South End Technology Center -- Session Notes -- February 7, 2004

Introductions (appoligies for misspellings in names):  
Neil, Reggie, Aman, Robert, Gabe, Sherri, Kofi, You, Jennifer, Fran, Chris, Joe, Antione, Francisco, Amy, Joel, Mel, Bakhtiar, David, 

Joseph Okor
<jkokor@alum.mit.edu>
http://miters.mit.edu/iap2004/robot/

Interests:
Seeing technology transferred, helping out, contributing to the community, 

Background:
Focus of research at MIT is on machines that make machines
Lots of fancy equipment to do fabrication
MIT class on "how to make almost anything"
NSF program on educational technology
"Microseconds" and "Microns" have become more accessable -- circuit 
board printer that can print down to a micron (a millionth of a meter)

Vision:
Personal fabrication capability

Tools:
Laser cuter (like a laser printer, but with a high power laser that 
is very precise) -- the quickest way to make 3-D structures is with 
a 2-D cutter

Camm-1:  Flexible electro-magnetic knife -- cuts circuit boards and 
other things 

Modela:  3-D milling machine -- can make circuits -- can take copper 
and make circuit boards for telephone modems, sensing for health 
care, video controlers for games -- as well as 3-D printing (pretty 
cool!)

Roland company has supplied the last two -- with CEO coming soon

Uses around the world -- making tools for indian health care, 
scandinavian management of animal herds

Potential link to the Lemuson initiatives on inventive creativity

Potential link to technologies in Ghana -- Boston is a sister city 
with Ghana's first harbour city Sekondi/Takoradi (Boston's only 
sister city on the African continent and the third largest city in G
Ghana with many similarities to Boston -- the nation's first port 
city that was also where the struggle for Ghana's independence 
began)

Boston Sekondi/Takoradi student exchanges -- with host families and 
assignments into public schools -- middle school age students -- 
there is BSTCA -- Boston Sekondi/Takoradi Sister Cities Association 
-- with both city councils helping to cover some of the costs -- as 
well as exchanges from US of 44 containers of hospital beds, books, 
computers, etc.

Links to international sister cities association as well

Question for a village where people live in homes on stilts that are 
on the water -- so how could technology help -- a two-hour canoe to 
get to this village -- there is no land -- but they do go to land to 
do farming -- they moved there during a period of slavery to avoid 
being captured -- but would never move now -- tourism is a source of 
income -- there is a school that is very advanced -- there is no 
sewage as such -- there is access to the sun with solar power and 
bateries 

Could access to information through communications be a base for a 
sustainable industry -- portable communications and information 
exchange that doesn't depend on an electrical infrastructure

Cell phone is very popular in the capital and is distributed to some 
rural villages -- since there is not a land-line infrastructure -- 
Chinese company has a wireless box with a cell phone chip that can 
be registered to wireless company and can hook up with a regular 
phone -- idea of an attachment for a regular phone -- cell phones 
can at most go 30 kilometers

It is possible to make a mesh network of antenas and repeaters for 
the community -- with links to solar panels -- can you make solar 
panels in the field?  It may be possible, but that may not be the 
first priority -- focus where you can make a tangible change

In most of rural Africa access to technology is very costly -- there 
is not enough money for food, let alone telephones -- a key issue is 
antennas that make communications easy -- this could be a part of a 
compelling story

Even issues of kids falling in the water -- is there as way to help 
to know when something like this happens -- parallels to a village 
on stilts in Brazil

Note that this village is not typical and other places may have a 
better mix -- where there is a link to a polytechnic, a person like 
Mel, and other critical resources

Work by David in Senigal around learning to use technology tools in 
new ways -- lessons when people who grew up in the village and 
learned to put things together and solve problems -- which then gets 
transferred to the technology

The question is what is the gap between what is possible and what 
people know -- this is the attraction of bits and atoms -- the 
invention of invention -- the sustainable resource is people -- what 
are we doing that has the building of capabilty as the focual point 
-- there is no such thing as a poor community -- every community has 
something that someone else wants -- knowing what is of value -- It 
is all about relationships


Lessons about success:

One is people such as Mel -- visionary people who are organizing 
forces and who bring order to a community

Second is a compelling story -- applications where there was a 
"pull" by the lapels -- rural health care, local artisans, 
sheephearding, urban waste/recycling

Also important is access to understanding of technology -- with 
different levels of expertise focused on the problems -- technical 
competancy within reach -- but this is less of a requirement since 
it can come from multiple sources








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