ICTworks by Inveneo

At the Making Cents International’s Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference, the youth and ICTs panel mentioned a few of the many areas where new technologies can be integrated in youth development work.

To begin with, as moderator Wayan Vota from Inveneo mentioned, technology is one area where youth are viewed as experts over adults. They are often seen as thought leaders in ICTs. Via mobile phones, youth are starting to open bank accounts, according to David Mukaru from Equity Bank in Kenya, and this is demystifying aspects of finances and banking, even in rural and slum areas.

There are challenges though, as Lia Gardner from TakingITGlobal reminded. ‘ICT is not a self-fulfilling circle; you can share great ideas but what about taking online connections into the offline world?’

Jacob Korenblum from Souktel considered adults to be the biggest barrier. ‘Adults don’t see how tech can be leveraged and utilized for serious purposes. Older people really need to come on board and take youth seriously. Tech is a good way for youth to express views.’

Peter Broffman from Intel Learn Program recommended showcases with parents, teachers and community leaders to allow adults to see how youth and technology can be harnessed to address things that matter and to resolve problems in the community.

ICTs can also be used to engage youth and hear their voices and opinions. Korenblum commented that Souktel’s JobMatch idea was adapted and used to get feedback on 2 large-scale radio broadcast projects in Sudan and Somalia. The program implementers didn’t know what the audiences thought about the programs. Souktel developed a way for people to text in for free to give feedback. Some of the comments were selected and read out on the air. The texts began to inform the content of the radio programs.

“We saw hundreds, even thousands of SMS coming in. In one case we had thousands of messages coming in from Orphans and Vulnerable Children [after we did a radio show on the topic]. They were saying ‘No one has ever asked me about my concerns, thanks for this radio show.’”

In another case, thousands of people texted in saying they were not aware of the potential dangers of skin lightening creams. “We also had very frank and candid feedback like ‘you don’t represent enough Sudanese on your program.’ In Gaza we asked several thousand youth about the potential for a ceasefire. Youth wrote back their thoughts and said ‘this is the first time anyone has asked or cared about what I have to say.’” The feedback was shared with the television and radio stations so they could improve their programs, and in some cases it was played along the ticker tape on the bottom of Al Jazeera.

Mukaru commented that Equity Bank is known to be the ‘listening and caring financial partner’ in Kenya. ‘We listen to youth and clients. We have gone out to do focus group discussions to get to understand what youth are asking us to change, to do better, what they want to see in our services. We also use technology, SMS feedback. Our mobile phone number is displayed in our lobby where youth can interact with us and give their feedback. We’ve changed a number of things….They didn’t like our website – they said it’s too old, that it wasn’t talking to the youth. So we redesigned it to speak to the youth better. They said they want to bank small amounts of money and it costs them a lot to go into town, so this is why we started local agencies,’ he said.

It was encouraging to hear so many people highlighting the importance of the youth development approach and the fact that youth need to be listened to, respected and seen as valued partners in their own development as well as in the development of their communities and nations.

Technology for converting solar energy to electricity was first introduced over 130 years ago, and it has been used to power PCs for more than 20 years. However, until recently it has been prohibitively expensive to use solar energy to power PCs in areas where the electric grid is not available. Energy-hungry PCs simply put too much demand on the limited generation capabilities of the solar panels.

A few years ago, a typical desktop PC using a processor such as the Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 2.8Ghz supporting Hyper-Threading technology consumed about 80W to 100W. A 15" CRT monitor consumed an additional 70W to 100W, so a complete PC desktop system used 150W to 200W.

By comparison, a modern netbook based on an Intel® Atom processor with a 10” screen consumes just 12W to 15W total. A laptop using an Intel® Celeron® M ultra low voltage (ULV) processor with a larger 13" wide screen display can consume as little as 20W to 25W. New power-efficient desktop designs offer similar improvements.

