Lao PDR
Jhai - Reconciliation through technology
Jhai Foundation, a reconciliation project active in Laos since 1998, was co-founded by Lee Thorn, previously a bombloader on a US aircraft carrier, and Bounthanh Phommasathit, a refugee from the bombing of the Plain of Jars (Xeng Kuoang Province). Aimed at wiring the country, one school at a time, this project overseas the building of Internet learning centres to help the people maintain their traditional way of life, using the Internet to improve their economic return from diversified, organic agriculture and hand made silk textiles.
Set up in collaboration with Schools Online, a non-profit organisation whose mission is to help students gain access to and use the communication and information resources of the Internet for learning and cross-cultural dialogue, each Internet Learning Centre (ILC) is located in a renovated, formerly vacant school room. Jhai gives each school ten computers, ten monitors, one to two printers, one scanner and one digital camera. The computers are Pentium II or III equivalents, loaded with Windows 98 (or better) and Microsoft Office Suites, as well as two simple web site design programs, one graphics program and Lao language fonts. Jhai also provides Thai language training manuals and a Lao language basic Microsoft Windows and Office training manual. These are connected to the Internet by a landline at 28-56 baud. While Jhai Foundation provided initial funding, later provided by the Ministry of Education, all centres are now becoming self-sufficient. Jhai plan to set up 30 centres in the next few years.
Jhai are now also running a remote village IT project to work in tandem with the ILCs. Under this project remote villages, which have no electricity or phones, are given a means of communication and the opportunity to use simple business tools. Each village has a computer provided by Jhai Foundation that connects to the Internet and to the related high school-based ILCs. The villagers can use Jhai computers to communicate in the Lao language by email and voice. The Jhai computers also provide the villagers with the opportunity to do simple business functions, such as writing documents and creating spreadsheets for budgetary and simple accounting purposes.
The equipment will be powered by electricity stored in a car battery charged by foot cranks which are essentially bicycle wheels and pedals hooked to a small generator. The generator is connected to a car battery and the car battery is connected to the computer. Connection to other computers will be by radio local area network (LAN). Each village will connect to one repeater station powered by a solar means on the ridge near the river valley. That station will then send the radio signal to the microwave tower nearby and eventually to a server in Vientiane that will connect the villages to the Internet.
Jhai Foundation will provide computer skills training for a group of lower secondary school students in each village. It is envisioned that the best of these students will run these computers as a business under the control of each village. The Foundation with its local partners will also provide business training to these students and villagers who will act as these students` mentors. Jhai Foundation wants its training commitment to the village to be as hands-off as possible. However, the Foundation expects to be available to the village for a minimum of one year. Jhai Foundation will also guarantee the functioning of the systems and will take responsibility for fixing them.
The Jhai Communications Centre, with wireless network and youth entrepreneurial support for business creation, will serve as an easily replicable model for the delivery of Information Technology services to poor and remote regions throughout the developing world.
The Jhai-supported Lao PDR ILC project in Laos received the coveted Stockholm Challenge award for education in 2001.