Inveneo Publications Archives
- Posted by Jana Melpolder on June 18, 2018 in the categories: Publications
This post was originally published on Engineering for Change’s website and written by E4C’s Contributor Rob Goodier. View the original post here.
Bob Marsh installs WiFi antennas on the roof of a microfinance institution in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Bob Marsh is a household name and the subject of dinner party conversations in a certain kind of household and select dinner parties. The kind populated that are popular among computer scientists and engineers. In the 1970s, Marsh was an early member of the Homebrew Computer Club, where members traded tech and tips, and Apple co-founder Stephen Wozniak went to people’s homes to help them build their own Apple I. Together with Lee Felsenstein, also a member of the club, Marsh designed and built the popular Sol-20 personal computer and began sales in 1976.
Now Marsh’s work reflects the club’s theme, “Give to help others.” He is the co-founder and executive director of Inveneo, traveling to underserved communities around the world to install computer and Internet connectivity hardware. He recently helped to put 100 youth centers in Palestine online, and trained technicians to operate a Network Operations Center in Accra, Ghana, as part of the Ebola Response Connectivity Initiative (ERCI) project that serves Ebola medical centers and NGOs in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia. In all, he has worked in 15 African countries, Bangladesh, Haiti and Nepal.
We asked Bob Marsh five questions.
E4C: You once said that a key difference between rural Africa and rural America is Google. Have you seen an example of the Google advantage at work after you’ve provided Internet access?
BM: Unfortunately, Inveneo staff rarely get a chance to return to project sites after completion. This is because we are usually sub-contractors for larger NGOs that are responsible for the M&E phases. Anecdotally, I personally have seen people in rural Kenya, Burkina Faso and Botswana using Google at project sites. However, I don’t remember what they were searching for.
My point was that it’s quite difficult to get information from outside one’s own rural community without Internet access, but that we here in the rich countries now take for granted (and hardly think twice about it) access to a vast array of information on any subject.
E4C: Would you tell us a little about the hardware that you’re installing in developing countries?
BM: Originally, back in 2005, we were building our own low power consumption 12VDC battery-powered computers using VIA motherboards. These had rather low CPU horsepower, but enough to run a Linux desktop and server. We found a number of 12VDC LCD monitors to pair with the VIA PCs.
The next year we found a thin-client PC made by Wyse that was very small and inexpensive and we created our own Linux distro to run in just 128MB of memory.
By late 2007, low power computing had become somewhat mainstream, and we found an AMD-powered unit made in Taiwan that would run either Linux or Windows XP or 7. This unit was considerably more powerful than the Wyse and could include a 16GB 2.5” hard drive or 4GB SSD storage.
By 2009, Taiwan’s Asus began making very low power complete systems that included Windows 7 for reasonable prices (as low as $255). Inveneo used various models of the Asus eeeBox series for several years after that, plus some very low power LED/LCD monitors from Asus.
However, for the past two years, we’ve been more involved with tablet-based projects, primarily using the Google Nexus 7 series, also made by Asus.
E4C: What are some of the obstacles in hardware installations that you face now?
BM: Printers remain a challenge. While laser printers have the lowest cost per page, they use a lot of power. Inkjet printers can use very little power, but often use a lot of expensive ink cartridges.
The main challenges in rural IT installations are:
- Either complete lack of electricity, or poor quality electricity from the national grid.
- High heat and humidity, or even worse in many cases, lots of dust.
- Lack of knowledgeable technical support people outside of the capital city.
- Lack of broadband Internet access at an affordable price.
E4C: What are some of the improvements that you’d like to see in the technology that you work with in developing countries?
BM: Needed are:
- Cheaper and simpler solar power systems, longer life battery energy storage
- Cheaper broadband mobile infrastructure (I believe Facebook is working on this, as are others)
Frankly, a lot of the challenges are more software related, e.g. more comprehensive materials that follow a country’s curricula, software to track pupils progress and attendance, as well as teacher performance.
E4C: Do you have a story from your work that gives a glimpse of a day in your life on the road?
BM: Local knowledge is always valuable, but we learned early on to remain skeptical. In Western Uganda, we did a project to connect houses in 5 villages to an Community Center office near the highway (a very dusty dirt road) that had an Internet connection. Each house would have a low power computer, solar panel and battery, with a long range wifi radio to access Internet and a local VoIP service.
We only had a hand drawn map showing the various neighboring villages, as they were not shown on any other paper or online maps. One targeted village was 1000ft up on the slopes of the Ruwenzori Mountains nearby, but there were a number of similar looking villages that could be seen with the naked eye or binoculars. So we asked three different local people to point out which village was the correct one, and received three different answers. Ultimately we sent people up to the village, who had to walk up steep path, as there was no road. Even with binoculars from the They used a mirror to flash their location to some of us at the bottom of the hill, and we found that the correct mountain-side village was none of the three that the locals had pointed out! Worse, that target village could not be seen from the Community Center, and as the radio links needed direct Line-of-Sight, we had to completely re-configure the whole network to find a way to reach the mountain-side village.
