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Testimonial: Jack Welch, RI-SOL
In more than 35 countries throughout the world, Relief International - Schools Online (RI-SOL) has implemented programs to promote equity of access to technology, to make good use of technology in education, and to encourage children from different countries to explore each other's culture via the internet. In several countries, we have established Internet Learning Centers in schools, and provided training to both teacher and students. Several months ago, we launched the Global Connectivity and Exchange Program (http://www.connect-bangladesh.org) in Bangladesh, very much along the lines of its sister programs
throughout the world. Our initial roll-out involved six centers, but we
are now expanding to twenty-two, with about 160 school-based computers
involved in the entire project. Based on our experience in first six
centers, we have broken with tradition and adopted Linux for
workstations and servers.
In Bangladesh, copies of Windows XP sell for about a dollar on the street, but obviously these are not legal versions. In fact, almost all computers retail with bogus Windows installations. Several schools had some computers of their own when we began the project, but only a few had valid copies of Windows installed. Violation of intellectual property rights is pervasive in Bangladesh, but we were unwilling to condone the practice. Moral arguments aside, using cracked, out-of-date and unsupported software to run a project of this scale would be unthinkable from an operational perspective. Where we found legitimate Windows installations, we gladly retained them in a dual-boot configuration -- the best of both worlds.
One of the goals of our program is sustainability; that is, after a period of support from us, schools will run their own centers. Bangladesh is a poor but developing countries. Schools are trying to meet the needs of their students, but have little resources to spare. The last thing we want to do is burden our centers with expenses related to software upgrade costs every couple of years, burgeoning hardware requirements, and costs due to exploited security holes. After experimenting with several alternatives, we found that Linux did everything we needed it to do in terms of our curriculum and that it ran well even on the modest equipment which schools sometimes receive as donations.
Before plunging in with both feet, we had some questions which we answered through field tests in individual schools. Our first concern was that the computers would be difficult to maintain, particularly with a hundred kids hammering away at them every day. We were also concerned that it would require more technical skills to maintain a lab full of Linux rather than Windows workstations. However, technicians in each school came up to speed with a few days of training, and could independently fix almost of the problems that we anticipated. We devised a lab-on-a-disk set up for worst case scenarios -- the entire configuration can be restored from a CD if necessary (and it hasn't been necessary). In centers where students and teachers were already familiar with Microsoft applications, we installed OpenOffice in parallel and provided training over the subsequent month. The training was warmly received, and we did not receive negative comments when we switched operating systems. Finally, we considered the issue of localization. Both Linux and Windows are unicode compliant operating systems, and Bangla fonts (some of which are in the public domain) are available for both. Large portions of the Gnome and KDE GUIs have been localized for Linux, however, and this gives it something of an edge. Several open source applications have also been localized.
We think that Linux is the way to go in terms of future projects as well. Right now our centers are mainly in semi-urban areas. It is challenging to locate our Internet Learning Centers in rural areas because of low infrastructure in those areas: electricity is unreliable where available, and some areas are completely outside any communication network. The country is making progress in both electrication and expansion of its commnications infrastructure, but these issues will take years to solve. At present, the best way to proceed in these areas is to use low power computers in conjunction with alternative energy systems. A number of low power consumption devices use unusual hardware architectures but can run Linux (and presumably anything that you could compile under Linux).
Since the switchover, we have had a good experience keeping the centers up and running. As a not-for-profit trying to stretch donor funds as far as they can go, we think we've made a responsible decision. Based on this experience, our centers in other countries may consider adopting similar strategies after we log a few more months with this configuration.
Jack Welch, M.D., Ph.D
Country Director, Bangladesh
Relief International - Schools Online
In Bangladesh, copies of Windows XP sell for about a dollar on the street, but obviously these are not legal versions. In fact, almost all computers retail with bogus Windows installations. Several schools had some computers of their own when we began the project, but only a few had valid copies of Windows installed. Violation of intellectual property rights is pervasive in Bangladesh, but we were unwilling to condone the practice. Moral arguments aside, using cracked, out-of-date and unsupported software to run a project of this scale would be unthinkable from an operational perspective. Where we found legitimate Windows installations, we gladly retained them in a dual-boot configuration -- the best of both worlds.
One of the goals of our program is sustainability; that is, after a period of support from us, schools will run their own centers. Bangladesh is a poor but developing countries. Schools are trying to meet the needs of their students, but have little resources to spare. The last thing we want to do is burden our centers with expenses related to software upgrade costs every couple of years, burgeoning hardware requirements, and costs due to exploited security holes. After experimenting with several alternatives, we found that Linux did everything we needed it to do in terms of our curriculum and that it ran well even on the modest equipment which schools sometimes receive as donations.
Before plunging in with both feet, we had some questions which we answered through field tests in individual schools. Our first concern was that the computers would be difficult to maintain, particularly with a hundred kids hammering away at them every day. We were also concerned that it would require more technical skills to maintain a lab full of Linux rather than Windows workstations. However, technicians in each school came up to speed with a few days of training, and could independently fix almost of the problems that we anticipated. We devised a lab-on-a-disk set up for worst case scenarios -- the entire configuration can be restored from a CD if necessary (and it hasn't been necessary). In centers where students and teachers were already familiar with Microsoft applications, we installed OpenOffice in parallel and provided training over the subsequent month. The training was warmly received, and we did not receive negative comments when we switched operating systems. Finally, we considered the issue of localization. Both Linux and Windows are unicode compliant operating systems, and Bangla fonts (some of which are in the public domain) are available for both. Large portions of the Gnome and KDE GUIs have been localized for Linux, however, and this gives it something of an edge. Several open source applications have also been localized.
We think that Linux is the way to go in terms of future projects as well. Right now our centers are mainly in semi-urban areas. It is challenging to locate our Internet Learning Centers in rural areas because of low infrastructure in those areas: electricity is unreliable where available, and some areas are completely outside any communication network. The country is making progress in both electrication and expansion of its commnications infrastructure, but these issues will take years to solve. At present, the best way to proceed in these areas is to use low power computers in conjunction with alternative energy systems. A number of low power consumption devices use unusual hardware architectures but can run Linux (and presumably anything that you could compile under Linux).
Since the switchover, we have had a good experience keeping the centers up and running. As a not-for-profit trying to stretch donor funds as far as they can go, we think we've made a responsible decision. Based on this experience, our centers in other countries may consider adopting similar strategies after we log a few more months with this configuration.
Jack Welch, M.D., Ph.D
Country Director, Bangladesh
Relief International - Schools Online
