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

[Sameer Verma]

On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 4:16 PM, Dennis Nguyen
<denniskdnguyen at alumni.duke.edu> wrote:
> 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
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>

Dennis,
I'd be happy to meet and talk to you guys. sverma at sfsu.edu

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Information Systems
Director, Center for Business Solutions
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://cbs.sfsu.edu/
http://is.sfsu.edu/