Subject: Computers for Africa From: "Clinton Jones " <[email protected]>
Hi there listers By way of introduction, I am an independent consultant operating out of the beautiful city of Port Elizabeth in South Africa's most impoverished province, the Eastern Cape. Recently I was put intouch with a source for 000's of redundant 386 and 486 computers that a financial institution here in South Africa was discarding. As you can imagine, it stirred a great deal of interest in the local community and at this point in time discussions with the bank concerned are at an advanced stage. What the entire process brought home is the fact that there is a tremendous need even for these Y2k non compliant machines, that there are many out there in South Africa and certainly even more in the US. I'd like to encourage participants in this list to contact me, either through the list or directly in what I would loosely term a project of 'computers for Africa'. The development team working on this project are working very closely with South Africa's department of communications to try and pursue the avenue of putting at least one internet access point in every school in South Africa (25,000 schools - mostly rural ). As you can imagine, some of these schools don't even have electricity so the task is quite scarey, to top it all, we use 220volts here so unless the machines donated can cope with a switch over, we will need to modify them. Shipping costs can probably be arranged from this end, The problem is sourcing worthwhile machines. I look forward to dialogue on this subject. Clinton Jones [email protected] International +27 (82) 6533776 In the US 888 639 4954 ext 206 http://www.ttalk.com For the Latest in Techformation on the World Wide Web Fast Talk (3 minutes) http://audio.ttalk.com/ttalkra/fastupdate.rm/fastupdate.ram You must become the change you want to see in the world Aboriginal saying :Charles Handy, The Hungry Spirit, p.103
