Project Title:
Jhai Remote IT Village

Jhai PC and communication system addresses specific villager-stated needs

Ref No: 0202A4_L82

Synthesis

To meet the express needs of villagers in the Hin Heup District of Lao PDR, Jhai Foundation has designed and is implementing a network of sustainable wireless IT Centers. Off-the-shelf components are integrated to create a rugged computer with low power-requirements, linked to the Internet via high-bandwidth, low-cost wireless (802.11b specification). The interface is a graphical Linux desktop (KDE) offering essential tools that we have localized into the Lao language.

People in five remote villages will use the Jhai IT Centers to access telephone services (voice-over-Internet and LAN-based telephony, as well as wireless access to land-based Lao telephone lines), the Internet, and business planning and management tools. Villagers have stated that they will use these tools to: establish a valley-wide local market, build businesses supplying the market towns of Hin Heup, Phon Hong, and Vientiane, and communicate with family members and business associates in Laos and overseas.

Centers will be staffed by "youth IT entrepreneurs" employed by the village governments. Project management and support will be provided by Jhai's experienced Lao personnel. Project evaluation, using instruments adapted from IDRC's Acacia Project, will be performed by a Lao consultant.

The Jhai IT Centers and innovative 802.11b wireless network will enable villagers in the Hin Heup District to communicate inexpensively with Lao people throughout the world and improve the operations and sustainability of their small-hold farms and other businesses. The Jhai IT Centers also have the potential to serve as a model for rural access, scalable within Lao PDR and replicable in other remote and impoverished areas in Asia and the world. The impact of the first stage of development has been huge with interest from people throughout the third world and throughout the development community. IDRC's support has been critical in developing the system, testing it, and beginning the implementation phase in one village.

Research Problem

The remote village IT project is not a typical academic exercise. It is an action research and development project. The problem we are addressing has these elements:

Villagers in Phon Kham village and associated villages want:

1. A means to communicate with their relatives and associates overseas for trade and family reasons.
2. A means to communicate with their relatives and associates in Laos for trade family reasons.
3. A way to give their children basic computer skills.
4. A way to get information and develop proposals and reports for small business and community projects.

These villages have no electricity, phones, or cell phone connectivity. No one in these villagers speaks English well. The average income is about $250/capita/year. The roads wash out about four months a year. They derive most of their income from rice and some from crafts. They wish to keep their way of life and get more income in order to keep more of their children 'on the farm'.

They want their tools for these purposes to be sustainable economically.

Research Findings

Given these needs, we have designed a system that is meant to last 10 years in order to meet the sustainability concerns of villagers. It is powered alternatively using a bicycle foot-crank in the villages and solar at the relay point. It uses WiFi to meet the conditions in which these rural poor people live. We have designed and are working with villagers to implement a system that meets all needs articulated and takes firmly into account the exact limitations on communications and business functions these long-time friends live with.

We have shown that people in remote villages off the telephone and electrical grid can communicate by 'phone' within their own country and overseas and can do simple business functions in their own language using the Jhai PC and communications system.

This has huge consequences, we expect, for the economic well being of the people in the villages and perhaps elsewhere. That research waits further funding.

At this date we have not installed the system permanently in Laos. We have been stopped by a local Lao government official. Negotiations are ongoing.

Fulfillment of Objectives

To test the functionality of low-cost, high-bandwidth 802.11b wireless hardware and connectivity in the extreme environment of rural Lao PDR

Successful completed in January 2003.

To develop and test a computer and peripherals with low power requirements and that can be easily assembled from rugged, off-the-shelf components and installed.

Successfully completed in February 2003 with upgrades now being considered, including replacement of the 486-equivalent CPU and 64mb RAM board with a Pentium-equivalent CPU and 512mb DRAM board for the village PC only. Another hardware revision will be needed on the server, replacing the linejack card with one that will handle five phone lines, we believe.

To support the localization for the Lao alphabet and language of an open-source, Linux-based operating system, graphical desktop, and key productivity tools

Completed in February 2003 with slight revision in May 2003. Used KDE, called LaoNux when localized into the Lao language.

