Geekcorps Mali’s LMI Blog

The Epson PictureMate Deluxe printer arrived in the mail on Tuesday at the office. What a treat. We had been eagerly awaiting its arrival since the order was placed to see if it held up to the high praise it has received in reviews. Since the printer will play such an important role in the project it is essential that we have a piece of hardware that can perform the way we need it to. From our research the Epson seemed like the strongest lead, at least on paper.

During the course of the project we hope to use the photo printer in a variety of ways. Of course we will be printing photos taken with the Canon PowerShot A410 (yet to arrive), that’s a given. Additionally, we hope to corner the markets of ID cards, wedding and baptism prints (very big culturally here), badges, and myriad other similar services. The photo printer had to be well built and durable, develop high quality prints, and be efficient enough for us to be able to find a margin between the cost of the print and the sale price.

No fewer than 5 minutes after arrival the Epson PictureMate Deluxe was put through its paces. We needed to see what it could do for ourselves. We approached the unit as objectively as possible. As expected, we found the printer easy enough to get set up and ready for the first round of prints. Good. Simplicity is exactly what we’re looking for. Next came printing the pictures. Of course we had to christen the unit by starting with just the right picture. Total printing time took under 2 minutes and we were very pleased with the LCD display and the ease of use of the control panel. The one drawback we noticed was that we aren’t able to switch the language of the display into French, somewhat unfortunate since Mali is Francophone not Anglophone. But since our Cyber-tigi agent will be familiar with how to operate the machine this isn’t too great a drawback.

We started the hands-on part of the test by taking the picture outside and throwing dirt, dust and sand on it and generally just getting it good and dirty. No problem. With a good shake and a wipe the picture was back to normal with no scratches on the page.

Next we took it inside, poured water on it, let it sit for 2 minutes or so, and then wiped it off. Again, no problem. The photo held up without so much as a dribble of ink out of place.

Lastly we took it up to the roof for its real test. We wanted to see how the ink and paper would fare against the intense sun we get here. There is no hotter place we could think of than on the roof where there is no shade all day long. Taped to the ground our shot of Gizmo went 7 days straight exposed to the scorching sun. When we looked at it 7 days later we saw no visible difference compared to a week ago. We understand a week is hardly enough time to judge it fairly, so we’re going to leave him up there for a while longer. We’ll keep you updated if there is any significant loss of quality.

So far we are very pleased with the purchase. The Epson PictureMate Deluxe is more than holding its own in our view. It’s always refreshing to walk away from an investment in a piece of hardware knowing you received value for your dollar.

Next test: how it holds up in the field.

-BC

** Post script: This past weekend Matt and I had the opportunity to grill a PCV, Paul Keljik, who began a photo-printing venture similar to ours in his remote village of Dogofry. We found that among the most important elements of his printing project was the weight Malians would put on having exceptionally vibrant colors in their photos. In some cases people refused to pay for the photo when the colors were not deemed of high enough quality – a surprising statement because of how difficult it is to even find photos in these areas. Additionally, there is a significant competitive advantage to having prints immediately available, or delivered before the 2-3 week average time period it takes for traditional photos to be processed. Paul also gave advice for training the photographer and some cautions on how to manage the operation. Thank you Paul for your input.

On Wednesday of last week I left Bamako to investigate some of the potential sites and routes we were thinking of using for the Cyber-tigi project. It took 600Km to make the circuit, but it was worth every one of them. It turns out we likely have to reevaluate a couple of our sites and a couple of the routes, and virtually everything south of Faraba. They simply don’t fit our criteria in many ways.

Far from being a negative, this allowed us the opportunity to find a whole slew of potential sites and routes. From what we’ve gleaned so far and how we are reworking the logistics we are coming up with an even better model. We took 1 step backwards by having to reevaluate the sites we originally had in mind, but 3 steps forward when we began investigating what we could do with the other information gleaned from the field. Our design is now stronger for it.

