Newswise — In 1975, when the government of Laos decided to resettle villagers displaced by the Vietnam War in a remote mountainous jungle, it never made plans to provide them with the conveniences of modern life. And so, for nearly three decades, the 440 farmers and craftspeople of Phon Kham have lived largely cut off from the rest of the world, without running water, electricity, or phone service. Of the three, the last is what they want most--a way to call and e-mail loved ones living abroad.
But introducing Internet access into such a remote and forbidding environment is no mean feat. Fortunately, techie volunteers with the San Francisco-based Jhai Foundation rose to the challenge, as Ashton Applewhite reports in the September 2003 issue of IEEE Spectrum. Starting from scratch, they designed and built a bicycle-powered, super-rugged, and ultra-low-power PC that would connect to a solar-powered, over-the-mountain Wi-Fi network.
Applewhite, who journeyed to Phon Kham to witness the unveiling of the new system, reports that like many such digital divide efforts, this one has faced its share of mishaps and false starts. If successful, the Jhai approach has global possibilities, to serve the many millions who live in areas where telecommunications and power distribution are not ubiquitous.
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