The Inveneo Computing Station, for example, is based on the Intel® Atom™ processor D410 and consumes about 15W. Coupled with the Inveneo energy efficient LCD display, the entire system consumes only about 22W. Thus, a modern PC can provide a rich experience while consuming 90% less power of a typical desktop system of just a few years ago.

Yet even as computers have become much more energy efficient in recent years, many people still perceive solar energy as being too expensive for PC deployments. In this paper we will explain the technological changes that have made solar power cost feasible for PC deployments, and provide an overview of how to design for a solar powered PC deployment.

The objective of Solar Power for PC Deployments: Enabling ICT Beyond the Grid is not to replace the need for an experienced solar installer; rather, it is to provide basic knowledge to help the reader prepare a budget for a solar deployment, and to be able to effectively communicate the requirements to an installer.

More Information

The Inveneo Solar Power Deployment Guide is a how-to guide to specify, design and build a small-scale self-contained solar power system, emphasizing a "hands-on" approach with step-by-step methods to designing and building truly practical solar systems. We have also developed a list of Solar Power Resources for Designing PV Systems in Rural Computer Projects.

In an effort to get folks coding games that will run on netbooks, Intel ATOM Developer Program is sponsoring a Best Netbook Game Contest for netbook games created with either DarkBASIC Professional or Dark GDK, less than 250MB in their compressed state, not require an 'installer', and run at 1024 x 600 resolution.

While I cheer for the next Doom, here are the 4 categories. There will be one winner in the Best All Around Game Category and and 3 winners from the other categories.

1. Best all around netbook game: We are looking for either a unique or overall gaming value for a netbook.
2. Best graphics for a netbook: Looking for beautiful utility for a netbook game. Like a meandering garden path, it serves to get you from point A to point B, while pleasing the senses.
3. Best game play for netbook: Graphics or no graphics this category looks at the game play experience for netbook.
4. Standout Game Element: Perhaps it was the best explosion, death scene, sound effect, or unique use of zombie. This category wins by just doing something we could not help but like.

Now the prizes are interesting - 1st Prize is an all expenses paid vacation not to exceed US $5,000. Who knows to where. Int he categories, 1st Prize is US $1,000, visibility and recognition via a feature in the Intel Atom Developer Program Community and Campaign as well as the TGC community.

If you want to enter, you best be quick: deadline is October 3, 2010.

Power. That's the real problem for information and communication technologies (ICT) in the developing world. Specifically, electrical power, and the lack there of. All the coolest ICT tools, from radio to computers, the very Internet itself, require electricity, and usually vast amounts of it.

$10 per Watt in Africa

Yet in the developing world, electricity is very rare and expensive. National electrical grids don't extend past the national capitol or major trading city. Outside of population centers, electricity is generated by local, even personal generators.

Often noisy, polluting, diesel or petrol generators that need constant repair, or very expensive and delicate solar panels that break or disappear overnight. Either way, electrical infrastructure costs usually exceeded the ICT investment, often by 2-3 times.

These two opposing forces collided during the 2000's, as the international development industry, local governments, and communities themselves tried to bring ICT to rural and underserved areas, with disastrous results.

Untold millions of dollars, man-hours, and even computers were lost in these ICT for development (ICT4D) projects when energy sucking computers starved themselves and their hosts, as they gorged on rare, expensive electrons.

We would still be wasting silicon and staff today, if it were not for one, very small invention that has literally revolutionized an industry: the Intel Atom processor.

Atom CPU: Disruptive ICT4D Innovation

In 2008, partly in response to the hype around One Laptop Per Child, Intel announced the Atom series of processors. Here was a processor that had enough power - 1.6 GHz clock speed - to do most applications that users deemed necessary.

It also was very energy efficient - 2.5 Watts - and Intel sold them at very cheap prices to computer manufactures.

The power envelop in such a cheap and energy-efficient package was truly a disruptive new-market innovation that has shifted the ICT demand curve.

New-Market Innovation

Clayton Christensen, the originator of the disruptive innovation concept, says that "new-market" disruptive innovation is when non-consumers - consumers who would not have used the products already on the market - are now able to consume.