We are now considering a 3-cell approach to the Cyber-tigi pilot. We envision using 3 separate CLICs* to service our different locals in 3 different ways. This would help us better understand the merits of delivering services by each of the 3 methods. Additionally, we are now looking at ways to reduce these CLIC’s connection costs by sharing their connection.

Photo of the proposed Cyber-tigi sites and routes.

The white path indicates the route the moto or bachée could travel along.

Blue: CLICs White: Kiosk sites Brown: villages between

The first component would include the original plan of using a moto-person to go from kiosk hub to kiosk hub and hitting villages along the routes. At least once a week the person would take all the information collected, bring it back to the CLIC, upload/download/print/ect. and return along the same circuit to deliver/upload/download/etc. once again at the kiosks. We found 2 potential sites along the Ouelessebougou route we could service in this fashion called Faraba and Niagadina, along with a handful of villages along the principal routes connecting these sites. This would be the traditional “moto / cyber” component of the model.

The next would be the “bachée”* component. Using bachées we envision reaching 3 other sites (Narena, Karan, Bancoumana) meeting our selection criteria and have them serviced through the Kangaba CLIC. At least once per week the data would be sent from the kiosk sites to Kangaba by bachée. Kangaba handles the uploads/downloads/printing/etc. and then returns the materials through the bachée network back to each respective site. This would create a hub-and-spoke component within the model using the Kangaba CLIC as the service provider and bachées as our delivery mechanism.

Lastly, with the Bougoula CLIC we are considering setting up a kiosk in a densly populated town approximately 25 Km away and have the CLIC itself manage the logistics of sending/receiving information with the kiosk. Because this CLIC could greatly benefit from increasing its revenues, this approach would help us determine if, for our part, setting up kiosks alone would be sufficient enough service by itself to extend the CLIC’s services. With this approach we could observe what methods of delivery are developed by the CLIC, their degree of collaboration with the kiosk site, level of interest in creating a new revenue stream from their kiosk, and weaknesses in the overall model. This would be the hands-off component to the model.

Aside from these 3 approaches we have been working with the idea of sharing the internet connection between the CLICs in Kangaba, Ouelessebougou, and Bougoula. At the moment each could greatly benefit from a way to reduce their monthly subscrition costs, and would benefit even more so in coming months as their overhead expenses will be increasing. By sharing their connection they would be able to considerably reduce their service charges and almost instantly see the benefits on their books. All the CLICs could greatly benefit from this arrangement. The technical issue is whether we can get the signal from Kangaba to Faraba to Ouelessebougou to Bougoula, line-of-sight distances of roughly 29Km, 27Km, and 38Km respectively. Frederick Renet, our radio and Wi-Fi expert is working the case now. We’ll keep you updated as new information arrives.

In conclusion, while we did meet some obstacles with our original logistics we more than compensated by reworking the design and finding alternative solutions. Now we have more options and informaiton to consider before making the final decision. Taking a step back we now recognize some of the elements of the project demand more attention (i.e. delivery logistics) and that although the overall goal of each component remains the same – to bring connectivity solutions to rural areas – the manner we deliver those solutions might take a different form in each case. The past week has helped us identify many of the original design’s strengths, weaknesses, and core metrics.

*CLIC: Community Learning and Information Center. Financed by USAID/Mali and in partnership with the Academy for Economic Development (AED) the CLICs are telecommunications centers placed with local organisations such as radios, health centers, or mayor’s offices to promote the ICT development objectives of the Government of Mali and USAID/Mali.

*Bachée: A van used to transport people and goods. They are the predominant mode of public transportation in rural areas.

Meet the Geeks

Before we get to far along into this process, it’s time to meet some of the key members of the Geekcorps Team.  Besides bringing (as I’m sure you already gathered) a lot of enthusiasm and energy to the table, we are particularly excited to have Brennan for his indepth knowledge and understanding of Mali which he gained, firsthand while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer here. Brahima Camara’s (as he is known locally) primary role will be our person in the field, master of protocols and economy. Tommorow, he heads back, tent in hand, to visit the sites around Oulessebougu in our attempt to make a final site selection.

