As a follow-up to my last post (an ode to self-reliance), I want to give mad props to Afghan locals and the MIT Bits and Atoms lab crew. It took over seven years for the World Bank to deliver on its promise of some wireless internet access and that was seven years to get with the times that the Afghanistan did not have.
So, the locals looked at the rubble around them and decided to take matters into their own hands. Using pieces of board, wire, a plastic tub, and even USAID vegetable cans, Afghans were able to create their own makeshift internet reflectors, which they have dubbed “FabFi” to much success. The Fab Lab design efforts, supported by MIT, continue to grow and you can follow their progress on the Free Range International Blog.The pictures say it all, but I was also really liked this part of their most recent post:
One night around 2300 Afghan time, our friends Hameed and Rahmat wanted to video skype with us but the city power isn’t on then. So in the darkness they went to the hospital water tower and climbed the 5 stories to the tippy top and chatted with us from the windy roof of Jalalabad in the middle of the night. We couldn’t see them so well since they were only lit by the light of their own laptop but they could see and hear us which made them silly happy. I hope that gives readers a decent impression of “the security situation” – it’s not a war zone everywhere. In some places, it’s like any other city with people that just wanna reach out and chat with their friends.
Logistically the FabFi mesh network is hampered by difficulties in obtaining routers in country. This is completely my fault though I thought that I had verified that you could get these routers on my first trip. But progress is occurring even though sometimes it’s hard to see. We’ve discovered that the Afghan fab folk can get joint personal bank accounts at the Jbad branch of Kabul Bank which is backed by some German bank. We’re able to wire transfer funds to and from each other. Now, Afghans can wire us money to purchase routers which we ship to them. In theory, anyway, next week we’re going to try to transfer a small sum to see how it goes. It’s a sore point in our project because it takes local shopkeepers out of the loop and creates a large reliance on “order it from America”.