In the information and communications technologies for development (ICT4D) field, we've been using a number of different solutions to try and bridge the gap between high-powered computers and the low-resource environments we want them to work in.

We've tried everything from only using older, lower performance technology like AMD Geode-powered computers, to reducing the number of computers involved to match the amount of electricity a community can support.

But these were only stopgap measures. Every day the grid-powered world got better, faster technology and everyone else got farther and father behind. We, and the communities we served, were non-consumers of the faster, better technology.

Our clients could not afford the infrastructure for modern computing or had to travel great distance and expense to use it in major cities.

Making ICT4D Affordable

With its low price, and low power consumption, the Atom was doubly affordable in ICT4D applications. We could move from non-consumers to immediate, large-scale consumption of modern information and communication technologies.

The Atom's lower processor price meant that the end computing product, be it a netbook or desktop PC, would have a lower retail price. In fact, quality netbooks can now be had for $400 - less than half the cost of the cheapest laptops just 3 years ago. But these savings, while significant in isolation, pale in comparison to the power-cost savings.

The real disruptive innovation is the Atom processors power profile. The chipset is so energy-efficient, Inveneo could develop computing solutions that draw less than 20 Watts - the output of a battery - and free ourselves from direct generator power or large solar panel arrays. This drastically reduced the electrical costs of computer deployment, making ICT even more affordable.

A typical desktop computer can consume 200 Watts of electricity in normal operation. In Africa, where a solar power installation costs an average of $10-15 per Watt, that's $2000+ just for the power infrastructure for one computer. An Atom-powered desktop can use just 17 Watts, requiring only a $170 solar power investment - 1/10th the cost of comparable computing systems.

In fact, with Atom-based computing, the total cost of computer ownership drops below free. As we calculated above, even donated traditional computers actually cost at least $2,000 - their electrical infrastructure cost - while a new Atom-based computer and is power infrastructure is less than $1,500.

Significant Market Impact

At Inveneo, we've switched to an all-Atom product lineup and our sales have jumped. We're seeing double-digit growth in our equipment sales. Our Computing Station performance meets the needs of our clients at a fraction of the absolute and total cost of traditional computers - even donated ones.

And we are not alone. Almost everyone else in the ICT4D space is all-Atom all the time as well, and from what I hear, also experiencing a noticeable uptick in product sales and project sustainability.

The Atom chipset also spawed the netbook, which has opened up computer sales to two new buyers:

1. Urban elites in Africa and South Asia who can now afford a laptop for themselves and their families
2. Mobile phone companies like Safaricom, who are selling subsidized netbooks to increase data network sales

In addition to the developed world buyers, they've helped drive netbook sales to $11 billion in 2009 - over 20% of the entire mobile computing market from 0 in 2007.

So for all of us in ICT4D, I'd like to thank Intel for the disruptive Atom processor innovation. Its a bright spot for an otherwise cut-throat hardware industry that often ignores ICT4D needs.

When you're working in rural areas, electricity is often very scarce. Your only source of power may be a battery array, which may cost you $10-per-watt to install and recharge via solar power. That means a 100W system would cost you around $1,000 in solar panels, batteries, charge controller and wiring - installed. So every Watt you can save in power consumption matters a great deal.

If you're running a Linux-based computing system, you now have a new ally, courtesy of Intel. LessWatts.org is a community focused on saving power with Linux, bringing developers, users, and sysadmins together to share software, optimizations, and tips and tricks.

Here's just a few ways LessWatts can help you reduce power usage with laptops, desktops, and servers, without updating any software

1. Enable the power aware SMP scheduler
2. Use SATA link power management
3. Enable WiFi power management
4. Check for unused Bluetooth
5. Use gigabit ethernet speeds only when needed

But LessWatts offers more than just tips and tricks, they're actively developing power-saving projects to reduce your energy footprint. Energy savings that matters in both the middle of Mali and the middle of Manhattan.