This post was originally published on Engineering for Change’s website and written by E4C’s Contributor Rob Goodier. View the original post here.
- Posted by Jana Melpolder on August 18, 2015 in the categories: Publications
Inveneo is proud to announce that, due to its projects and Project Manager in Haiti Michelet Guerrier, there are now 71 more teachers who are digitally literate in Haiti. This newly published report is about an ICT Pilot Program [Extension of the Transforming Teaching Through Tablets (TTT) project] to improve Haitian teacher capacity and access to digital educational resources. Inveneo implemented this pilot program in three primary schools in three different regions in Haiti from March to June 2014 (Petit-Goave, Hyacinthe, and Cascade Pichon) before we expanded the program to reach more than 30 secondary teachers in Petit-Goave. The program’s main goal was to demonstrate the benefits of using tablets in a school environment to build teacher capacity and make educational resources available for teachers.
We re-designed the project to fit not only primary school teachers, but also those working in secondary schools. Read the report and check out all the updates!
- Posted by Jana Melpolder on June 2, 2015 in the categories: Education, Publications
Michelet Guerrier, Inveneo’s Project Manager in Haiti, recently led a computer training session for the community members in La Vallee de Jacmel, Haiti.
After a 10-station computer lab installation in La Vallee de Jacmel, Inveneo was re-contacted for training recommendations. Once the needs assessment was initiated, Inveneo agreed to provide and empower the community members with basic computer training. La Vallee Alliance selected the candidates to participate in the training. They included teachers, school directors, and secondary school students.
Inveneo and Michelet Guerrier published a report on the computer training course and outcomes. Please take a look and discover the exciting results and impact that a computer training course can make for a community in Haiti!
- Posted by Jana Melpolder on August 13, 2014 in the categories: Education, Publications, User Machine
Education in Haiti is vastly changing. Where teachers once had a few books to offer their students, now they have an incredible wealth of resources available to them through Google Nexus 7 Tablets. 
And thanks to Inveneo and our partners like Google and the Craig Newmark Philanthropic Fund, we have made these educational tools to over 1,000 students in Haiti.
Check out our recent report, “Transforming Teaching Through Tablets“, which showcases our project’s benchmarks achieved and success rate as of August 2014. Written by our Project Manager in Haiti, Michelet Guerrier, the report gives a detailed narrative on the current tablet training and professional development resources we offer Haitian educators.
Click here to read the report.
- Posted by Jana Melpolder on August 5, 2014 in the categories: Publications, Relief
“I came to Uganda to run the technical side of a mobile phone company. Instead, I was running the largest diesel fuel distribution company in the country—in order to run the mobile phone company,” says Francis Kazinduki, former CTO of MTN in Uganda. And he is not alone.
This quote, taken from Dr. Laura Hosman and Dr. Laura Elizabeth Armey’s study on “The Centrality of Electricity for Internet Uptake in Low-Income Countries”, is a common sentiment among ICT professionals working in low-income countries. In their innovative study, Hosman and Armey analyze Internet usage growth in diverse locations from Mali to Haiti, and Sierra Leone to the Solomon Islands. What, they ask, is a key factor influencing ICT adoption across all of these low-income countries?
Their answer: Access to electricity.
Increased distribution of electricity across a nation is a key vanguard to ICT development success. Using dynamic panel data analysis, the two researchers based their findings on a unique data set taken from satellite images that capture the quantity and distribution of light that can be observed at night from outer space. This data set mediates variables such as defining what constitutes access to electricity and protects the study from faulty self-reported national electricity and energy data. While other researchers have used similar data sets for other purposes, this study is the first of its kind to use night-lights to measure real electricity use.
Hosman and Armey recommend pursuing policies that expand the distribution of electricity to greater numbers of people, not just increasing the total electrical output in each country, which tends to prioritize cities. The more people that have access to electricity, the greater demand will be for using the Internet and other related technologies. It is fruitless, they say, to discuss a digital divide where electricity does not exist. Many ICT projects have collapsed because they don’t fully realize the existing (or absent) electrical infrastructure within a country. Addressing the electricity divide between high-income and low-income countries will not only spur industrial and knowledge-based economic growth, but will enable millions around the world to connect online.
The key lesson to be learned? ICT development initiatives must first consider a location’s existing electrical infrastructure before setting up shop. The idea seems simple – it is just often overlooked.
The infographic below is based off the study and was created by Bruce Baikie, Inveneo’s Executive Director. You can follow him on Twitter for more ICT updates at @BruceICT4D. This article was republished with permission from ICTworks.
- Posted by Jana Melpolder on July 21, 2014 in the categories: Publications
Inveneo has teamed up with USAID and ARM Limited to publish our newest White Paper, “Emerging Markets: Top ICT Hardware Challenges”. Led by researcher Dr. Laura Hosman, formerly of the Illinois Institute of Technology, this publication has been created to educate engineers, designers, and manufacturers. Our report is to make ICT practitioners keenly aware of developing world hardware technology requirements and realities.
