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Ask Slashdot: Setting Up a Computer Lab In a Developing Country 172

Posted by samzenpus from the a-little-advice dept.
First time accepted submitter levanjm writes "Hi all, I am looking for some advice. I am a mathematician at a small liberal arts school who has dabbled in Linux for a number of years. I have had the chance to teach a few courses and summer camps about Linux to college and high school students. Recently I made a trip to Guatemala and visited a school in Labor de Falla. While there I was talking with people associated with the school about how great it would be to be able to set up a computer lab for the kids. To make a long story short, I approached my school about finding a way to make this happen and to get my students involved in volunteering. I have received notification that my school has given me an in house grant to try to get this project rolling. They have also donated six computers to get things started. While I have been making plans in case the funding came through, I wanted to open this up to as many eyes as possible because I am sure there are plenty of concerns I have not considered. What are your thoughts on how to best implement the lab setting? I am a firm believer in the Open Source philosophy so proprietary software is not on my radar. The PC's donated are a little old (4 or so years old), but would run Edubuntu without any issues. I originally thought about how awesome a Raspberry Pi lab would be to set up. I am also wondering if there are any Kickstarter type of foundations that might be used to help solicit donations to purchase additional equipment and help cover costs of getting the equipment to the school. It would be amazing to get enough funding to give computers to the teachers in addition to a lab. I am sure there are other issues I have not even considered yet, so any thoughts you have to share would be wonderful."
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Ask Slashdot: Setting Up a Computer Lab In a Developing Country

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  • Need some more info. (Score:5, Informative)

    by alexander_686 ( 957440 ) on Monday March 25, 2013 @10:31AM (#43270583)

    What is the purpose of the lab? Since it is a high school I am going to shoot low and assume “keyboarding skills” and basic net access rather than programing or CI.

    What type of infrastructure does the school have? i.e. how good is the electricity and security?

    What type of support does the lab have? What skills do the teachers have.

    Answers these questions and I think you will have a much better idea of what you need.

    • Since this would be for educational use, and you'd like to use FOSS, Minix is the first thing that popped in my mind. It comes with a book that explains operating systems, and its most recent edition includes utilities from NetBSD that enable it to be reasonably useful. From what I recall, the Minix project was porting or has ported Minix to the Pi, so the combination would be awesome.

      So the kids could learn Minix, and each of the systems would be reasonably affordable, given the low resource requiremen

  • multiseat (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ssam ( 2723487 ) on Monday March 25, 2013 @10:34AM (#43270631)

    You might also want to look at a multi-seat setup. ie 1 reasonably spec'd computer, with several monitor+keyboard+mouse sets.

    Is electricity consumption an issue? A class full of pentium 4 computers is going to cost quite a bit in power. maybe enough to be worth paying for newer hardware instead.

  • Without knowing what those 4y/o machines are like, let me just suggest doing the math on shipping them down there and their ongoing power consumption, as well as checking into parts availability. It is possible that something like a briefcase full of PIs or similar be a better idea from an operating and implementation expense standpoint.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Where do the monitors for the RaspberryPis come from?

      I suspect the poster's school will foot the bill for shipping (he is getting grant money), and teaching them to use the most popular software in Guatamala business/government probably is more useful to them than learning Linux which teaches many skills that cna be mapped to Windows, if the employer decided to hire the Linux user instead of the experienced WIndows user and pay for their time learning another operating system/software suite.

  • Some things to think about (Score:5, Insightful)

    by arcite ( 661011 ) on Monday March 25, 2013 @10:45AM (#43270787)
    Getting the free computers (old computers at that) is the easy part.

    Making use of those computers is the difficult part.

    Where will the computers be stored? At the very least, they need to be in a secure room in the school, free from leaky roofs (especially during heavy rains), free of bugs (ants love computers!), and you'll need bars on the windows and a reinforced lockable door; Is there security at the school? What about electricity? Is a generator needed? Voltage stabilizers? Or will they be using solar panels and an inverter system? Who will be appointed to manage the computer room? Do they need training? Will there be internet access? How will that be paid for? You may be able to make a special deal with a local provider (large corps love to look good by giving back).

