{"id":14354,"date":"2014-05-10T04:34:09","date_gmt":"2014-05-10T04:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/keepod-can-a-7-stick-provide-billions-computer\/"},"modified":"2014-05-10T04:35:25","modified_gmt":"2014-05-10T04:35:25","slug":"keepod-can-a-7-stick-provide-billions-computer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/keepod-can-a-7-stick-provide-billions-computer\/","title":{"rendered":"Keepod: Can a $7 Stick Provide Billions Computer Access?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n

{{The USB flash drive is one of the most simple, everyday pieces of technology that many people take for granted. }} <\/p>\n

Now it’s being eyed as a possible solution to bridging the digital divide, by two colourful entrepreneurs behind the start-up Keepod.<\/p>\n

Nissan Bahar and Franky Imbesi aim to combat the lack of access to computers by providing what amounts to an operating-system-on-a-stick.<\/p>\n

In six weeks, their idea managed to raise more than $40,000 (\u00a323,750) on fundraising site Indiegogo, providing the cash to begin a campaign to offer low-cost computing to the two-thirds of the globe’s population that currently has little or no access. <\/p>\n

The test bed for the project is the slums of Nairobi in Kenya. <\/p>\n

The typical income for the half a million people in the city’s Mathare district is about $2 (\u00a31.20) a day. <\/p>\n

Very few people here use a computer or have access to the net. <\/p>\n

But Mr Bahar and Mr Imbesi want to change that with their Keepod USB stick.<\/p>\n

It will allow old, discarded and potentially non-functional PCs to be revived, while allowing each user to have ownership of their own “personal computer” experience – with their chosen desktop layout, programs and data – at a fraction of the cost of providing a unique laptop, tablet or other machine to each person.<\/p>\n

In addition, the project avoids a problem experienced by some other recycled PC schemes that resulted in machines becoming “clogged up” and running at a snail’s pace after multiple users had saved different things to a single hard drive.<\/p>\n

The two men hope to get up to 150,000 people signed up to their idea in the country.<\/p>\n

{{Day One}}<\/p>\n

To do so, the pair have teamed up with LiveInSlums – a non-governmental organisation operating in Mathare – to introduce the flash drives to students and staff at WhyNot Academy. <\/p>\n

Like other schools in East Africa, the school uses text books and chalk boards to teach. <\/p>\n

Two years ago it was connected to the electricity supply. <\/p>\n

During a visit to the school in March, Mr Bahar and Mr Imbesi decided to buy a router and a Sim card to hook the classrooms up to the internet. <\/p>\n

Their solution involved hanging the router in a carrier bag nailed next to one of two plug sockets in the school.<\/p>\n

It looked makeshift, but that didn’t prevent the children cheering when it was announced the academy had gone online. <\/p>\n

The pair also brought five old laptops with their hard disks removed to the school.<\/p>\n

As they gave each child one of the Keepod USB sticks to keep, they explained the second-hand computers would boot up directly from the flash drives.<\/p>\n

{wirestory}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{The USB flash drive is one of the most simple, everyday pieces of technology that many people take for granted. }} Now it’s being eyed as a possible solution to bridging the digital divide, by two colourful entrepreneurs behind the start-up Keepod. Nissan Bahar and Franky Imbesi aim to combat the lack of access to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000052101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-14354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-technology","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000052101,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14354.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14354.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14354.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14354.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14354.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14354.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000052101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14354"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=14354"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=14354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}