Brennan discusses Cyber-tigi with the Peacecorps
Renaud Gaudin, a French Volunteer, will be arriving tonight. He is an user interface (UI) design guru and will be tasked with designing an easy to use interface for the eKiosks - the income generating units in the Cyber-tigi system. We will try to introduce the rest of the team: Fred, Ludo, Cheikh, Maimouna and myself as the opportunities arise.Villages, mopeds, internet, huh?

We realize that the we still have not gone into great detail on how the Cyber-tigi will function. Until we do, here is a diagram we put together to help illustrate what we are trying to accomplish.

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!

As was mentioned in the last post we’ve finally settled on a final name for the LMI we have underway. And the winner is…. Cyber-tigi.
Special thanks to Katie McDonald, third year Peace Corps Volunteer for her input. During a brainstorming session with a group of PCVs at the Geekcorps office last Saturday we tossed around a few names and a few ideas. With a bit of introspection Katie put it to us simply, “Why don’t you just call it Cyber-tigi? After all, that’s what they’re going to call it in village anyway.” Bingo! Thank you Katie.

Why do we like Cyber-tigi? It’s a simple blend of a universal term in any language, “Cyber”, and “tigi” which ties in with Bambara, the predominant local language. It isn’t too cumbersome to say and just rolls of the tongue. “Cyber-tigi”. It’s also more practical than Cyber-mobili since we’re using a moto not a car. One other little nicety is that we are going to be using entrepreneurs in each of the villages with eKiosks so now that person will be known as the Cyber-tigi, helping to reinforcing our brand.

Kan bèn*.

Brennan

* Kan bèn: Good bye.

It has been a flurry of activity over here in the past week. From deciding the Canon PowerShot A410 might be a slightly better fit than the A400, to Matt Berg our director negotiating tooth and nail for the Yamaha motorcycle we need for the project. By the end of the week we had the photo printer ordered, the camera on the way, lots of ink ready to be turned into photos, a shiny new YB100 moto, and an action packed Saturday lined up.

The printer we ended up choosing was the Epson PhotoMate Deluxe. It has received numerous strong reviews and was highlighted in Wired Magazine among its Best Picks. The price should be between $0.218 and $0.30 per photo, leaving a generous enough margin for us to work with. On top of that, the quality of the photos are good, and they are smudge proof and water resistant. The paper is supposed to be quite durable too. From everything we’ve seen, it all seems like a perfect fit for Mali.

The moto is the YB100 model, here known as Chinois premiere qualité since they are manufactured in China and rank the first of the three qualities of bike. A local colleague did substantial research a week ago for his project and referred us to the fellow he negotiated with previously. In true Malian style, Matt Berg fiercely negotiated the price down for the bike, helmets, and all its accessories. We left the place with all the gear, a little bit of gas, had a mechanic tune it up, and all the essential parts paying just about the same price we thought we’d have to pay for just the bike itself. As is said in Bambara, the predominant local language, “I ni baara, Matt” [translation: “You and your work, Matt” - meant as an acknowledgement of someone’s efforts]. Here’s are a couple shots of the bike and of Hamadou our guard-extraordinaire with the bike:

Saturday at the Geekcorps office we hosted a group of Mali Peace Corps Volunteers to talk about what Geekcorps does here, how we can find ways to work together, and particularly hash out a few ideas on the LMI project. It was here when we stumbled onto the name with the help of Katie McDonald, a third year PCV who lived in the most rural of rural villages. “Why not call it ‘Cyber-tigi’? After all, that’s what they’re going to call it in the villages anyway.” Bingo! Thank you Katie. We liked cyber-something; we liked tigi because of the way it sounds; we wanted to lean away from mobili because there’s so much more to it than just the moto [and mobile is vehicle not moto]. Cyber-tigi. Perfect. From this point forward our LMI has a name: Cyber-tigi.