    Again, what will the computers be used for? Do you need specific software? If there is no specified curriculum, the kids will just be browsing porn and playing games (teachers too!) Or they'll be using them for private reasons.

    The key word here is sustainability. Its very easy to give a poor school some hand-me-down hardware, its much more difficult and challenging to turn it into something useful, sustainable, and create a place where children will actually learn something about information technology.

    • The key word here is sustainability. Its very easy to give a poor school some hand-me-down hardware, its much more difficult and challenging to turn it into something useful, sustainable, and create a place where children will actually learn something about information technology.

      Agree. I've seen people donate old perfectly functional laptops to people in the jungle here in Peru and they've gone completely unused because some minor problem occurred that was unsolvable by the owner, with no-one else around who had the first idea either. Then they have to find someone who has half a clue, and pay them to solve it. And then how are they going to identify someone with half a clue? You definitely need to find some bright kid who's going to be in charge of it all and will contact you with

    • To reduce reliance on connectivity, I suggest deploying games (especially multiplayer ones like OpenArena) and off-line educational content (e.g. RACHEL [worldpossible.org]) on the LAN.

      Developing countries tend to have poor connectivity, especially in rural areas. The only available option may be a data-capped SIM-based USB dongle, so I recommend deploying a low-power 3G router with battery backup and traffic shaping capabilities (e.g. ZyXEL MWR211 [amazon.com])

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      These things are basic, and some think a bit unnecessary because Guatemala is not a jungle a jungle backwater, but really these basics that we take for granted are important. Here is a major US city with sophisticated users I have seem computers destroyed by leaking roofs and windows, sit unused because someone wanted to play with the video cable or spilt water on the keyboard or case. I have seen students and teachers just us them to play games to the point they were so full of junk they could not be use

    • The best way to keep bugs out is to pull pantyhose over the computer (or glue it over any vents if it's a laptop) -- the mesh fabric keeps the little bastards out while allowing the air to circulate & heat to escape. I've learned that a similar approach with the cooling platform makes the fan last a lot longer in an environment that is prone to dust, animal/pet fur, and so forth.

  • Source of cheap/free computers (Score:5, Informative)

    by jalovick ( 173597 ) on Monday March 25, 2013 @10:54AM (#43270891) Homepage

    There is an organisation in Australia called Computer Bank that has been collecting and re-purposing computers for years. There are a number of international organisations that do similar things, some are listed here - http://www.computerbank.org.au/links [computerbank.org.au].

    You could also seek sponsorship from a hardware vendor such as Dell - http://www.dell.com/Learn/us/en/aucorp1/corp-comm/corporate-sponsorships [dell.com], or even Google.

    Since it needs to be shipped there, perhaps approach transport companies. Also, some technology recycling companies will supply equipment cheaply or free for the right cause.

    Some organisations require that a not-for-profit organisation be established before funds are allocated. You'll have to check your local laws.

  • Usability (Score:5, Insightful)

    by onyxruby ( 118189 ) <onyxruby&comcast,net> on Monday March 25, 2013 @10:59AM (#43270953)

    Your putting religion ahead of usability, and that's a mistake. The purpose of a lab is to educate your students, not indoctrinate them in your in your religious beliefs. What can your students use in their country with the skills they would develop and make a career out of? Can you make a career out of a Raspberry Pi, or is it more of a really cool toy?

    If your local country values Windows for employment more than that is what you should use, because that is what will help /them/ build a future. Microsoft has educational versions of their products available for next to nothing worldwide, so cost isn't an issue for Windows and Office.

    If your local country is all about Ubuntu than you use that because that is what is valued. The only way to know that is to talk your local business leaders and find out what /they/ value. Do they value someone that knows how to run a Windows computer and use Excel or do they all use LibreOffice? Leave your personal religion out of this and give your students what they need for their future.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Being in the middle of a volunteer project for a local school I have checked into those Microsoft "educational discounts" for "next to nothing" and it just is not so.
      Pricing for one domain controller and 10 clients was around $1500.

      Pretty wonderful "discounts."

