mul·ti·plic·i·ty

Empowering people with appropriate tech and sustainable process

Category Archives: Wireless

Shameless self-promotion

Despite having kept a low profile, and done next to no development-related work in the past 2 years, a old journalist contact of wire.less.dk gave me a call yesterday, and today there’s a  couple of decent quotes on danish on-line computer mag version2.

It’s an article (in danish) about Tim Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web Foundation, and his claims that we need to focus on extending the web to those 4 billion people who still aren’t properly on-line. His is a hard point to argue with, and i got away with spewing some very un-controversial answers to the usual questions, i.e. Do they really need the web? and what do they need it for? isn’t it hard when there’s no clean drinking water and no electricity?

I’m not going to bore anyone here with the obvious answers, but all-in-all the journalist did a decent job, only misspelling my name once in 4 mentions, and getting almost the entire name of our non-profit correct (it’s wire.less.dk rather than just wire.less).

perhaps this means i’m forgiven, not forgotten?

BookSprint: Thinking about the non-profit technology space

5 years of wireless wizardry, a very successful book project, some time out as a linux enterprise consultant, some time spent combining my technology skills with my interest in africa, and a good 6 months mostly hanging out with the future. I’m now spending a lot of time thinking about what the next 2 years could/should bring.

The technology non-profit space, web 2.0, free (open source) software, open networks, open content books, africa, and small kids. These are some of the things i’ve racked up some experience in over the last few years. There’s little doubt that the book project is the most impressive project i’ve had a hand in. With litterally hundreds of thousands of downloads (250,000 since february 2008), a 2nd edition, and official translations into spanish, french and arabic, this is one hell of a success for what is essentially a double niche-in-a-niche project. A technology book about wireless networks, targetted specifically at developing world practitioners. Yet the success if unequivocal, impressive, and ultimately has very little to do with my involvement.

I came up with a model that seems to work, found a little bit of funding to try it out, and invited the perfect team of authors. I also used my charm to convince the best technical editor and author i know to spend enormous amounts of time on very little money to help make this book as amazing as it is. Then i stepped back, went off and did some of the other stuff i mentioned above, and watched this idea unfold.

I’m proud of what i helped create, but also well aware of the role i played in it. But I want this success to be replicated, and there are a number of titles i think deserve to be written which could help create a series of pragmatic, hands-on technology books with a focus on the developing world, and free (open source) software. Published under some form of open content license, ensuring they reach their maximum potential as tools for communities around the world.

Not only do i think this is possible, but i also think it’s important in ways that i can’t yet quite describe in simple words, having to do with open content licenses, books as conveyors of learning, and the importance of technology independence.

Unlike other open content publishing business models, there’s a little twist in this one, since the prime source of income won’t be from book sales or advertising, but will come directly from funders, for whom the value-proposition should be pretty clear. Given the book sprint model, we can produce pofessionally edited books at a fraction of the cost of the traditional publishing industry. And we have shown that these books are useful as training materials for workshops, as hands-on guides for individuals and organisations trying to implement these technologies, and as awareness raisers for decision-makers looking at technology solutions to exisiting problems. And the price point for a single title seems to be close to that of a single regional week-long technology workshop. So for the price of a single workshop, a book can be published that can become a tangible input to future workshops, but also can massively expand the reach of a workshop-based training model by reaching an audience far beyond that of the equivalent workshop.

And given some of the fascinating discussions i’ve seen on pricing models for open content books, those costs would be shareable between multiple funders, by collecting bids before initiating the project. A model that could perhaps be combined with a magnatune, pay-what-you-feel-is-right model for downloads. The profits of which could be shared with the authors, and help fund the day-to-day running of the organisation. If the costs of publishing the book has already been covered by non-profit funders, the post-production sales might help fund the difficult overhead that always dogs non-profits between projects.

Somewhere in this model there may even be room for experimenting with Social Business models, in the spirit of Mohammad Yunus. But that’ll be a discussion for another day, and perhaps another blog.

The Security Challenge of Open Wireless Networks

**Disclosure**: I am currently in the proccess of interviewing for a job with [Fon](http://fon.com/) and this piece is largely a result of me spending time (for the first time in years) on the challenges of shared wireless in the rich countries of the west (rather than thinking mostly about the challenges in the less developed countries). *

The following are my pretty unstructured notes on how a hotspot sharing service such as [Fon](http://fon.com/) could help deal with some of the, real and imagined, security issues of hotspot-based networks. In many ways it doesn’t seem to matter to _the average user_ whether a security threat is real or imagined, as most people will never actually lose data or get atacked in a way that has actual consequences, it mostly the awareness of the threat that needs to be dealt with, rather than perhaps th threat itself. In many cases the way to deal with the awareness of the threat, is of course to remove the threat itself, however unlikely it is to ever be a problem.

Here we go….