Today we has the moto licenced and tuned up just perfectly – nice, tight, and fully fuelled. Tomorrow I (Brennan) will be heading out to Ouelessebougou (lat=11.99474, lon=-7.91285 if you want to see it through Google Earth) and then on to Faraba to begin field assessments of some of the other rural communities we plan to service. I’ll be heading to Ouelessebougou first, then immediately on to Faraba, located about 30Km West of Oueless on a well packed dirt road. I’ll arrive, meet the dugutigi* and the mayor again to carry out protocol, and then spend the rest of the day collecing information. I’ll spend the night in the village with a jatigi* I’ll find at some point over the course of the day, and then head out the next day for the next village 30Km on a seasonal road south of Faraba called Dalalaba. Following Dalabala I’ll return to Faraba and then head onward to the next site, Miagandia, 40Km Northwest of Faraba. Miagandia back to Faraba, back to Ouelessebougou. Get all that? Riveting isn’t it, especially when you don’t have any idea where these places are and have one-of-a-kind names thrown at you. Don’t worry, early next week you’ll have pictures.

For the moment how about a Google map? We have begun using Google Earth to help track some of the spots we plan on servicing. Because so many of the little hamlets we will be passing are on no maps we will be taking GPS readings and then placing them on Google Earth to help better organize and identify our sites. For the moment, here’s an idea of where we’re heading:

(on the top is a close-up of the Ouelessebougou region. Beneath is West Africa - look for the blue writing in the southwestern part of Mali to find Ouelessebougou)

So that’s it for now. Check back soon and we’ll have plenty more to tell you. And pictures too!

On that note, here’s one for the road, so to speak. We’re certainly not mean enough to be Hell’s Angels, nor do we hold a candle to Marlon Brando in The Wild One. So who are we? We are the coolest Geeks in Mali with what is soon to be the most technology-equipped bike in all the land. Word! ….wait…. OpenOffice Writer!

Cheers.

*dugutigi: Chief of the village.

*jatigi: Host family. When a person is housed and fed by someone the host is called the jatigi.

So today was digital camera hunting day.

For the project we need to find a decent, all purpose, inexpensive camera that we can use for taking pictures in and around the villages that we plan to service. Why, you might ask, do you need to take pictures in these villages? Well, the answer is simple: it’s a service we plan to offer. No, not the picture taking itself but the prints we plan to make from the photos.

See, one of things here is that people LOVE having pictures. They’re tangible, they’re a record of family members, they’re cool to show to guests, and frankly, who doesn’t like a picture or two of those they care about, right? The issues here though are cost and time. Plain and simply, it’s expensive and it’s a hassle. Sometimes when the photo-tigi* comes around and people want their pictures taken they have to wait weeks until the guy fills up the roll of film, gets the pictures processed (tough!), and then get them back to them. What a hassle! On top of all this people have to pay a bunch of money sometimes for prints that didn’t even turn out all that well. Can you say disappointing?

The real kicker is that there’s a real demand for photos. When there is a marriage or a baptism going on you can rest assured someone would like a photo of the event. They are, after all, often the social event of the season. Who wouldn’t want a photo? And those are only two events. There’s always demand for photos.

But I digress…

We see an opportunity here. There’s a demand for this service. We are in the perfect position to offer it. So what do we need? Well today we were looking at some of the hardware we’d have to pick up to get this fraction of the project taken care of. Here’s what we thought…

We know we need a camera that was very easy to use. We had to keep in mind that the people using it would not need many of the super-duper-deluxe-fantastic features of a high-end camera. The tool would be used chiefly as a simple point-and-click camera.

We wanted something that used AA batteries, not a camera specific battery you very often find in many models. If possible we also wanted to shoot for a camera that only used 2 batteries at a time. This way we can always have at least 2 charging back at our hub and 2 in the machine. We need to have some flexibility in how and when we recharge our batteries, and having to wait around in one area for our only battery to charge is not practical.

We needed it to be inexpensive. Priority. We want to keep our costs low so that that can be recouped more easily. We set a cap of $150 USD and if possible lower.

We wanted between 3-4 Megapixels. We’re printing photos not posters. This should suit our needs adequately.

We wanted something compact. We are going to have to travel with it often after all.

