Africa Burns for a Village Telco
The Isidigimi collective brought a unique combination of talents to the challenge.
Bretton’s anarchic imagination, Diaan’s brilliant Isigidimi design for the phone booths, David’s serious 12Volt systems hacking, Antoine’s mesh networking design, and Bruce’s creative but sturdy and re-usable phone booth design all combined to make a seriously cool AfrikaBurn happening that is definitely worth repeating. Re-reading the above I feel like I have done the group a disservice in describing unique contributions as they are each so multi-talented that I have failed to do them justice.
Bretton’s anarchic imagination, Diaan’s brilliant Isigidimi design for the phone booths, David’s serious 12Volt systems hacking, Antoine’s mesh networking design, and Bruce’s creative but sturdy and re-usable phone booth design all combined to make a seriously cool AfrikaBurn happening that is definitely worth repeating. Re-reading the above I feel like I have done the group a disservice in describing unique contributions as they are each so multi-talented that I have failed to do them justice.
David Carman has a wonderful narrative of his experience at the Burn which also covers a lot of the technical challenges experience in setting up this network.
My own observations, based on a very short stay at AfrikaBurn, are on the social use of the phones and what worked and what was a surprise.
While the original design was just to have five phone booths dotted about AfrikaBurn, it quickly became evident that Isigidimi could add value by connecting key elements of AfrikaBurn.
So, from the start the Isigidimi camp had a support extension on 999 but it rapidly became evident that it could be useful to set up the Medic tent on extension 911.
The main gate for AfrikaBurn also needed a way of communicating with the organisers at the main AfrikaBurn site.
While the original design was just to have five phone booths dotted about AfrikaBurn, it quickly became evident that Isigidimi could add value by connecting key elements of AfrikaBurn.
So, from the start the Isigidimi camp had a support extension on 999 but it rapidly became evident that it could be useful to set up the Medic tent on extension 911.
The main gate for AfrikaBurn also needed a way of communicating with the organisers at the main AfrikaBurn site.