[Noisebridge-discuss] Want to wire the middle east?

[jim]

   there's a (very) local effort to provide OLPC XO 
laptops to home schooling programs in rural afghan 
areas. carol ruth silver is a well-known local 
politician who's running this program. web site is 
http://www.afghan-satellite-teachers.net/ 

   donations and volunteer help needed. project 
includes: 
* pilot program in afghanistan, working with locals 
* localization of operating system and activity 
  software in Dari and Pashto 
* development of educational software, including games 
* development of video, possibly multi-media programs 
* demonstration of XO systems coming very soon 

   she is in the process of changing from windows to 
open source software, specifically ubuntu. current 
task is to move email from open office to evolution, 
including moving contacts as well as setting up 
blackberry contact integration. 
   also redoing office network wiring to improve 
access to network equipment. 


On Sat, 2009-10-10 at 03:46 -0700, Thom Hastings wrote: 
> Shameless plug for Meedan: www.meedan.net 
> 
> 
> Designed to "facilitate a dialogue" between English and Arabic
> speaking countries on world events, current affairs, etc.
> 
> 
> Cool site--uses a pretty good machine translation engine that's
> bootstrapped by taking feedback and translation suggestions from users
> (facebook filed a patent for this... fucking bullshit)
> 
> 
> Crowd-sourced translation building translation memories to bootstrap
> machine translation FTW
> 
> On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 2:47 AM, Ceren Ercen <ceren at magnesium.net>
> wrote:
>         the kind that has people to support it, design it, promote it
>         locally in
>         those communities, has its own hardware, host it somewhere
>         they can
>         reach it at with multiple routes, given the crappiness of
>         internets
>         there, as well as failover locations, has extensive backups
>         given its
>         vunerability as a political target, maybe building out power
>         and a
>         "local" set of machines or minicolo there so it's not over
>         satlink
>         only.... probably needs local access cybercafe centers, too,
>         since few
>         people have home network connections and cybercafes are still
>         in common
>         use...
>         
>         See Talia Internet's work, for example.
>         
>         - Ceren, who would happily go work out in the sandbox again.
>         
>         
>         
>         Christie Dudley wrote:
>         > What I find boggling is that they're giving it away in
>         *minimum* chunks
>         > of $500,000 each.  What kind of wiki costs $500K?!
>         >
>         > Christie
>         > ---
>         > Pigs can fly given sufficient thrust.
>         >     - RFC 1925
>         >
>         >
>         > On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 3:17 PM, Al Billings
>         <albill at openbuddha.com
>         
>         > <mailto:albill at openbuddha.com>> wrote:
>         >
>         >      From Boing Boing today
>         >
>         (http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/0UV7rlJBCmU/state-dept-offers-25.html
>         
>         >     <http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/boingboing/iBag/%
>         7E3/0UV7rlJBCmU/state-dept-offers-25.html>
>         >     ):
>         >
>         >     Henry Farrell sez:
>         >     The US Department of State wants hackers to help build
>         civil society
>         >     in the Middle East and Africa. They're offering up to
>         $2.5 million in
>         >     grants for pilot projects that use wikis, blogs and
>         social networking
>         >     platforms to connect and educate young people and
>         improve civic
>         >     participation.
>         >     .
>         >     _______________________________________________
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>         >     Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
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>         >
>         >
>         >
>         
>         >
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>         
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