<snip>
Internet-in-a-Box[3] is a a WiFI-device with "Wikipedia in 37 languages,
a
library of 40,000 e-books, most of the world's open source software and source code, hundreds of hours of instructional videos, and world-wide mapping down to street level.”
This device sounds like a portable hotspot with an attached storage.
I don't understand however, what device people would use to access this hotspot? ios, android- smartphones aren't as common in that part of the world yet. And you would still need electricity to charge those devices, all that remains is the language barrier...
Anyway, I think we already have something better - Wikipedia Zero. It was designed for very similar situations. We just need some sort of a carrier relationship to avail free access for everyone with a phone in those region, I seem to recall a light text only version too that would work on any phone. The carriers might even be receptive to the idea, if approached correctly - Kul might know.
Regards Theo
Interesting. Over here, the 'experts' are adjusting the image exactly the other way around: that smartphones are much more common there than we would expect, and that we underestimate the inventivity of people to get access to information/the internet. Especially in the context of people being suspicious of all those refugees being photographed with a smartphone.
I don't know what is the truth, and why this difference of understanding exists - just adding to the noise here.
Lodewijk