I wrote the below article a few weeks ago for the Swazi Sojournal, our Peace Corps post newsletter.  As I am nearing the end of our life in Swaziland, I am finding it incredibly important to disseminate the knowledge I have accumulated in my time here.   So many aspects of development in this country could be changed and revolutionized with the creative application of technology.

Raspberry Pi Imnandzi!

While your taste buds dance in memory of delicious fruit pies at your favorite breakfast joint, I want to talk to you about a very special inedible Pie.  The Raspberry Pi is a fully functional computer that is going to blow your mind.  Raspberry Pi is making tremendous impacts in developing nations all over the world right now.  I read new reports every few weeks about another low-income school that is installing its first computer lab built around Raspberry Pi. It’s not that the Raspberry Pi is exceptionally sophisticated, or extremely fast.  What makes the device exceptional are only a few aspects:

• It’s very simple to setup and use
• It’s really inexpensive
• The software is free, fairly easy to use and virus free!
• And did I mention it is really inexpensive?

The Raspberry Pi is a very small computer about the size of your old phone.  The company likes to say it’s the size of a credit card, but it stands about 2 centimeters tall.  The newest version of the Pi comes with two USB ports, a 700 MHz processor, 512mb of memory, an old-school RCA video out, a newer HDMI digital video out, a sound card, a network card, and that’s it.  Although the Pi really is a fully-functional computer, like any other

computer, it requires additional items to actually be useful. The power cable is the same one used for data on Kindles, Androids, and a lot of newer Nokias.  These can be purchased at nearly any phone shop in the country. All of these items can be purchased in Swaziland at some of the bigger computer shops such as Computronics (Don’t forget to visit their coffee shop while you pick up accessories). 

Anyone who has talked to me about computers longer than 5 minutes will catch me saying something about Linux and other “Free and open-source software (FOSS).”  The importance of FOSS can be truly appreciated in the form of the Raspberry Pi.  This software is free to modify, free to distribute, and free to do whatever you want with it.  The free nature of the software also allows you to add on loads of other free software, from software similar to Microsoft office to math and memory card games for the wee ones.  You can also go the route of the Kingdom of Bhutan and install Khan Academy software on the Raspberry Pi and use it as a server for other computers!

Truly the best part about Linux in relation to computers in Swaziland is its near immunity to viruses and malicious software. You can insert USB sticks from anyone’s computer into a Raspberry Pi and it will not get infected by a virus.  This feature should sell any hesitant ICT teachers.  The software itself needs to be copied to an SD card before turning the Pi on.  To add any additional software requires the Pi to be connected to the Internet, or you to download it once, then copy it to all the SD cards manually.  Once you have a single Pi the way you want it, it’s a fast process to spin up a lab of 10 of these things.

Do you remember what I said about the Raspberry Pi being inexpensive?  I recently purchased my first Raspberry Pi for $35.99 US.  Plus shipping and the generic white case for it, I totaled a purchase of this wonderful device for $49.49.  And it arrived a week later as it was sent from South Africa.  If you convert it to Emalangeni at the average exchange rate of E8=$1 then we are talking E396.  That is a functional computer starting at less than E400, excluding Swaziland shipping charges. Order yours from RS Delivers in South Africa.

I mentioned above that the Pi comes without any of the stuff you need to actually make it useful.  In the table below I have outlined a really generic price estimate of how much E would be needed to bake your own Pi.  At E1625 I will tell you this is 1/3 the price of any desktop computer or laptop I have seen in the country. For less than $2500 a computer lab with 10 Pi could be outfitted.  This figure means some locations with lower resources for computers may finally have an option within reach.

Rasberry Pi + basic case	400
Keyboard	75
Mouse	50
HDMI TV (to use as a monitor)	1300 *
SD Card	100
Power Cord	100
HDMI or RCA cable	100
TOTAL	2125 * (*table edited August 1, 2013)

 If you have interest in the Raspberry Pi, I have lots of resources, and a Swazi friend at UNISWA that is testing a few out.  Additionally the Swaziland Computer Society has a few http://www.facebook.com/groups/Swazi.computers, and they would be an excellent source of information on Raspberry Pi, and any other computer questions related to technology in Swaziland.

If you are driven as I am to see technology adapted and adopted by developing communities, I highly encourage you to find yourself a few pieces of Pi.  If I can get Mkhulu Elliot to enjoy a slice of Pi, you will too.

The Raspberry Pi approach of creating a platform that people can build on is completely in line with the Peace Corps approach to development.  May PC Volunteers never go hungry again.

 

*August 1, 2013

After an initial test with an older RCA television, I have changed my recommendation to ONLY use an HDMI television.  This has the disadvantage of raising the price by E500.  It does however allow the Pi to function as a proper computer.  I recommend the analog-output to only be used if no options for HDMI televisions exist.

Third year extension is proving to live up to one of the commonly used posters advertising Peace Corps Service, or at least one of the phrases colloquially known to describe service “it is a 24/7 job.”

I am finding myself waking up from my previous job into my other job, then I get home and I have to do my other one. Shifting between PCVL and the IT staff at the College and then trying to maintain laser-focus on my future post-service is exhausting.