To assess the impact of access to voice-over-I.P. telephony, email, the Internet, and productivity software on economic development in rural Lao PDR

In process. We are blocked currently from installing and we need funding for the anthropological study of this technology.

To provide villagers in Ban Phon Kham and related villages with ICT capabilities, plus proven micro-enterprise training and support, to increase their ability to communicate and to achieve sustainable livelihoods

In process. Some work has been done on this and is documented on video. We have also done a baseline study. However, we are blocked currently from installing the equipment in the first village. We are staging the delivery of the technology. We are placing the village PC and pe

To create in for five remote, economically related villages a sustainable and easy-to-use ICT resource that can support future efforts in micro-enterprise and commerce, health care, sustainable and organic agriculture, civic participation, and other activities undertaken by villagers themselves

In process. See above and below.

Project design and implementation

The IDRC grant helped us launch this R&D project and gather more support from other granting agencies and individuals.

• We assembled the first prototypes starting in June 2002, but getting fully underway with your help in November 2002.
• We set up and tested the network between a server, the relay, and a village PC in Phon Kham using laptops under Windows in January 2003. The test was successful in all regards.
• LaoNux was under development from June 2002 until May 2003, although we had a useable version in February 2003.
• The prototype Jhai PCs were built and programmed with a boot, a kernel, and LaoNux (localized KDE into Lao language, KDE is a MS Office equivalent) under Debian LiNux initially for a Laotian launch in February 2003. That launch did not take place, due to a crash in two development hard drives in Vientiane, due to unknown causes, which disallowed completion of some software. We tested one bicycle/generator at that time. It worked, but not well.
• The prototype Jhai PCs were returned to San Francisco in February 2003 for further modification and programming. They returned once again to Laos in May 2003 after undergoing tests that proved the functions worked (with the exception of incoming local calls) in a parking lot in Crocker Amazon Park in San Francisco.
• The prototype Jhai PCs returned to Laos in May 2003, and were proven to work in all essential regards in Vientiane Province (but not totally onsite), on May 22. On May 23 we were blocked by the Lao military from re-installing the relay PC on the hill, which is on a Lao Army base. This delay was caused by a local education ministry official. We received a new bicycle/generator from India.
• We received in May 2003 a grant from Soros/World Bank IDEAS fund with a first payment of $25,000 of a $50,000 grant. In February 2003 we did an internet campaign, initiated by volunteer, Lee Felsenstein, which brought us over $27,000, including two family fund donations. In July 2003 we received a grant of $15,000 from the Haughton Family Fund for this work. The rest of our funding to date came from general support donors to Jhai Foundation.
• The PCs are now in San Francisco. The PCs are networked via WiFi. They are being tested and are being evaluated for upgrades. We expect to build the other four PCs this fall. We hope to demonstrate the system in Silicon Valley in early fall, relaunch the system in Laos in the fall, and launch a five village system in the winter, pending volunteer help, funding, and the cooperation of the Lao government. If the Lao government chooses not to cooperate with us in the relaunch, we will rethink our target communities and go forward.

Project outputs and dissemination

We are not documenting our system thoroughly. Our information is shared on our website and through frequent updates that go to over 2000 people worldwide and from there on many websites, discussion groups and blogs. We counted 300 and in February and stopped counting. We have presented at three conferences and expect to present in Switzerland in December and in Italy in February.

We have created new open-source software specific to new open design hardware. The dissemination of these aspects will happen in detail after we have finished the first phase of the R&D process.

We have cooperating in the training of intern/engineers in Stockholm. We have demonstrated our machines to engineers and funders from all over the world. We have had the help of over 50 highly experienced IT hardware engineers and software development specialists from around the world,

This project, especially writing and compiling reports like thisJ, has forced us to take the next step in terms of all our administrative systems. This is of great advantage to us as we grow.

This project is focused on women and youth. The first trainees onsite were 14 year old girls, the most active US managers of this project to date have been women and we believe the key users will be women making free calls to other women in other villages that will ultimately result in greatly increased economic activity. On the other hand, almost all the techies and almost half the staff in Laos are men. The anthropological study of this project will be quite enlightening, we think, once funded.

