Geekcorps Mali’s LMI Blog

These are exciting times around Geekcorps Mali. As Brennan mentioned in earlier posts, under the Last Mile Initiative Geekcorps has been tasked with the challenge of finding an innovative and sustainable approach to bringing ICT services to the “last mile”, the people in rural Mali most of whom who never touched yet-alone seen a computer. Admittedly, it is a daunting challenge primarily from the standpoint of economic sustainability. Mali is a poor country and most people living in villages would be happy to make $2 dollars a day. Our challenge thus becomes delivering innovative IT services that people can afford while generating enough income to support a business model that can eventually stand on its own two feet. Luckily, we have technological innovation, an impressive collective of Geeks and very supportive and far-thinking partners on our side. If we cannot get this model to work it will not be because we did not try.

By establishing this blog, we hope to share with you our experience in attempting to delivering ICT services to our customers at the Base of the Pyramid (BOP) in rural Mali. While we certainly cannot take credit for the idea of bringing asynchronous internet services via public transport, we hope as a result of this pilot to develop a methodology showing how rural Malians can become consumers of appropriate technological services and as a result hopefully live better lives. At the same time, we hope give some insight on the Geekcorps’ “approach” of using adapted technology and the acumen of our volunteers to address real developmental challenges.

Special thanks should be given to ex-Geekcorps Mali director Ian Howard who initially conceived of the idea along with the Dennis Bilodeau (the USAID Mali ComDev Team Leader) and Judy Payne with the Digital Freedom Initiative who helped make the Last Mile Initiative a reality. We realize we have been given a special opportunity and responsibility. This is the kind of challenge we’ve been waiting our whole lives for!