      • Is it for a lab or is it for a production use? If it is for a lab, in the US with US pricing you can get 3 years of electronic software delivery + DVD for $1437. I quoted you the most expensive option by the way, it can easily go down to a $100 instead. I'm sure versions of this program outside the US would be even cheaper.

        https://www.dreamspark.com/institution/subscription.aspx [dreamspark.com]

        • It is GUATEMALA, not the United States. RTFA!

          • If your local country values Windows for employment more than that is what you should use, because that is what will help /them/ build a future. Microsoft has educational versions of their products available for next to nothing worldwide

            You did RTFC, right?

            • I was responding to " If it is for a lab, in the US with US pricing you can get 3 years of electronic software delivery + DVD for $1437. I quoted you the most expensive option by the way, it can easily go down to a $100 instead."

              Not the grandparent.

              In addition to that "If your local country values Windows for employment"- well, what many third world countries still value for employment is paper. If you don't have a reliable network, and your entire bureaucracy is based on paper, it's kind of hard to value

      • Re:Usability (Score:4, Informative)

        by kenh ( 9056 ) on Monday March 25, 2013 @01:10PM (#43272985) Homepage Journal

        Who said "set up an active directory network"? Why not run Linux on one desktop serving up Samba shares and using open-source AD replacements?

        You also looked in the wrong place - you should have looked at techsoup.org [techsoup.org] not MS educational discounts:

        Windows Server Standard 2012 [techsoup.org] is $53, Windows Server Datacenter 2012 (with unlimited rights to run any number of VMs on one server) [techsoup.org] is $288.

        CALs [techsoup.org] are $2/each.

        So I put the expense for a ten-user site at around $73.

        Of course, you could choose to run Windows Server 2012 Essentials [techsoup.org] - that includes 25 CALs and costs charities a grand total of $29.

        But hey, your quick search turned up numbers that confirmed your pre-disposed opinion, why look further?

    • The purpose of a lab is to educate your students, not indoctrinate them in your in your religious beliefs.

      Utter nonsense. Choosing to use free software in education is not a religious belief and it doesn't indoctrinate anyone. The reason for purging non-free software may be religious, but that's kind of irrelevant, no? In this case, however, it's not religious: free software should be the only option in education and science, since it can be studied. Non-free software cannot be studied, cannot be audited, and so is incapable of providing scientific results, since the methodology is voodoo.

      Even further, the OP

      • In this case, however, it's not religious: free software should be the only option in education and science.

        You have just perfectly described religion when it comes to software. Perhaps you have English as a second language? Religion is when your chosen option is the only thing you will consider.

        Onto your example of mathematics, I'm going to introduce you to a program called Mathematica. I believe a five second Google search will quickly show it's use in academia one of the world's leading academic programs

        • You have just perfectly described religion when it comes to software.

          No, I described the scientific method. If you want to call it religion, go ahead, I won't argue with you over semantics.

          Please address this comment: non-free software cannot be studied, cannot be audited, and so is incapable of providing scientific results, as long as it makes even a part of methodology unknowable and unverifiable.

          Here's an example of a valid scientific study: (1) collect data (2) apply a specific, known algorithm to process data (2) draw a pretty scatter-plot based on the processed dat

          • Your going to have to argue with the countless studies that are done every year worldwide using Mathematica. Once you've convinced the academic community that their research is invalid because they used Mathematica you can come back to the table on this one.

            For the meanwhile I have large numbers of academics that use it for research papers every single day. Mathematica is perfectly cable of presenting all work and creating reproducible work, it would never have been acceptable as the standard it is if it wa

    • It's Guatemala. They prefer paper, currently. There is a reason why we don't have 30 minute or less service processing visa requests from there.

    • If your local country values Windows for employment more than that is what you should use, because that is what will help /them/ build a future. Microsoft has educational versions of their products available for next to nothing worldwide, so cost isn't an issue for Windows and Office.

      There are an endless list of questions that aren't being addressed here.

      This is just a tiny sampling:

      However, a closer look at the data reveals a deep and ongoing disparity between the educational achievement and opportunities available for urban children of ladino descent as compared to children of Mayan descent living in the rural areas. In addition, that disparity is amplified when comparing the education of boys and girls across all ethnic and socioeconomic factors.,

      The current state of education in Guatemala, while improving, still remains significantly underfunded and it is estimated that less than 15% of all classrooms nationwide meet minimum standards for classroom space, teaching materials, classroom equipment and furniture, and water/sanitation. In the rural villages of Guatemala, that percentage drops to 0%.