Capacity building

1. Institutional reinforcement and sustainability

We expect this work will be perhaps the keystone for our foundation for the next five years in terms of activity, funding and dissemination. But the key to our work is our method. We know very well the people we work with in Laos. Our staff is all Lao in Laos. We work on what we call the 'reconciliation' method, that is, we focus on relationships and how to grow them. We expect to keep this focus and disseminate the roots of it. However, we are concerned that the interplay with demand for products and services related to this project will change us. We will fight that, because our method is our key strength. The cost over-runs of this project, fairly typical for hardware and software development and inevitable given our lack of funding and size, has actually produced a situation, now, where we have to lay off staff and I am working for free. We hope that will change in October with a grant from World Links/World Bank/Japan Fund. So this project is dangerous for us in some ways because it involves such high risks in unknowable total expenses and the "Murphy's Law squared" we have experienced with such a complex, first-time-ever project. On the other hand, we know we can make a difference and that the compassion that is at the root of this project strengthens us as people. It is a mixed bag.

2. Increased skills
We are improving our administrative skills and those of us that have not worked on a research and development project of this scope are learning great lessons under the tutelage of Lee Felsenstein, Bob Marsh, and Stan Osborne.

3. Capacity building for women and marginalized social groups

We work with the rural poor. In each step we take we invest in the economic development of this group. We are training illiterate people, by and large, in the ways of the world on the other side of the Digital Divide and how they might use them. Our staff in Laos is largely from poor families - and all families in Laos are war survivors. At the same time, two out of three of the US IT R&D's group's managers have been women. Input from women at every stage of research and development of this project have been central: a/the planning process was greatly influenced and more often than not led by leaders of the Women Association in villages; b/the software development manager and the over-all manager of the development of the first prototypes were women until June 2003; c/documentation and software planning has been managed by a woman since June 2003; d/the key economic activities impacted by this system (with the exception of rice cultivation) are done and led by women.

Project management

Administration of the research and development is done by Vorasone Dengkayaphichith (Laos) and Lee Thorn (US), but is the responsibility of Lee Thorn. With the exception of running out of funding, we have one well. We have been able to keep up with the over 100 volunteers that have worked at one time or another on this project and the 25 short-term, paid people that have done some work for us in Laos on this project. We have also dealt with outside scientists and journalists quite well. We have not managed R&D before, so we are learning as we go in some ways.

Scientific management of the project has been done by Lee Felsenstein. State-of-the-art research was done by Steve Cisler, among others. Our project is well-grounded technically, but we need help on the anthropological side. That work has been unfunded and mostly undone.

Technical management has been done by Elaine Sweeney, Bob Marsh, Andrea Longhan, and Karen Gray. It is very difficult to manage brilliant, expert techies when you are paying them. When you are not, it is even more difficult. With volunteers the difficulty is that most are looking for jobs and, at this level, often find them. We have had no money to pay any of these people or the people they have wrangled. These folks have done an admirable job, especially since in many cases people have been spread across four continents.

Impact

Our project has been lucky to have both a huge reach and huge initial impact among IT specialists and the worldwide development community. We have literally been featured on hundreds of news media outlets, including both popular and professional press in nearly every country in the world. We have also been featured on hundreds of websites, discussion groups and blogs. We have been contacted by people in over 40 countries for cooperation, information, and research and have responded to all. The reach of this project, considering how early in R&D we are, is historic. Our impact is more difficult to judge. We know that development people on every continent are waiting for us to succeed and many will want to cooperate with us when we do. What is most gratifying, however, is email we get from potential end-users in places like Bangladesh, American Indian reservations, Peru, and Zimbabwe. These people immediately see the utility of our products to their situations in varying ways from poverty-alleviation to economic development to connecting the Diasporas, to human rights. I would say the expectation of impact is huge, but others - and we - are waiting to see the results of our finished first stage, much of which is still not funded.

