xt1.org

PCs in the Jungle

May 7th, 2006

I’ve been keeping track of the Jhai project for a couple of years now. Lee Felsenstein (one of the original 60s hackers) worked on designing and building a computer that could help Laotian and Viet-namese villagers communicate with each other. The design problems that came up during the field tests are quite different from the usual design problems. Intermittent network access is one thing. Intermittent power is tougher. Humidity and damp. Portability. Robustness. Cost. Lots of tough constraints to work within.
This week the project announced a project success. They’ve deployed and run for months out in the bush, running on local power sources without crashing. The latest update makes for interesting reading.

You can see a steady progression from Felsenstein’s Community Memory project in 60s Berkeley to this - essentially a bigger, distributed version of the same thing. The key is computer as commincation and community device.

The other point of interest is the Jhai project’s focus on economics. Economic principles function on all levels of society (as Grameen micro-banking illustrates). Economies require a free flow of information to function well. A networked computer enables the farmers - it gives them access to market information, and to education and learning.
The idea of putting cheap computers into dirt poor villages seems absurd. Surely a water-pump or plumbing are more important? But the idea seems to be working - the computer makes it possible for the farmers to earn enough to buy their own pump/generator/whatever.

The old dream of the personal computer as a possibility magnifier still lives, and that makes me happy.

Entry Filed under: Design