There are 2 main security challenges that emerge from a system of shared wireless. Both are essentially the result of not having a stable trust network between the owner of the wireless network node, and the user of the network.
1. The risk of someone abusing your network for unethical (or perhaps even illegal) activities, including access to unethical materials on-line or attempts to access personal data over the local network.
2. The risk induced by the need to trust the owner of whatever Access Point you happen to connect to when away from home, and the ability of that trust to be abused top access your personal data and attempt to steal passwords to services such as e-mail or on-line banking services.

Continue reading →

Wireless Networking in the Developing World

For the past 4 months I’ve been working to get a book out on wireless networking.
Together with some of the smartest, most passionate people i’ve ever had the pleasure to work with, and lead by experienced technical book author and editor Rob Flickenger, we’ve completed the book. It’s called “WirelessNetworking in the Developing World”, and it is a free book released under
a Creative Commons license.

More info is available at: http://wndw.net/

and: http://dk.wndw.net/ (Danish Mirror)

And the Press Release

Considering a life less travelled

For the past 4 years; in fact ever since that fateful day about 5 years ago when I said yes to travel to ghana, working as a volunteer for Africa Express , and genreally having a blast.

It was my baptism into the fascinating world that has occupied the last 4 years of my life. Working with hands-on, do-it-yourself technology for the developing world. Travelling to Armenia, Croatia, Rural Massachussets, Namibia, South Africa, India, Italy, California, Geneva, Brazil, Rural Denmark, Tunisia, all with the triple mission to teach, to learn and to have fun, has made me more, and better friends than I could have ever imagined. It’s been the most incredible journey, one that I would do over in an instant, and will never forget.

It’s not over, but it is changing. I feel a subtle change in me, especially when i’m on the road. More and more, the time away feels like time away from my life. As if, at home, was my stable base, my girlfriend, my sports, my family, my home, and as if being on the road means being away from all that. I still have fun, but not quite as much as I used to. I still have most of my best friends spread all over the planet, but I feel more of a need for an intimacy that is not available in those relationsships.

But most importantly, I feel this i a turning point for me as a volunteer/development worker/non-profit organisation. A time to decide.

To continue as an individual, a proffessional volunteer, a travelling consultant, means to continue a life with little stability, no stable income, no stable work base, no stable flow. The alternative, to proffesionalize myself, to become a stable organisation, with employees, and grant-proposal-writers, and a vision and business plan.
And I’m increasingly realizing that that is not what i want to be.

I am in this ‘business’ because i love what i do, but also because i believe in what i do. and for me to believe, i need to have the freedom to let the project come first, and the financing second, and that is not something that the development industry does well.

Funding is institutionalized to a degree where I’ve come to believe that to run a stable organisation it is aqlmost imperative that you let funding come first, that funding, as a goal, becomes the primary goal. I want my projects to be first,k second and third, and to consider funding at a distant fourth. It is necessary for me to have it be like that. I need to believe in what i do, and being a born sceptic there are very few compromises needed before i lose that faith.

I see 2 options and a strict deadline:

  1. I get a job. And interesting job in open source preferably, but a job. Probably one that is based here in Copenhegan, and requires a little less travelling than has been my default for the past 3 years. Ideally a job that has a 4-day work-week, or a 4 week pr. year travel allowance for volunteer jobs, or somehow let’s me keep in touch with all the wonderful people and projects I have had the extremem good fortune to encounter.
  2. I/we/it merge with another organisation. One that thinks our work, and our existing projects are interesting enough that they will let us do these and others with as little interference as possible. One that sees in what we do, and in our extensive contacts an opportunity big enough that it’s worth taking on the administrative overhead, the grant-proposal-writing, and the budget reporting, and let us get on with our unique skills, understanding and describing technology from that unique developing world perspective.

Let me know what you think…..

Wireless Ghana – Broadband for the West African village.

Yet another of the many ruaral wireless projects that are springing up around the world.

Wireless Ghana – Broadband for the West African village.

Having been an active advocate and tech trainer on this type of project for about 3 years, it warms my heart whenever i see a project like this.

* It proves we were right, and that low-cost, DIY wireless really is an adequate solution for rural connectivity issues.
* It means there is one more community on-line, limiting the bias towards western culture opn the internet
* It’s an opportunity for me to try and reach out to some people through our projects. And perhaps a future opportunity for me to visit Ghana again, a country which i spent 3 months in, and which will forever be close to my heart.

I’ll have to contact these people, and see what they are up to.

Last Chance to See – wireless4development is HAPPENING

This is very likely to be the VERY last post on this blog. I haven’t quite decided what the future holds for me in terms of blogging, but at the moment I’ve had enough. I’ve been blogging for about 6 years now. Here is my very first post from June 1998.

I have no particular reason for stopping except that 6 years seems enough, and that I’m doing a pretty miserable job of it anyway.

I’ve been struggling to find a balance between being a blog for my friends, family and colleagues to keep up with my hectic life, and being a professional blog about ICT’s for development. But mostly I just need a break.

I suppose my writings will be showing up on a variety of other sites from time to time instead. One of the main places will probably be the The Wireless Roadshow, but I hope to be able to start publishing more cohesive articles about wireless and Open Source in the developing world.

I’ve enjoyed bloggin, but enough is enough.

So long and thanks for all the fish