      Another factor contributing to the low quality of teaching is the lack of resources to teach a unified curriculum. The Guatemalan Ministry of Education has developed a K-12 curriculum (in Spanish) which can be downloaded (but not easily since it is in many sections) from their website. However, in our conversations with teachers in the rural schools, they had no access to that curriculum, nor had they been provided with curriculum guides or teaching materials to actually teach the curriculum in their classrooms.

      The Reality: In many of the villages we work with there is agreement that the students are expected to learn to be virtuous and moral, but emphasis on academic learning is clearly secondary. In addition, there is the widespread belief that some students are just ''slow'' and will never be successful academically.

      The Reality: Most parents in the rural villages are either illiterate or with extremely limited education. They do want the schools to provide instruction in ''moral'' behavior and understand the value of having some math and reading skills. However, because of their marginal economic situation, they also begin to have their children work with them in the fields or in the markets as soon as the children are capable of making a contribution in those areas. There also continues to be a bias in many of the rural communities against girls continuing their education to higher levels. However, some teachers are reporting that they are seeing generational shift in parent attitudes towards school, with younger parents taking a more active role in their child's education.

      Education in Guatemala [avivara.org]

      The site includes links to the Guatemalan National Curriculum. [PDF files in Spanish]

  • I don't know how many children will be in the lab at once, but looks like you already have everything you need.
    You have 6 computers with Ubuntu (4 yrs old is still pretty decent), you just need more computers to accommodate more children if necessary.

    I recently refurbished a 3-4 yr old Acer Aspire One Netbook (crappy 1,6 ghz, crappy video-card and only 1 GB ram). Bought an SSD, installed latest Ubuntu (12.10) and it works like a charm.
    My plan was using it for general usage and some programming (Java (Ec

  • have you tried asking them ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by obarthelemy ( 160321 ) on Monday March 25, 2013 @11:01AM (#43270971)

    Getting locals onboard is the most important thing. Dropping a bunch of PCs and running away is the easy part. You need someone local to take care of them, and someone (else ?) to teach on/with them.

    Depending on the goal, PCs are probably a bad idea: transport alone costs you more than buying a bunch of $40 Android USB keys, let alone power and security issues. Android keys are OK for Internet stuff, even light Office work. Some can even take Ubuntu, if you want to force your philosophy at the cost of practicality. You'll need HDMI screens and keyboard+mouse.

    In many cases, tablets will actually turn out cheaper, taking the screen into account. OLPC for edu cred, or any sufficiently solid chinese one.

    In any case, you should ask the users. Depending on their setting, their goals, their expectations and constraints, whatever you get told on Slahsdot can be way off the mark and utterly wasteful of time and money.

    • I can see 5 possibilities just off the top of my head:

      1. High-powered server, thin clients. Advantage: in power-unstable environments, a single UPS can handle the server and the overall power requirements might be lower. Disadvantage: single point of failure. Thin clients aren't always as cheap as they might be.

      2. Cast-offs. Advantage: it's better than scrapping them. Disadvantage: depending on where they come from, you may end up with a mish-mash of unique hardware, and they probably won't be as power-effi

  • I was thinking about this- in the long term, you really want to encourage people to play around with things rather than run a static collection of applications. If people want to just browse the net and search, Raspberry Pi is a poor choice, but for learning about programming- the Raspberry Pi is great because if things get messed up, just flash a card with the reference image- system is re-imaged. Cards are cheap enough that you could hand them out to people and they would end up keeping their entire setup

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      I was thinking about this- in the long term, you really want to encourage people to play around with things rather than run a static collection of applications.

      Unless, of course, you are trying to convince a student that hopes to get a nice job in an office in the big city, where everybody runs Windows and never heard of "RaspberryPi" - the interview likely won't last long enough to give the applicant time to argue that they understand the basics, and that their skills are mappable to those needed for Windo

      • The Raspberry Pi will not replace a regular Windows machine- but I find it hard to think of any easier way to have something that also allows the user to have the freedom to poke around, modify files, even destroy the filesystem, and the system can be restored in a few minutes. SD cards are cheap enough that part of the lab setup costs could include a huge number of cards that each user could take their setup with them in their pocket.

