interesting series of facts:

  • Number of new doctors sub-Saharan Africa would need for its per-capita number to match America’s: 3,900,000
  • Number of new doctors produced by sub-Saharan Africa’s universities each year: 4,000

(Source: Harper’s Index.)

Again, I respect the work being done by the Gates Foundation, and I’ve seen its benefits with my own eyes. But to assume that those people working to try and improve education and communications are not involved in something equally vital is a little silly. In fact, it smacks of a holier-than-thou attitude that tends to tarnish most donor-driven projects, and often results in people chasing sexy aid projects at the expense of boring things like making sure that the local nurse has enough pills for everyone, and can order more when he needs them.