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Show HN: 2.5B people can’t afford internet – need your opinion on our solution
- jibla 7y agoGiveInternet.org allows anyone to sponsor monthly Internet fees and laptops for underprivileged high school students from refugee settlements and rural areas. Through monthly recurring donations from up to 700 individuals, we have equipped 350+ students with Chromebooks, Internet access, educational resources and our constant online mentorship. Our donors receive monthly transparency reports with details on every cost, student success stories, and our progress. Now we are working to incorporate a 501(c)3 nonprofit in the US and expand operations to the Middle East and Africa by collaborating with partners on the ground. As we expand and refine our product, we need your honest feedback on our platform! Let us know what you think about the website, our business model, etc. How? Comment here; Fill out this 3-5 minute survey - http://bit.ly/2P3wDj6 http://bit.ly/2P3wDj6 Schedule a call with us for an interview-https://calendly.com/gjibladze/giveInternet https://calendly.com/gjibladze/giveInternet
- Aaronstotle 7y agoI think this is an amazing project but isn't there a better alternative to chromebooks? Maybe used laptops, can usually get leased business laptops for a similar price, and they don't actively spy you at all times.
- jibla 7y agoWe've started with the used ones, but used devices need maintenance all the time. And the operations became very inefficient. So we switched to the new Chromebooks because they were cheap, fast, virus-free, battery lifetime. Sometimes we still collect used business laptops from trusted supporters like EY for example, who replace their devices once in 2 years
- Tempest1981 7y agoCan't you run Linux on a Chromebook? Not sure if it has problems. https://itsfoss.com/install-linux-chromebook/ https://itsfoss.com/install-linux-chromebook/
- jibla 7y agoThanks for the link. I don't remember we've tried this
- Tempest1981 7y agoNote that Chromebooks have a different keyboard, so you may want to rebind a few things. https://wiki.galliumos.org/Media_keys_and_default_keybindings https://wiki.galliumos.org/Media_keys_and_default_keybinding... Chromebooks have a "Search" key instead of CAPS lock, and the F1..F10 keys are Back, Forward, Reload, Full screen, Switch Window, Brightness Up, Brightness Down, Mute, Volume Down, Volume Up. F11 and F12 might use Search with + and -
- 420codebro 7y agoGood work - Sounds like a great project.
- dannykwells 7y agoWhy is this something that requires a non-profit to do? Facebook, Google and Amazon are desperate to get more eyeballs and clicks on their apps. Giving some one a Chromebook feels like just donating money to those companies...who definitely don't need it. Why should we, ordinary citizens contribute to this company? And have you brought it to Google and Facebook for sponsorship? Would you accept $$$ from them if they offered it?
- jibla 7y agoThanks for your feedback. We are also thinking about it a lot. What would make us grow faster a nonprofit or a forprofit? We just thought that people would donate only to a nonprofit and were also a bit afraid to switch to for-profit. Don't even know yet, how to test it. Now, this comment shook my mind again;)
- Waterluvian 7y agoYeah I think this is where regulation might be the right tool. Facebook: "well I want to give out FaceBooks that an only access our websites, but I'll settle for more eyeballs on the ads even if they use the devices to surf the web too."
- monocasa 7y agoFacebook was provided exactly that trade-off in India, and pulled out.
- rory096 7y ago>Why is this something that requires a non-profit to do? Facebook, Google and Amazon are desperate to get more eyeballs and clicks on their apps. Facebook tried something along these lines in India. It did not go well. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/net-neutrality-is-interesting-no-really/461943/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/net-n...
- yorwba 7y agoIf the aim is to provide internet access to as many people as possible, wouldn't a cheap phone running Android Go or KaiOS be a more efficient use of the money? Any particular reason you went with Chromebooks instead?
- mjevans 7y agoMy guess as a bystander is that I treat my phone as a media consumption device. Having a fullsized keyboard and at least a "page" of glass seems to be the line to cross for the creation of meaningful content. IE to participate in nuanced discussions rather than narrow focused replies or even just up/down votes (more like a mob mentality).