  • The PC's donated are a little old (4 or so years old),

    I know we all remember the 90's with the incredible hardware increases, but I'm typing on a six year old computer, and we have a few eight year old computers in service at work. Four years old is nothing these days. Those computers will run more than just edubuntu, even if they're bargain basement. The only thing I'd consider replacing would be the HDDs (they likely won't last more than three more years).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Four years old is a Core 2 Duo OR a first-generation i3/5/7 computer.

      Four years ago is 2008, and I bet his university didn't buy bottom of the barrel configurations - few schools do.

      • Exactly my point. It used to be computers one year old were hopelessly out of date. Nowadays, a four year old machine just lacks two extra cores and has half the RAM. Hardly crippling.

  • Off the top of my head you will need the following basics:

    1. Computers (desktop boxes, laptops, etc.)
    2. Displays (they don't necessarily come with donated desktop boxes)
    3. Cables (Power, video, network)
    4. Printer with LINUX/UNIX drivers (preferably networked)
    5. Network devices (switch, router, WiFi)
    6. External USB storage device (i.e. for backing things up, moving files)
    7. Media (i.e. CD or DVD, will have to match drives in computers)
    8. UPS/surge protectors (If power sucks, you'll need UPS)

    Check into whethe

  • The don't do tech much, preferring clean water initiatives, but they are into education as well. Many large clubs are looking for international projects, and yours may be eager to help out in both funding and manpower.
     

  • Now here come the 'buts' from the cynical old guys. (I've had more or less happy experiences around the world, in both private and public sector).
    There's already been a few good posts along these lines.

    1. Dump the old crap that people 'generously' donated to you. It'll be big and expensive to ship, and not robust even if it gets there without being broken or stolen.
    2. What's the need / use case(s) your devices should satisfy? This should condition your hw & sw selection more than availability (donate

  • Get some cheap PC's or thin clients and use one of the Educational based LTSP distros and call it all done. Management is brain dead easy and dead hardware = 5 minutes swapping out the Thin client.

  • More than 10 years ago, in South Africa, there was a noble and concerted effort by the open source comunity to expose computing to children in under-developed schools. Ubuntu, with its strong connection to South Africa through Mark Shuttleworth, was at the forefront of this effort. I was one of those in the vanguard and was convinced that the open source approach would give all participants a better grounding and understanding of computing. Then Microsoft made its Windows and Office software licenses ava

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Undeniably, Windows is the de-facto desktop standard in the business world.

      And non-business world as well.

      What little prior exposure eiher teachers or students might have had, it was almost certainly with Windows. Windows skills were generally more useful than Linux skills in a non-technical job market; for those whose future employment prospects are limited the choice is clear.

      Guatamala isn't a clear field, unpolluted by "Big Software" like MIcrosoft - teach the kids to excel in the Guatamalan job market a

  • Been there done that (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25, 2013 @11:35AM (#43271395)

    I lived in the Marshall Islands for over 7 years and was tasked with a project not unlike yours. Here are some of the issues I confronted.

    1. Climate control. Spend part of your budget on a good window a/c unit. The tropical moisture will wreak havoc with your lab.

    2. Use local talent. Within a day of starting your project there invariably will be a local who starts hanging around asking questions and wanting to know more. I had 2 Marshallese students who found what I was doing very interesting so I started teaching them the basics of networking and basic computer repair. They caught on very fast and when I left they were able to take over the entire network we had built and keep it maintained. Local talent also will win you over with other key local decision makers. Locals want locals to sustain projects, not an endless parade of expats.

    3. Determine your usage requirements. Do you have internet? How fast and reliable is the connection? Will you be teaching classes? What kind of classes? The computer labs we built started out with no internet access as there was none on the island. We were still able to teach word processing and spreadsheet classes(you may want to think word and excel here because more than likely that is what your local government uses). Eventually we were able to get limited internet access through a partnership with the university of Hawaii. The connection however was only 56k and was bounced off an old GOES satellite(GOES 7 to be specific). Because these GOES satellites were in a figure 8 orbit, the 3m dish required constant realignment. This meant that community access to the internet had to be at very specific times and eventually we went with a white-list of sites that would fit the needs of most of our users. This meant we could share 56k across 20 computers without worrying about porn and games. Slow but it worked and the community love it.

