MobileActive08
Note by Chris Williamson:
Session Initiator: Chris Williamson
Attendees:
Erik Herjman
Mark Belinsky
Emily Jacobi
Elske Reyneke-Barnard
Sylvia Lowe
Rachel Adatia
Sam Schwarer
Edith Adera
Francis Mijiga
Key discussion points:
- Access to information on the African continent is severly limited at present
- PC-based solutions suffer from lack of appropriate infrastructure, expense, maintenance issues, computer literacy and theft
- The issue is not "how to get PCs out there" but "how to get access to information out there"
- Streetwise is based on LEAN content delivered to LEAN terminals
- Bandwidth requirements are minimised by backend filtering so that GPRS can be used reliably - covering the vast majority of the continent
- The terminal is super rugged and reliable; costs are minimised by a simple, text based approach and up to 5 terminals sharing one connection
- Services include Email, Search, News, Document creation, Fax-email etc and multi-language options
- This is intended for schools, mini-internet cafes ("business in a box") as well as in-home use
- Trials are already underway and Streetwise is being launched fully at the start of 2009
Attendees:
Erik Herjman
Mark Belinsky
Emily Jacobi
Elske Reyneke-Barnard
Sylvia Lowe
Rachel Adatia
Sam Schwarer
Edith Adera
Francis Mijiga
Key discussion points:
- Access to information on the African continent is severly limited at present
- PC-based solutions suffer from lack of appropriate infrastructure, expense, maintenance issues, computer literacy and theft
- The issue is not "how to get PCs out there" but "how to get access to information out there"
- Streetwise is based on LEAN content delivered to LEAN terminals
- Bandwidth requirements are minimised by backend filtering so that GPRS can be used reliably - covering the vast majority of the continent
- The terminal is super rugged and reliable; costs are minimised by a simple, text based approach and up to 5 terminals sharing one connection
- Services include Email, Search, News, Document creation, Fax-email etc and multi-language options
- This is intended for schools, mini-internet cafes ("business in a box") as well as in-home use
- Trials are already underway and Streetwise is being launched fully at the start of 2009
