Hai Ti! comic launched by Schoolnet Namibia

29 Apr 2005

Now, Joris Komen of Schoolnet Namibia isn't one of my heroes for nothing. He's taken on Microsoft's nonsensical "donations" to Namibian education, and now Schoolnet Namibia is taking on demystifying the technology available to the schools with a comic series around Schoolnet Namibia, incorporating the possibilities of computers, the Internet, and all based on their Linux thin-client environment and discussing Open Source and Open Content. Licensed under a Creative Commons license, they really seem to have thought this through to reach the kids with access to this technology, as well as their teachers. Tectonic, as usual, has the story.

1 old-style comments

  1. Truth — June 30, 2006 at 04:55 AM.

    Total Posts: 1 Joined: June 2006 RE: Schoolnet Namibia is a Fraudulent Organization Posted: June 28 2006 8:47 PM Post Reply Schoolnet Namibia has managed to manipulate the public in Namibia and Internationally into believing that it's missions and objectives are solely in the interest of the disadvantaged youth and the educational system in Namibia. Unfortunately, this organization has a horrible operational track record as an ISP and refurbish centre in Namibia. Bandwidth is distributed on a profit based model. Schools in the entire country share a very small pipe which results in the end users connecting at rates lower that 8 kbps (more like 2 to 4 kbps). The reason for this is the organization, which gets millions in donations, can make large sums of profit (although they claim to be a non-profit). They also have partnered with the local Telco to develop a monopoly on bandwidth distribution to certain sectors, not uncommon in Africa, but results in suffrage for the end users and creates a lack of innovation and development for the country as a whole. The organization has managed to sit on committees that develop national policies and objectives yet their interests are the only ones that are represented. Typically an organization that has financial interests in regards to its services will not be able to participate (in the case of schoolnet, dominate) on these national committees.
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Hi, I'm Neil Blakey-Milner, a technology generalist most interested by open source, security, and building scalable systems (especially if I get to use the Python programming language).

I "work" at the incredibly fun web-sites-for-everyone startup SynthaSite based in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa.

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