    4. Have a good maintenance plan. Stuff just breaks more in the tropics and getting new parts can be difficult and time consuming. Keep a few extra network cards and hard drives around. Make sure the lab is cleaned and dusted regularly. Bug bomb as well. Cock roaches love computers. Try and keep your computer hardware as consistent as possible. This allows you to setup software images that make recovery much easier.

    5. Have a detailed usage policy. If someone wants to save a copy of a letter to a relative in another country, how do they save it? Where do they save it? You will be very surprised how quickly the desktop and other directories start filling up with stuff from your users. Keeping a consistent and universal interface that is uncluttered for your users makes teaching SOOOOO much easier.

    Finally, remember that you won't be there forever (although you have probably met a few expats who were like you but never left) and that someone will have to take over what you leave behind. Sustainability, in my experience, was the most difficult challenge of any project. I have seen brand new office buildings built by grants from other countries literally crumble into to disrepair within in 3 years because no one knew what to do after the building was completed.

    Finding eager local talent to take over will ensure the hard work you are putting into this project will last long after you are gone.

    I am very jealous of your opportunity. Good luck!

  • A project I know about (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mattr ( 78516 ) <mattr&telebody,com> on Monday March 25, 2013 @11:45AM (#43271551) Homepage Journal

    I know nothing about Guatemala except that my best friend in college lived there and he introduced me to masa which is delicious. Wouldn't surprise me if Guatemalan food is a really healthy alternative to ordinary Western cuisine, I wonder if they grow that non-sweet corn in the U.S.? (google guatemala masa). See below some of this may not be useful since it seems you are not so much in the boondocks.

    I have a friend who did this in Cambodia. I remember he got Apple to donate computers (this is one reason why not using open source hardware may have a good point, it counts as CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) for a manufacturer to do so). It was for an orphanage he created, and the idea was to educate the next generation of leaders. Also he started a newspaper, probably also had Macs I forget.This was over a decade ago. Point being, they had to hire two armed guards so things wouldn't be stolen and I believe one guard was killed. FYI.

    Getting locals who will carry it on, and talking to (global) missionary group as other posters mentioned are good ideas. I believe Hope Worldwide was a group he worked with for this charity.

    Using open source may be cheaper and may help jump start an industry even if you had a university (need to connect them to the Net possibly) and local people who are enthusiastic.

    You may be able to get the World Bank to help you, I know they did a dollar matching program for building rural schools (villageleap) of which hundreds were built.

    Power and telecommunications may be a big issue. I'm sorry I don't have data for you but you know it is not first world. Maybe there are no phones and power? I remember one original idea was to have a networked school be a hub for the community, don't know how it worked in the end but I do know one thing they did was have a wifi equipped motorbike travel among rural schools and pick up messages. Useful for medical care.. Also the geography etc. makes you wonder about can you get a line of site to an access point, can you get wind power, etc. Of course the top priority for a community might not be computer education. Maybe power to cleanse drinking water, or communications to notify a doctor they need to get a helicopter somewhere. Getting X-rays sent to a specialist hospital was one thing we did but you don't need that.

    On the other hand if it is the Labor de Falla that is 17 nautical miles from Santiago, then it is just a suburb not in the boondocks over the horizon from wifi. Possibly you could even get support from some place like Microsoft or IBM, if you say you are going to start training locals in computer science from a young age. Apparently Google discovered a mother load of such talent in Viet Nam just the other day (on /. today). Maybe that is your goal.

    Anyway, figure out what your goal is, and don't spend all your time on the technical side. The key to making these kind of projects happen is getting the parts together, putting your own time in to monitoring it daily with someone on the ground, and being extremely tenacious and single-minded about getting this goal achieved. But you need to listen to people there and if there is no enthusiasm or problems maybe you need to ask what they want. There probably are a lot of smart people within 1 hour of your Guatemala location and not clear that they even need you. So I would focus on fund raising, enabling it, setting a mission and making sure it happens.

