Computer mit Pedalantrieb

Jhai PC - A Computer for Most of the World What we are trying to do is give five remote villages, which have no electricity or phones, a means of communication and the use of simple business tools. Each village will have a Jhai computer connected in a network with the other villages that connects to the internet and to our high school-based Internet Learning Centers. These villagers can use these Jhai computers to communicate in the Lao language by E-Mail and by voice with each other and with others, for example, people who buy their products in Vientiane and our staff in the United States. The Jhai computers will also provide them with the opportunity to do simple business functions like writing documents and creating spreadsheets for budgetary and simple accounting purposes. The design team is headed by Lee Felsenstein assisted by Mark Summer. The software is LINUX-based and is being localized into the Lao language by Anousak Souphavanh and his team. The equipment consists of a 486-comparable computer with a keyboard, a roller ball, a LCD screen, and a dot matrix printer in each village. This equipment is hardened and we hope it lasts 10 years. The computer itself has no moving parts. The equipment will be powered by electricity stored in a car battery charged by "foot cranks" which are essentially bicycle wheels and pedals hooked to a small generator. The generator is connected to a car battery and the car battery is connected to the computer. Connection with each computer to the others will be by radio local area network (LAN). Each village will connect to one repeater station powered by a solar means on the ridge near the river valley. That station will then send the radio signal to the microwave tower nearby and eventually to a server in Vientiane that will connect the villages to the internet. Jhai Foundation will provide computer skills training for a group of lower secondary school students in each village. It is envisioned that the best of these students will run these computers as a business under the control of each village. Jhai Foundation with its local partners will also provide business training to these students and villagers who will act as these students` mentors. Our training commitment to the village will be as hands-off as possible. However, we expect to be available to the village for a minimum of one year. Jhai Foundation will also guarantee the functioning of the systems and will take responsibility for fixing them. This is a world pilot project. We expect to document it extensively. We see it as stage one of a project to link villagers in remote areas to each other and to people like us who are interested in Lao villagers` success in meeting their own and Lao PDR`s goals. We expect that Jhai Foundation and especially our Lao consultants will report on this experience to interested parties, first, in Lao PDR, and second, elsewhere. If this project works in Lao PDR, it is possible that other countries will want to follow the Laotian lead. Vorasone Dengkayaphicith leads our team in Laos. He hopes to install this system as early as September 15, 2002.

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