Re: [school-discuss] [Fwd: How could we be part of this]

[David Bucknell <david@members.iteachnet.org>]

Thanks, Tom. I have a short memory for who sent what sometimes. I really liked 
the Grameen piece and even started out working overseas in Bangladesh, so was 
familiar with the original project, but not with the computer idea. I had a 
long look at the Web sites you told us about. Incredible to find such 
positive, people-sized help. I worry about this corporate sponsorship thing. 
Just what are the companies offered in return for the  donation?

At any rate, I it does seem like we could find a way of at least connecting 
villages to each other. Thanks for starting this thread. 

David

Quoting tom poe <tompoe@renonevada.net>:

> Hi:  A little background on Grameen and the kiosk project:
> 
> yunus@grameen.net
> 
> Professor Yunus started a microcredit program in the early '90's, maybe.  He
> 
> built that into an infrastructure that now has electrical, communications, 
> and financial resources for Bangladesh in place.  When approached about 
> figuring out how to scale up the donated computers for developing countries,
> 
> we discussed the possibility of his end handling everything from the point of
> 
> shipping onward.  That broke down to roughly $700/computer/village/year for
> 
> the entire country.  On this end, we then find a corporate sponsor that funds
> 
> the collection and preparation of 68,000 donated computers.  In return for 
> sponsorship, the corporate funding partners purchase the marketing rights for
> 
> the kiosks.  The idea, then, is a village kiosk, owned and controlled by the
> 
> village, and the marketing rights owned by the corporate sponsor, and 
> everyone running Open Source.
> 
> At this time, we're still looking for some marketing professional that can 
> sell the marketing rights to a corporate sponsor.  That seems to be a big 
> obstacle, for whatever reason.  Not sure why.  Seems to me, opening up a 
> 250,000,000 market population online in a matter of weeks, would be a good 
> thing, regardless of its' purchasing power at the time.
> 
> I would, however, suggest and encourage anyone that wants to discover and 
> work with Professor Yunus to contact him at the email above, and introduce 
> yourself and see what happens.
> 
> Thanks,
> Tom Poe
> Reno, NV
> http://www.studioforrecording.org/
> http://www.ibiblio.org/studioforrecording/
> http://renotahoe.pm.org/
> 


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