    Just my 0.02, I clearly know nothing about the area. Best to be sure you accept there may be things you also don't know about it, and try to set smaller achievable goals for yourself. Maybe you can get a manufacturer to get you new equipment for free, that would be best. Imagine you are the student there. As for linux, yeah it would be nice but depending on the age group if they need to get a job in the city will it really help them? If you can make a success maybe you can then scale it up and make that part of your timeline for phase II.

  • Local Equipment, Usable Skills (Score:3)

    by CambodiaSam ( 1153015 ) on Monday March 25, 2013 @11:48AM (#43271591)
    I've been setting up and teaching computer skills part-time in northwestern Cambodia for about 8 years now.

    Getting equipment to a remote location is an expensive and perilous task. Damage, theft, bribes, delays, fees, more bribes, and unforeseen problems will cause you more headaches than you can imagine. I buy my equipment locally from a seller I have built up a relationship with. Because I'm a repeat customer, he goes out of his way to make sure the computers keep running when I'm not there, which is most of the year.

    Because Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world, the idea of spending $300 on a copy of Microsoft Office is unthinkable. That's enough to run a small household for a couple months. You can install open source alternatives if you like, but it might not be a necessity since the machines are chock full of apps.

    Getting the lab running is frankly the easy part. Your lesson plan needs to take precedence. Teach skills that are commercially viable in the country, inspire them to learn more, and give a solid foundation of basic skills. I have former students that can directly tie their lessons to helping them find jobs later on. They then take these skills and teach others, which creates a virtuous cycle. Good luck!
  • Note to the editor: Please learn how to actually post "Ask Slashdot" questions to the "Ask Slashdot" section. Just sticking the words in the title doesn't make it so.
    Thanks.
  • I am in good relations with a a German refurbisher. I can get a decent refurbished ( 4-core Xeon ) server, prolly a Fujitsu Siemens, for a very decent price, around € 300. In case you need a server to go with the lab's infrastructure, I'll finance one up to € 150. The other half will have to come from funding you find, or from Slashdotters. How's that ?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      And shipping from Germany to Guatamala will be "affordable"?

      I believe he may be able to find a few similar servers a little closer to Guatamala...

      • In principle, you are right. Yet - the German refurbisher might be talked into sponsoring the shipping, which is not going to cost in the hundreds of euros / dollars, either.

  • Who is going to support it when you leave? (Score:3)

    by Marrow ( 195242 ) on Monday March 25, 2013 @12:30PM (#43272355)

    I would concentrate some effort on making sure that no matter what happens, they have a clear path to "putting it back together".
    Grub boot option to "reprint" the individual machines: clonezilla backups. If these machines are going to be used and then reprinted,
    you might want to look into a grub partition that can clonezilla reprint the machine at boot time. Are they going to be able to save
    their work ? Print? They should be able to print so they can prove to someone they did the work.

  • IMHO: RPi's have a steep start up cost of a low-end machine if you include case, power supply, and cables.

    If buying all that doesn't scare you maybe look at a Hackenberry [miniand.com] instead. It run MANY more OS'es and much more software and has more CPU under the hood. Or if you want something with a basic case, built in OS that can changed, some extra flash crive space and a power supply try the APC Paper [apc.io]. Finally there the Android Stick/Android Media Center. They're like the APC but with less IO and plug direc

  • First thing: do NOT just teach keyboarding. My son, when he was in a really lousy high school in Chicago in the late nineties, had what the school claimed was a "computer course"; as a degreed professional, with over 30 years experience, I'd get on a witness stand and swear it was *NOT*, it was a commercial typing class, as they used to call it.

    You can do better.

    Around the same time, two of my daughers were in a school in a tiny town in VA, and got basic d/b and coding (I think the latter was optional), and

  • I've done this (Score:3)

    by Error27 ( 100234 ) <error27 AT gmail DOT com> on Monday March 25, 2013 @01:55PM (#43273647) Homepage Journal

    I set up a computer lab in Uganda 3-4 years ago.

    We bought second hand computers locally. They came with 256 MB of RAM and we upgraded them to 512. It was good enough to run Gimp and Firefox. That's what most of the internet cafes do too.

