Africa Burns for a Village Telco
In that spirit, Bruce proposed to establish a Village Telco at the “Burn” by creating free-standing, solar-powered Mesh Potato phone booths that would bridge distance in the two kilometre span of the event.
Well, not just Bruce but an eclectic band of hackers and artists.
I think the original idea may have been Bretton Vine’s. I remember him mentioning the idea of a Village Telco for AfrikaBurn back at iWeek last year.
He and and graphic designer Diaan Mynhaardt hooked up with Scarborough Mesh founders David Carman and Antoine Van Gelder who have been involved in one way or another in the Village Telco since its conception.
Bruce was the tipping point that pushed the idea from concept into action.
He got me and the Foundation involved, albeit in a very nominal way in underwriting some of the costs of the setup, and Isigidimi was born.
Isigidimi means important message in Xhosa and is the name the group chose for the AfrikaBurn phone network.
Well, not just Bruce but an eclectic band of hackers and artists.
I think the original idea may have been Bretton Vine’s. I remember him mentioning the idea of a Village Telco for AfrikaBurn back at iWeek last year.
He and and graphic designer Diaan Mynhaardt hooked up with Scarborough Mesh founders David Carman and Antoine Van Gelder who have been involved in one way or another in the Village Telco since its conception.
Bruce was the tipping point that pushed the idea from concept into action.
He got me and the Foundation involved, albeit in a very nominal way in underwriting some of the costs of the setup, and Isigidimi was born.
Isigidimi means important message in Xhosa and is the name the group chose for the AfrikaBurn phone network.
In the spirit of standing on the shoulders of giants, it is worth saying that Bretton and this group’s inspiration came from David Burgess’s amazing work in setting up his OpenBTS GSM base-station at Burning Man in the United States in 2008 and again in 2009.