We needed a memory card that would be compatible with our photo printer. [Epson PictureMate Deluxe]

We wanted the camera to have some durability. Chances are it’ll get knocked around from time to time by accident. Who knows? Also, we needed to consider the heat conditions here. Generally we try to shoot for hardware that is in the 55C range, but it seems as though all the models that fit our criteria always fall in the 0-40C range. Not much we can do.

Lastly, if possible, we’d like to have a video function, even if it is only basic. But only if possible.

So, after taking all those things (and more) into consideration, after checking dozens upon dozens of cameras, and after looking at numerous review sites we found one that we think is the right balance for what we need it for. We chose the Canon PowerShot A400 from Amazon (currently on sale at $100 down from $180).

The price was great. Ease of use was just where we needed it to be. 2 AAs is what it takes (don’t worry – we’ll be using NiMH batts). 3.2 Megapixels is fair for our needs. Relatively compact. SD memory card. Somewhat durable – although we read reviews going strongly for and against (most for). It even does very small 3 minute videos (although only at 15 fps).

All together it seems like the right fit for us, at least in comparison to the others we evaluated. And considering we’ll also need to pick up batteries & a charger, a dust proof case (maybe wrapped in Ziplock to keep sand out – what do you think?), and a memory card the price helps us defray these costs more.

So that’s it. For the moment it’s the Canon PowerShot A400. The reviews are solid, it meets our needs, the specs line up on paper, and the price seems fair. Good.

Now all we have to do is agree on which one of the 4 colors we want it in. I’m partial to the green. St. Patrick’s day is coming up after all. You?

Cheers.

*-tigi : When you put “tigi” at the end of a word it means that someone is the one in charge of that thing. For instance, a woman selling bananas (called namasas) would be called the namasa-tigi. She is the banana lady. If it’s your donkey cart (wotoro) you are the wotoro-tigi – the donkey cart man. See the pattern? In our case we have a camera person, therefore they become the photo-tigi.

Linux has Tux the penguin, Nintendo has Mario & Luigi, and Pixar has Luxo Jr…

But none, and I mean NONE, holds a candle to the new Geekcorps Mali mascot. My friends, please welcome the newest addition to the team, Gizmo.

(his ears perk up when you say Open Source)

Welcome to the Geekcorps Mali Last Mile Initiative (LMI) project blog. We have a great project underway and we’d like to share what we’re up to with you.

The project itself is called CyberMobili – at least that’s what we’re calling it at the moment – and it has some real merit. In case you were wondering, “mobili” means car in Bambara, the predominant local language here in Mali.

In short, what we plan to do is create a series of kiosks in very rural villages to offer much needed services like voice messaging, photocopying, market information and prices from surrounding villages, and myriad other services we’ll describe in later posts. One of the most striking aspects of the project, however, is where we’ve chosen to test out this project. The villages we’ve chosen don’t have access to the telephone networks, electricity grid, regular roadways, or other standard infrastructure. In fact, the sites we’ve chosen to work with are quite literally off the beaten path.

We have a solid team working tirelessly to bring it all together and we’ve already begun to make some progress. Two weeks ago we began synthesizing all the project elements into a more coherent design. Last week we focused our attentions on which sites around the country were the best fit for our model, including a field visit to our current favorite hub sites in the southwestern part of the country, Ouelessebougou and Faraba .

This week we’re tightening up some of the elements of the CyberMobili (CM) project. We have a big week next week. We’re sending one of our Geeks out to begin the first detailed site assessment of the smaller satellite villages we plan to service by motorcycle. We know the sites (called Faraba, Miagandia, Bougoula, Kognaba, and Dalabala) look solid from all the data we’ve collected. Now we need to see what the real cases are in the field.

Check back late next week for pictures of the villages. We’ll try and have some up by Friday the 24^th. We hope you’ll visit often and even contribute your thoughts. We’re always trying to find ways to work out better solutions and your feedback could prove valuable. We’ll also be adding plenty of other great content in the weeks to come.

We hope you enjoy.