    The computers were networked so we set up apt-cacher on the teacher's computer. The other software tip is that you will want to be able to block high traffic websites because internet access is so expensive and bad.

    One thing which you might want to think about is if you'll have to pay tax bringing computers into the country. Uganda allows computers to be imported duty free. But for a while Uganda started banning people from bringing used computers into the country.

    My sister-in-law's NGO is setting up a computer lab as well. They are bringing laptops from the US. Laptops are good because they have a battery built in so power fluctuations aren't such a big deal. The problem with laptops is that they can be stolen easily.

    If you're bringing stuff from the US then bring a bunch of cheap USB keys for the kids. They will be very expensive locally.

  • I did something somewhat similar in Nicaragua in 2001. Built a SUSE 7.1 machine that had previously been running Win95. I had one hell of a time of it, too. Good memories. I wrote about it at http://therandymon.com/content/view/68/98/ [therandymon.com]

    Annoyingly, even poorer countries are increasingly uninterested in repurposing old machines these days. They want donors to provide - through NGO projects, etc. - new hardware running whatever is the latest. Not an easy sell.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cowdung ( 702933 )

      Having lived in Latin America most of my life.. I can say that computers are not necessarily the problem. Finding the right teachers or teaching the teachers to take advantage of the computers is the bigger issue.

      If you go to some school and setup a lab for them.. in a few years they won't work because there is nobody to maintain the lab. The much bigger cost is training personnel or coming up with a useful vision for computer use. Also, setting up Internet access can be a challenge because it requires payi

  • Identify the core aims and objectives for the lab. What do you hope to achieve? How do you hope to achieve it? Your stakeholders will need to be cool with this, not least your funders and users. Everything follows on from this.

    Identify the resources available. This is not just the hardware. You're going to need a room to house that lab. Electricity. Network? Internet access? Appropriately skilled staffing (likely volunteers). If you are not going to be regularly involved and on-site you may need a local to

  • Familiar like my job all the time, every day. It sounds like you are doing something similar to what I have done with the high school I work for in schools and orphanages in our local state, Nicaragua, Mexico, South Africa and (soonlike in a few weeks) the Caribbean.

    While it’s impossible to speak to any specific instance, here are a few things to keep in mind:

    1. Power: Do you have electricity etc that can support the lab? If not, is there a way to get it with little cost or no cost. Is the local po

  • The internet isn't necessary to teach typing & office skills on Libre-Office. Wikipedia has books you can copy to disk & bring there for CS & more. If you're without internet access, that may turn your lab into a "library" lab.
    I'd bring some hack-friendly environment or lib with references & examples, like:
    - PyGame
    - GameJS
    - Electronics hacking (Raspberry PI).

  • Based on my experience doing very similar projects across China, my advice is to approach the many foreign firms doing business in your target country. Ask them for donations of hardware, expertise and / or cash.

    We receive around 1,100 used laptops per year from the Fortune 500 companies doing business in China as well as thousands of volunteer hours (and occasionally cash). We send out emails twice a year and arrange collection of donated hardware.

    I also agree that "teaching the teachers" should be the f

  • You should talk with Brian Berry from OLE Nepal. Heard the interesting FLOSS #66 podcast and he seemed experienced.

    Src : http://wiki.twit.tv/wiki/FLOSS_Weekly_66 [wiki.twit.tv]

    What's the environment like?
    I personally worked in a lab in Darfur (Sudan); not related to the above, and used off-the shelf equipment (I had a Dell ruggedized laptop but used a normal Acer day-to-day). We had to be mobile in case of riots.

    Filters for fan/ventilation intake. UPS and shock protection between generated power and sensitive equipment. C

  • I recently returned from 2+ years volunteering in tropical Bolivia (see our blog here http://bo.teeks99.com/ [teeks99.com] ), doing a lot of what you are looking for. Right off the bat, you need to know it isn't going to be as easy as you think it will right now.

    Important Issues

    1. Shipping - The cost to ship a single 3-year old computer to a developing nation (don't forget import duties!) will probably be more than just buying a comperable computer in-country. Even though there aren't a lot of people with money in bolivi

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