Overall Assessment

Considering funding levels, our value is quite great, I should think. From the viewpoint of our values and other people's consideration of our project's importance, we are succeeding in a time-, effort-, and cost-effective way. From the viewpoint of 'fun', a greatly over-looked measure, we are definitely having a great time. When one of us climbs the tree - always with great trepidation, the rest of us applaud and laugh. When we succeeded in demonstrating the system in the park's parking lot, I felt like a kid again, a teenager, working with his friends on a toy that we all loved.

We are giving hope to people that otherwise have little to hope for. Most people in rural areas understand the importance of communications to economic activity. They want to cut out middlemen. Our project gives them a fairly cheap way to do that, once proven. It does more, but this is a great start.

We are also plowing new ground in the efforts to overcome the Digital Divide. We are groundbreaking in a number of ways:

• We use the reconciliation model of development. We focus on relationships and how to improve them. We start with the relationship of co-founders Bounthanh Phommasathit, who survived intense American bombing In Laos, and Lee Thorn, who worked as a bomb loader. We want only development that flows from reconciliation. That is, we want to help people at the grassroots develop their communities and economy, but only on their own terms as clearly expressed in their visions for their children and themselves. We want to create and nurture friendship. We want to help our friends help themselves. We bring our whole selves to the table, including our resources, networks, skills, educations, experience, and even our disabilities and limitations. We are willing to mourn and we are happy to celebrate.
• Jhai Foundation work in Laos is done under the direction of Laotians.
• We ask people exactly what they want and listen carefully. By doing this and by designing directly to their expressed needs and by being extremely vigilant about 'scope creep', we are creating a product with great utility.
• We are designing for people in very, very difficult conditions. If it works for them, it works for many.
• Our design included a proviso that things should last 10 years. That is because replacement of current equipment needs to be taken into account when determining sustainability. This is a simple lesson from business. As a consequence, our equipment will be affordable for villages almost anywhere in the world, we believe. This does not mean people will keep this equipment for 10 years. It just means it is designed to last 10 years. If they choose to change components before 10 years, that is up to them and their pocketbooks.
• We are using WiFi because it works over the distances we are encountering and it is cheap and getting cheaper. It is a proven technology on the right place on its development curve.
• Our equipment is hardened, but hardened in such a way that the costs don't outrun the benefits for poor people.
• We use alternative power sources because conventional sources are simply not available. Our design decisions are made on practical grounds from the vantage point of end-users.

Recommendations

We recommend that you help us find more funding as soon as possible. We recommend that we meet together to find ways to further enhance our partnerships. We recommend that you come to Laos and Silicon Valley and hang out and see what we are up to. We recommend that you help us find funding for one or two more people to go to Switzerland with us in December.

We are very grateful for your gifts of time and your patience.

Recently I wrote a piece for an advisory committee to Microsoft organized in part by World Links. Perhaps this will help you as you think about future cooperative efforts:

• Fund IT education for those kids who really take off in this subject - who have a passion for it, no matter where they live. Give them scholarships to local and international high schools, colleges, and grad schools. Give them full scholarships including living expenses and help them connect to the Diaspora of their country people - if such a thing exists.
• Fund intensive English education for English teachers. Pay for language labs.
• Make it easy to localize into even small languages like Lao and pay for localization.
• Fund experiments, like Jhai's, in connecting villages without electricity and/or phone lines. Fund them well. This is great R&D and PR. The whole world is watching.
• Make it very easy for networks of poor people who are enthusiastic about computers and the internet to communicate with other networks of poor people who are similarly enthusiastic. Do the programming. Make it free. Advertise it widely. These will be your market.
• The best teachers and support people are peers. These peers will need support.
• Kill scope creep as soon as it raises its ugly head. Always design with REAL input from end-users from needs assessment all the way through to the end. To get that input you have to be extremely careful and courteous and patient.
• Remember always that poor rural people are already businesspeople. They have to scrape up cash every day. They may very well be farmers. They know the vagaries of markets and the importance of controlling costs. They know what they are doing. Assume that.
• Hire locally, think locally.

Read the Abstract of Project
Read the Project Proposal