- jibla 7y agoAgree. This is exactly the main argument of educators in favor of bigger screens and keyboard. Although Chromebooks still lack features for creation (not possible to install some software), students can still create everything that can be done on cloud-based platforms.
- jibla 7y agoFirst, we started with the used ones, but the maintenance of used devices was a disaster. Chromebooks were cheap, fast, virus-free and with bigger screens (More convenient for education) We buy them from 150-180 USD per unit. But this doesn't mean we' always go with Chromebooks. We always consider any other solutions based on the need of the project
- t0astbread 7y agoAre Chromebooks really that much cheaper than "regular" Windows or OS-less Laptops? If so, why?
- PopeDotNinja 7y agoI bought a regular Windows laptop for a homeless person almost 10 years ago, and have done some tutoring for low income folks. Most of them were not computer savvy. The also had a tendency to lose their laptops, lots of theft. My personal experience tells me that whatever solution gets picked, the easier it is to use and replace the computer, the more sustainable it will be.
- johnklos 7y agoInteresting, but buying in to the Google world requires a substantial amount of locking-in. Perhaps you should examine open source, open OSes and not OSes designed to funnel data to large for-profit companies. "Studets" should have an "n" ;) (https://giveinternet.org/en/our-work/projects https://giveinternet.org/en/our-work/projects) What kind of work is going on to provide alternative methods of Internet delivery, be they sharing from other parts of communities, buying Internet in bulk, working with ISPs to get discounted pricing, et cetera?
- jibla 7y agoThanks for your feedback. Agree, we are considering open-source OS's as well. We are at an early stage and Chromebooks were fast and cheap solutions to start with. But will take your comment into consideration. We work with the incumbent operators and smaller Wifi providers. They offer free installations for our families and in some areas discounts on a monthly fee. Btw we thought we were solving the affordability problem, but it turned out some local Wifi operators are willing to deploy infrastructure in areas where they considered not profitable before. As part of our partnership in September, they launch a new base station in a rural area of Georgia and we are excited about it.
- programminggeek 7y agoBetter idea... give out AOL CD's.
- qwerty456127 7y agoOr Encarta CDs perhaps... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20739629 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20739629
- lacker 7y agoIt says that you spend $7 a month to give people internet, and that you are giving internet access to 350 students. So, you are giving about $2,000 a month of value to students? It doesn't seem like this is a cost-effective charity if you have even a single employee. I think you would be better off giving the underprivileged people money directly, and letting them purchase their own internet access.
- jibla 7y agoAt the moment we are bootstrapping and co-founders work for free, but we hope to become more effective after we reach some scale. We need to keep our team running not only to pay for the internet but for students identification (Working with schools and NGO's), Donor growth, community building, partner relations (ISP's and local Edtech partners who provide their services to our students for free) impact measurement, etc. At the moment a couple of corporate donors are covering those costs. I am not sure if I've answered your question
- Tempest1981 7y agoWhy start with the students, instead of the 9/10 schools that lack internet access? (From your website: "In the poorest countries, only 1 out of every 10 students has Internet access at school.")
- jibla 7y agoAccording to educators and researchers, there is a huge difference whether a student has access to the internet at home or in a public place where access is limited. In terms of creativity having internet access whenever you need it and how long you need it makes a meaningful difference. But this doesn't mean we only provide students with access. Sometimes we have projects where we connect educational community centers.
- Tempest1981 7y agoThanks. Although I suspect more people might donate if they felt their donation helped 100 kids at a school, vs 1 kid at home. The "huge difference" might not be obvious, and I don't think it was in your FAQ. It might be a fun experiment to let donors choose either school or individual.
- fmajid 7y agoDo you have plans to cover elsewhere than Georgia? Terms like “Russian occupation” are loaded. The Abkhaz certainly don’t feel Georgian, and it was Saakachvili who shelled them first (albeit after a string of Russian provocations).
- jibla 7y agoYes, we do plan to expand in the middle east and African countries by partnering with the partners on the ground. Regarding the political issue, I'd rather don't step into these discussions as this thread has another purpose. The fact is Georgia has 250K IDP's (Internally displaced people) in the country not able to go back to their homes.
