HAITI CONNECT

Following my recent (short) presentation on Haiti & emergency communications at the Dublin Ignite event (see above) I have decided to give a number of public presentations on Haiti Connects work and on the role of technology in disaster aid & recovery in general. The purposes of the talks are two-fold; I want to raise awareness of the ongoing situation in Haiti and raise support for our work so that we can continue our work there.

The talks will be free to attend but there will be an option to donate during or after the event.

Below are the current dates but we will expand the list as we go along. If you have a suitable venue and want me to come and give a presentation please feel free to contact me.

• July 24: Nenagh Arts Center. Time to be announced. 7:30 – 9:00 pm.
• July 28th: Best Western Academy Plaza Dublin. 7:30 – 9:00 pm.

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Sometimes you win some and sometimes you lose some….

The last two days have been “one of those days”. When our equipment finally arrived at the CAMEJO clinic in Leogane it was time to get an Internet connection into the campus there and to build out the network. The clinic is currently working out of prefabs with work going on to rebuild the original structure. Below are tow pictures illustrating the final plan and the current condition of the structure that is being rebuild.

Obviously the work that is currently going on in the prefab structures would benefit significantly from having Internet access & a functioning computer network. As they say themselves:

So we set about contacting a number of the ISP’s operating in Haiti to find out what service they offered, what the costs would be and lastly if their service covered the area where the CAMEJO clinic was. As was my experience in the last year or so this wasn’t easy. First of all for whatever reason 9 out 10 times that I try to make a call to a Haitian number from Ireland I get an automated messages that the number is not available. Instead I sent of a number of emails to a few Haitian ISP’s and we received a few quotes back. The first quote received was $1000 for a 1Mb connection and a $500 install fee. Pretty pricey but that was to be expected as it’s a sellers market. I bit more negotiating led to a reasonable $250 quote.

The next point was one of speed, our main guy on-site (Jodel) was flying back to the USA on Sunday so we needed to have the installation done before then. The whole day of Friday went by in a flurry of emails, tweets, phone-calls and DM’s while also having someone on-site at CAMEJO with cash to pay for the install. By that evening (9 pm GMT) we finally had an arrangement that the installer would call out on Saturday to do install the equipment and connect the clinic to the Internet. Seeing that we had been working towards this for the last 6 months you can hopefully imagine my excitement.

So I spent most of Saturday waiting for the news that the installation had been completed and that the clinic was connected. It was nearly midnight here in Ireland before I got my first message; apparently the engineer had cancelled the appointment because the network in the whole area was down.

*take head and bang on desk repeatedly*…..

Anyway, we have a new attempt scheduled for coming Wednesday. I will post any news here.

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Following on the succesful but short presentation at the recent “Ignite Dublin” event we have decided to organise a series of public presentations to create awereness of the ongoing need for the rebuilding & development of Haiti. Over the next weeks we will announce venues, dates & times of these events.

The presentation itself will highlight a number of topics:

• The increased role of grassroots movements in disaster relief.
• The role of technology and online media in disaster communications.
• Haiti Connects past, present and future projects in Haiti.

Note: the presentations are also part of a fundraising campaign so people attending will be encouraged to make a donation.

We are actively looking for people to sponsor a venue, so if you are interested in seeing our presentation and can offer us a suitable venue please contact us via email or by phone: 086/8645099

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This afternoon a unexpected but long overdue message arrived via Twitter. 22 boxes of (computer) networking equipment that we had shipped to Haiti some time ago had finally arrived at their destination at the CAMEJO Hospital in Leogane.

I won’t bore you with details but the process to get the equipment to it’s destination has been a long and laborious one with many hurdles and one that has caused many sleepless nights and grey hairs. As some of you might recall our cooperation with CAMEJO & Renewal4Haiti dates back to the end of 2010 when we donated a generator to the hospital that provided them with a dependable power source for the operating theatres, outpatient clinics, wards etcetera.

This shipment is the next step in our continuing cooperation with CAMEJO & Renewal4Haiti. This project is one of many great ones going on in Haiti but it appeals very much to us because of it’s great focus on the direct involvement and leadership by Haitians. The rebuilding of the permanent hospital is progressing steadily and plans for a vocational training centre are also on the books.  The equipment that we have shipped over will be used to provide a stable Internet connection into the campus and to build a wired & wireless LAN (Local Area Network). The benefits of this for the hospital are many as the illustrated by the messages here, here and here.

This is only part of our plans and continued commitment to Haiti. We will continue to work with CAMEJO/Renewal4Haiti but we are also working on several other projects. These are spread between Cap Haitien, Les Cayes and other locations. Details of these projects can be found here. In addition we are progressing steadily with our project to set up a start-up business incubation program.

To achieve this we need your continued support. We need more computer & networking equipment but what we need most right now is funds. There are two pallets of donated equipment & supplies currently waiting in Ireland for funds to ship them to Haiti. In addition we need to raise some funds to pay for our overheads (people transport, insurance, security etc).

THERE IS ONLY SO MUCH WE CAN DO ON OUR OWN!

You can donate by clicking on the button at the top of the right sidebar. The one that looks like this:

But we also welcome donations in kind and to simplify things following is a list of what we need most right now:

• laptops
• wired & wireless networking equipment (but especially switches, routers, servers & printers)
• iPads (for use in tele-medicine programs)
• Intel based iMacs (for the Fireside International programme)
• Diesel generators
• Solar power equipment for powering remote network nodes.

All the above can be new or used as long as the equipment isn’t outdated and in working order.

If you have any of the above and want to donate it OR if you have any other equipment that you would like to donate please contact us ASAP!

P.S. I also want to thank Aruba Networks, Xirrus, Ubiquity, OpenMesh, Fidelity Engineering, Cascade Designs, WiPipe and Irishwireless. But most of all I want to thank all the people who have helped us get to where we are so far. You’re great and I hope you will continue to help us.

Evert Bopp.

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A while ago I posted a message here discussing the idea of establishing a start-up incubator facility in Haiti. The discussion can be read here. Since then I have received a lot of comments and shows of interest for this idea. I have had discussions with a large number of people and a number of organisations on how best to approach this and how to ensure that this would be an initiative that would not only benefit the Haitian people but to also how to ensure a substantial Haitian participation.

As most of the work is taking place out of the public eye I though it would be a good idea to post a quick update here. At this stage we have completed the proposal for the incubator and we have a number of parties interested in participating. However we are only halfway there, the next hurdle is funding. Hence we are inviting parties interested in investing in or sponsoring this project to contact us via email.

One of the steps we’ve also undertaken in this process is to get the “buy-in” from some big players. In light of this we’re delighted that we recently official Network Partner status with the Microsoft Bizspark program. Being a Bizspark Network partner allows us to put the might and knowledge of Microsoft behind the start-ups taking part in our incubation programs. It provides connections to other start-ups worldwide as well as access to service providers and the Microsoft software catalog.

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