The top five ICT hardware challenges are:
- Electricity/Power/Energy
- Cost
- Environment-Related Issues
- Connectivity
- Maintenance & Support
Inveneo has been happy to partner with ARM, USAID, Dr. Hosman, and ICTworks to conduct this research and release this White Paper. Read the full report here.
The infograph was created by Eric Zan. Check out his website at http://www.ericzan.info
- Posted by Jana Melpolder on May 13, 2014 in the categories: Publications
Recently United Methodist Communications (UMCom) asked Inveneo to test, rate, and recommend IT equipment suitable for the diverse environments that ICT4D practitioners work in. Inveneo staff conducted several tests on laptops, tablets, desktops, and monitors/projectors. During the testing stage, the engineers rated each piece of equipment in terms of battery life, power consumption, performance, and several other components.
To share the results and offer recommendations, the team published the “ShopUMC Product Evaluation Report” for UMCom’s audience and the larger ICT community.
The “ShopUMC Product Evaluation Report” was commissioned by UMCom. The equipment is available at the Shop UMC store.
- Posted by Jana Melpolder on April 2, 2014 in the categories: Publications
The refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya saw a population spike from 300,000 to over 500,000 after famine, drought, and civil war resulted in a humanitarian crisis. In order to serve Dadaab refugees, Inveneo and partners NetHope and USAID identified opportunities to bring better, more reliable Internet and interagency communications to the many humanitarian agencies working in Dadaab.
NetHope recently published a March 2014 DadaabNet Project Report to offer an extended list of the project’s results. Read the report here or find out more about Inveneo’s work within the project here.
The Dadaab Connect project was funded by Inveneo’s Broadband for Good Program, Cisco, Microsoft, NetHope, Craig Newmark, the Orr Family Foundation, UNHCR, and USAID’s Global Broadband Innovations Program.
- Posted by Inveneo on January 18, 2012 in the categories: News, Publications
The Inveneo Buyers Guide to Sustainable ICT Infrastructure in Low Resource Settings is intended to serve as a planning tool for deploying information and communications technologies (ICTs) in low resource settings – i.e., communities lacking basic support infrastructure, such as grid power and broadband connectivity, and where computer skills among users and facilities managers are often limited.
It highlights the most important considerations in the selection, design, deployment and support of general facilities, ICT tools and supporting power systems. We have intentionally not addressed the complicated issue of mobile computing devices, opting instead to focus on the challenges facing those planning to deploy and operate shared access computing facilities such as school computer labs, community knowledge centers (CKCs), process outsourcing facilities, etc.
The ICT Buyers Guide is divided into two sections. Part 1 covers the key factors to consider in selecting major infrastructure components, from buildings and facilities to computers, peripherals, software and connectivity. Part 2 discusses infrastructure support and logistical issues around deployment.
Because there are many topics to cover, and to keep this resource as short and accessible as possible, each section starts with a brief introduction, followed, where appropriate, by a simple bullet list of key points to consider.
We invite you to provide your feedback on this document and ideas for improving it via email at info@inveneo.org.
- Posted by Inveneo on June 28, 2011 in the categories: News, Publications
Many people believe that solar power is too expensive to use for powering computer installations in remote or rural areas that are without a connection to the AC grid. However, there have been two recent developments that have significantly lowered the cost of solar.
- The power consumption requirement of low-cost computers and peripherals has come down considerably.
- The cost of solar panels has dropped dramatically, with some panels selling in the US for as much at 70% less than typical 2008 prices.
If you are thinking about deploying computers in remote rural locations or in countries with erratic grid power, the cost of reliable, long-term, low-maintenance power has never been lower.
Inveneo Solar Power Deployment Guide
The Inveneo Solar Power Deployment Guide will show you how to specify, design and build your own small-scale self-contained solar power system. The guide’s purpose is not to make you a world-class expert on solar technology. Rather, we will take a “hands-on” approach, emphasizing a step-by-step method to designing and building truly practical solar systems.
As there are a large number of “tricks of the trade” involved when installing a solar system, we do not usually recommend a do-it-yourself approach for beginners. It is better to work with an experienced solar installer, especially if you have never worked with solar or other power systems before.
After reading this guide, you should be able to estimate the size, level of complexity and cost of small to medium- sized PC installations, and you will understand the basic theory and practice. This guide is focused on completely battery-operated PC and network installations. It does not discuss battery backup systems for generator- or AC- grid-powered locations.
More Information
If you would like to read a high-level summary on the viability and usefulness of solar power systems, you can refer to the Intel Corporation paper, “Solar Power for PC Deployments: Enabling ICT Beyond the Grid“. We have also developed a list of Solar Power Resources for Designing PV Systems in Rural Computer Projects
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