- jteppinette 7y ago> We believe that Internet access is a human right. I disagree with this. This doesn't event make sense [EDIT: to me]. The internet is simply a very large network of private systems. You don't have a right to access this network, nor do you have a right to force someone to join this network. If your "human rights" can be negated by the power going out, they are quite weak. I am being nit-picky, but I just don't like this marketing tactic.
- jibla 7y agoDoes it make more sense if we formulate it as "access to information" and not "Internet access"?
- jteppinette 7y ago"We believe that everyone should have access to the internet."
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mruts 7y agoHow about just: "We think that access to the internet for everyone is a good thing."
- monocasa 7y agoEveryone here has access to the court system as a human right, but you better believe the courthouse will be closed if the power goes out too.
- jteppinette 7y agoDo you not think there were trials before the invention of electricity?
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- tryitnow 7y agoImprove the global economy especially through more free trade and more migration. That will help more people afford everything, not just the internet. There's other solutions too, like reducing corruption and cost of doing business in developing countries. But there's little westerners can do to implement those solutions. Trade and immigration are things western nations have control over.
- capex 7y agoNot sure about how it actually works. I couldn't find the information around how you actually 'give' internet to people? Do they use their own device, or do you provide a device as well? What happens when the funding for someone runs out?
- jibla 7y agoWe work with the local ISP's and small Wifi operators. After installation families provide their subscriber codes and we set automatic transactions to those codes. Yes we also provide devices which are funded either by individuals (via online donations) or corporate sponsors First, we wanted donors to choose a student (according to their profiles) but this led to many challenges including the one you mentioned. So now donors can see profiles of every student waiting but they usually donate to the platform. We don't have one time donations. only monthly donations. But still, we are at the MVP stage and figuring out what the right models could be.
- mruts 7y agoMy wife started a school/community center is Africa and we are one of the only places in town with computers and internet you can use for free. It was a rare occasion indeed that anyone wanted to do anything except watch youtube videos. Now that we banned youtube, people honestly aren't really that interested. I'm not saying internet is bad or whatever, it's just that it's not going to change people's lives without a lot of groundwork first. Educating people so they have questions to ask, or things to produce, or knowledge to acquire. We both really thought having free internet access was going to be a paradigm shift for these kids, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be making much of a tangible difference at all. You could make the argument (I personally don't), that it has actually made things worse.
- qwerty456127 7y ago> Now that we banned youtube That's a pity. YouTube is a treasure of awesome educational videos, better than any school can be. If only I had YouTube when I was a schoolboy... Cool people explain math (and other subjects) I could never understand but grok instantly this way. I can also hardly imagine a better media spreading cultural progress. It also promotes artistic expression, incl in poor people - have you seen the post about african teens making short scifi movies? If I had to choose just one website to give everybody on Earth access to that would be YouTube. Nevertheless narrow content kind focus can be a problem - if somebody watches nothing but stupid/weird stuff (it may be good to have this kind of fun occasionally but one should not focus on this too much) and is suggested more and more videos of the same kind this can hardly be beneficial. Perhaps Google should invent a solution to this problem. E.g. showing some educational videos among recommendations regardless to what kind of videos you watch.
- jibla 7y agoYou are right Youtube is a real gem, but only if used in a proper way. One of the challenges we have, that right after internet installation students check youtube and for the first-time users, it shows only the most popular content which unfortunately is far from the educational one. That's why we try to navigate students via our online mentorship program (described above) and guide them on how to use the internet (and btw youtube)for education
- qwerty456127 7y agoWe probably should analyse the way it's done in India: ultra-cheap mobile Internet (how do they manage to both provide the coverage and sustain such low prices?) and budget-class devices. There has even been a post about the new class of cheap phones which are more like those of the pre-iPhone era. I believe giving everybody access to YouTube, Reddit and Wikipedia is important.