While spending my time as PCVL trying to come up with really great ways to help the other volunteers, I find myself arms-deep one minute in cmdline troubleshooting over the phone to then figuring out how can a PCV take their handicraft idea to the next level. Computer problems are felt with more impact here, if your computer chokes, you could be in a world of hurt. Viruses cause a lot of issues in Swaziland, both HIV and computer viruses. I have lost count the number of times I have to unhide files or scan a drive. At other times I find myself burning hours searching the internet for tools, ideas, and partners that could make SCS rock this place.

I have found some incredibly interesting programs floating around the internet, and a lot of browser extensions that are cool. Well at least their cool in the always-online world, here… I am forced to remove a few of these and do everything I can to adapt the rest. A great example of this is Google Voice, I have a phone number and at home it forwards flawlessly to my regular phone. Simple and easy. Here you can’t actually forward a Google Voice number to a Swazi phone number. One of the small ramifications of just the way it is here. But… you can have Google Voice attempt a transcript of your message and have that sent to your email, so you can easily get “close” to proper functionality. It’s like half the bang for most of the buck. It’s hard to complain about an otherwise free service, but it is difficult to know that only a few small non-technical challenges are in the way.

Other days I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out how all the existing systems and networks and connections we have can be reshaped and reused to better service for the volunteers. I do a lot of thinking. While I was writing this paragraph, a lot of thinking just went into how can that PCVs handicraft project get expanded. At this point I have a few notebooks of ideas, notes applications on my phone, notes online, notes on my hand, and notes in my head.  I don’t need anyone to invent any new surfaces for me to scribe on. Instead of adding to the pile, I recognize it is time for me to start checking off that list at a speed reminiscent of Hermes approaching top speed.

Later at night after I moved on from the PC office and sped down the street in my four-Rand khumbi going far too fast without a seat belt, I find myself at home.  At least it is my part time home. It’s great to live here actually, and when I’m here it is home. I make myself a bit of dinner and I grab a drop or two of wine. I turn on the Internet (no seriously, I leave it off just in case it eats 1kb for some reason) and I actually sit down and read my email or Facebook. I remember doing this level of relaxing often back at home, but I only cling to it for the first 15-30 minutes I am relaxed before that urge to go back to work strikes me.

I’ve been hitting up Coursera a bit hard lately, with the obvious exception of tonight. I’m currently enrolled in two classes, an “Introduction to Networks”, and the “Critical Thinking in Global Challenges.”  The classes may not be the best use of my time, so often I wander over to LinkedIn to post a few things in a group I am a member of. Occasionally I do a bit of research on online degree programs I may be able to accomplish while I’m here. Or I decide its time to reformat that PC, or burn that DVD that I’m trying to produce. And then I check my Facebook, and I’m relieved to see something educational via “Science is Awesome.” That’s one of the best parts of the day, making sure I learn something that makes me go “Huh?” every day.

A bit later in the evening after I’ve given up on productivity; discussions with my also-extending flatmate run late into the night. Sometimes its light-hearted reminiscing about watching chickens for a day while back at site, and other times its a flash to the “Situation Room” where lives could very well be on the line if we can’t solve all the perceived problems in the world before the night is over.  I bet watching those chickens for another hour will solve those problems. Or quite possibly it may only waste yet another hour watching chickens. Even as I write this I can think of so many worse things to do, than be on the homestead and watching that incredible repetition; peck, scratch, peck, scratch, squawk, peck, scratch. And repeat. Oh chickens.

Occasionally or at least on average two weeks a month, I make it over to to the College and insert myself so delicately in the position of architect of “minimal-attention necessary IT systems”. It’s really difficult and realistically impossible to automate an IT network of 40+ computers without having IT staff. Often I quizically puzzle about all those IT admins in the 90’s and the uphill battle arguing with the board for the need to have dedicated IT staff.  That battle has been won in the West, it’s still a struggle here. It’s a balancing act between delivering IT-awesomeness of the modern Internet, web 2.0, visualization, and the best of the cloud with the jaw-dropping terror of knowing I have yet to 100% secure someone that can take over after this.  Consider this problem #1 on my list in Siteki.

While I’m in Siteki I live about 1/2 mile from where I work, and I don’t think I’ll ever have as good a commute to work again.  The work there is good and it is beyond satisfying to know that the future of healthcare in this country has arrived, and it is not one second early. The tools that can be developed to help triage the HIV situation here are myriad. If I can pull this off, it is a great example of EXACTLY where IT can help in this countries fight to take care of HIV.  Pushing the modernization of the IT infrastructure in this world will have innumerable ripples through the rest of the country. Everyone in this country is intimately familiar with the healthcare system, and once something works in the hospitals, and works well, it will spread across the region, mind the analogy; rather like a virus through every other extension of daily life. Introducing serious IT to health care is an essential fix and solution to reducting the grip of HIV escalation across the country.

So I get passionate about the role we Peace Corps is having in the country, and I’m beyond passionate about the inclusion of IT in the kingdom. It’s an opportunity to relive the mass saturation of IT into popular culture, and it’s an opportunity to be there on the threshold as a country pulls itself from developing economy to a developed one.

I am at the end of the day optimistic about the future of the country and the people I am serving. It is really such an exciting time to be in this country, I can’t possibly place a price tag on the personal benefits I have received from extending my service here. It’s a great time for the country, it’s a great time for me.