[Server-devel] RACHEL, another developing world server project, would like to have a discussion with XS

[Dennis Nguyen]

Greetings,

I work with a volunteer project launched about a year ago that is
working on developing a server package for education in the developing
world. The initiative is called RACHEL. RACHEL is a web and content
server image, based on Linux/Apache and installed on commodity
hardware, that we designed to serve content in developing-world school
environments with unusable connections or no connections to the
internet.

We designed RACHEL to target schools with fully functioning
Ethernet-connected-PC computer labs, but with no internet connections.
However, as a relatively new volunteer in this particular effort, I
felt that our goals were closely aligned with OLPC, in particular the
XS school server project. I would like to engage someone working with
XS in order to bring this project up to speed as far as developments
in the field, as well as to shape some sort of collaboration based on
how our respective initiatives' visions align.

Our focus is primarily on putting together quality targeted content
instead of facilitating technical infrastructure like XS does. We plan
on having this content available mainly to recycled and donated thin
clients in developing world computer labs. We would like to have the
content be accessible on a platform like XO, but as standard web
content accessible to all capable devices. Also, because our project
is piggybacking on another program that sends volunteers to schools
around the developing world, many of our engineers are also the
teachers on the ground carefully collecting feedback.

We have successful RACHEL deployments in Delhi, Sierra Leone, Papua
New Guinea, and Ecuador, and are collecting initial feedback. More
information about the program can be found here:
http://worldpossible.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=89

Could I meet with someone from the XS project, preferably in the San
Francisco Bay Area? I would appreciate the chance to have a discussion
at some point about ways we can work together. For starters, a
gentleman at laptop.org named Adam Holt said that there is a Professor
Sameer Verma I might want to meet at some point. Professor Verma,
would you or anybody else on this list like to talk at some point?

Thanks!
Dennis Nguyen
Worldpossible.org