- tguvot 7y agoI guess when you talk about India you mainly talk about Jio. They are founded by Reliance Industries which is largest publicly traded company there. Most of the network rollout and phone prices (nobody knows real BOM for their phones) are subsidized and the general business plan seems to be to make money from value added services that can be obtained from Jio in the future. Also to make rollout cheaper they negotiated some exclusive deals with Samsung; wrote their own operational support systems instead of buying off the shelf ( very expensive for deployment and integration) and probably did a whole bunch of other stuff. It's not something that can be repeated without having large sums of money to support it
- sumedh 7y ago> how do they manage to both provide the coverage and sustain such low prices? Have another business segment which makes lot of money and also use lot of debt. Reliance Jio's parent company Reliance is a big player in oil refining.
- russdpale 7y agoWikipedia ok, but Youtube and Reddit? Are you kidding? Thought you were going to say something useful like wolfram alpha. Youtube is full of conspiracy theories and reddit seems to be catering itself to white supremacy. Definitely not paragons of good or ethical internet companies.
- WheelsAtLarge 7y agoThe idea of giving is good but it is very hard to substain it over time. Pleople want to give but not in a constant basis and eventually stop. A better model is to join a profit basses organization with a nonprofit and work together to give.
- mmsimanga 7y agoI agree with you. As an African there is also another danger to receiving things, you stop working for them. You begin to expect these things as part of your life but in reality they only exist for as long as those giving have enough money or generosity. I am not saying people shouldn't give but it is a good idea to be aware of some of the long term effects of giving and being a receiver.
- jibla 7y agoI also think we should be conscious in giving. but as Chinese proverb says: Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. So we think that by giving internet connection we don't just give certain things. We try to bring an environment where people can find their passions and interests, discover professions, try out things, leave and try another, acquire relevant information, etc. Internet might be a huge step towards equality of opportunity.
- jibla 7y agoBtw it turned out that the Millenials and younger are very much willing to donate to this cause and they do it on a monthly basis since they understand that internet is monthly cost. The cause somehow resonates with them. We are trying to build a community of our donors by building the long term experience (Monthly transparency reports with all the cost breakdowns, student success stories, new geographies, bank account transactions, etc.) But the challenge you've mentioned is something we are still thinking about and are ready to experiment to find the right model.
- tguvot 7y agoGamarjoba, I think what you are doing is very important thing but it's not scalable to 2.5b people. The biggest problem for those 2.5b people are: - Availability of network infrastructure. It starts with whatever network backbone and ends with either mobile internet or wifi network. In most cases there is no business case to build out this kind of infrastructure as there is essentially no way to recover investment unless its subsidized by government or world bank or something. - Availability of electricity. There is many place that simply has none or it's very unreliable. It has twofold influence - its hard to build infrastructure that will work and people have no place to charge phones/laptops - The actual price of devices. Even if you are talking about advanced feature phones or low end smart phones (laptops are way out of price range for most of 2.5b people) its still expensive. There is all kind of schemes with operators subsidizing the device over few years but it's bring arpu to very low numbers making it hardly viable business. Edit. I actually lived in Georgia during the "fun" time, late 80s - early 90s. Good luck.
- jibla 7y agoGamarjoba:) We've researched this issue thoroughly and the infrastructure is not an issue. While 50% of the world's population lacks internet access only 15% live out of the coverage area of 3/4 G networks. This is actually where the number 2.5 Bn comes from. The main challenge is the affordability of monthly internet fees and of course devices. We actually solve both problems by providing devices and an internet connection. Electricity might be an issue in some areas but according to our assumptions, more than 160 million secondary students in low and low-middle income countries live in cities and areas where electricity is not an issue. Btw by working with the local communities, providing resources, training and constant assistance, we also seem to encourage them to see the relevance of an Internet connection. We hope to prove that most of our beneficiaries will be willing to continue paying for their Internet fees long after we have stopped paying for them. According to preliminary studies most of the families are ready to reprioritize their costs and maintain an internet connection. The "Fun" times you mentioned is one of the reasons why we've started GiveInternet.org since we have experienced first-hand the transformational power of connectivity in improving people's lives.
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- aaron695 7y agoDon't do anything the failed OLPC did! Use closed source as much as possible. Beware the sirens that sell open source. They are not on your side.
- dolomites 7y agoIn a world were people can't afford health care your problen is giving them internet... Ridiculous.
- devwastaken 7y agoIf you're targeting those in countries with less freedom, you will want to be careful about pictures and names. A woman trying to get an education in afghanistan is life or death.
- jibla 7y agoAgree. Good point! We had the same issue in Georgia in a village with a Muslim minority population. We try to be very careful when it comes to the privacy issue. We have signed documents of the family members giving us the rights to use photos on the website. Not everybody agrees. And we never use family names.
- 6DM 7y agoIn this era, I am no longer convinced that the internet is such a good thing.
- microcolonel 7y agoMake internet access cheaper by operating an efficient internet service provider, which can afford to offer access to the internet at a rate that more people can afford, in the places where it currently is too expensive.
- jibla 7y agoAt the moment we work with local ISP's and Wifi operators who offer free installations and in some areas discounts on a monthly fee. Btw on Wifi operators is willing to deploy infrastructure in areas where they considered not profitable before. As part of our partnership in September, they launch a new base station in a rural area of Georgia.
- not_a_cop75 7y agoPerhaps I'm the asshole here, but until internet companies feet are really held to the fire on pricing, I don't feel like giving is going to make a substantial difference. If suddenly the money becomes available to sponsor millions of people's internet, the price of the internet will magically jump 50-500% in cost. Additionally, while we want to magically give internet to all nations and I think that is a wonderful gesture, it seems to me that the very best thing we can do for the whole of mankind is to improve the impulse control of every single person alive today. With proper impulse control comes the ability to want to be educated and make a difference. Internet certainly makes it possible to become more educated, but without proper impulse control I'm afraid it would all be wasted on uselessness. I say this as someone that has themselves looked at way too many cat pictures and Netflix videos. Also the internet seems to be awash with types of vendors that are trying their very best to remove the impulse control of others. I don't think giving Candy Crush to the entirety of any continent is going to benefit if impulse control is the issue that is causing them the most struggle. Perhaps we should better focus on giving people the types of applications and access that are scientifically proven to improve lives? Just a thought.
- jibla 7y agoThe prices for internet connection are much cheaper in developing countries 10-15 USD and we work with local ISP's and small Wifi operators where they provide free installations and some operators provide discounts on monthly fees. Regarding your second question I am copying my answer from a post below: Besides connecting students, we run an online mentorship program via Chat, online groups, sometimes phone/ video calls. First Students receive a link with a "welcome package"-list of most popular and relevant educational platforms which are available in the local language. We also partner with the local EdTech partners who provide their services for free for our students, so if anyone is interested in any platform we teach them how to use it and provide free access. We are also long term partners with Khan Academy and Code.org and actively promote these platforms to the students. On a weekly basis, we post in an online group different educational content, free offers from our partners and education organizations who provide their courses for free (both online and offline), we post different scholarship opportunities, fellowships, programs, etc. We plan to provide tailor-made educational content separately to each student according to their interests and challenges. Also thinking to test different models. At some point, I am not sure yet how can we maintain this educational part on a bigger scale. Hopefully through partners on the ground. But still, we believe that since we all take internet connection for granted and at the same time utilize it for the good of ourselves (not always of course), others have the same right to do it.
- badrabbit 7y agoThe west had the same mindset with democracy. What works in one society may not be best in others. I think countries should organically grow their information infrastructure in parallel with their physical infrastructure and economy. That being said,China's belt road initiative is also building out internet infrastructure along the belt road's route.
- hairytrog 7y agoYou might be starting with the wrong question. You are assuming internet access is a good thing and that extending its supply will be best for everyone. Consider the following: - the internet makes people dumber (low attention spans, group think, advertising driven content, addictive behaviors promoted, etc) - the internet makes us consumers instead of creators - the internet makes people depressed and anxious - the internet causes around 5% of global GHG emissions - internet enhances ability for total monitoring and censoring of speech - internet creates centralized global tech monopolies on information flow and data - extensive global networks put society at increased risk of total collapse What are the benefits and do they really outweigh the negatives? Can the benefits be accomplished through other means? Just make sure you're comfortable with possibly making people's lives worse.
- dmix 7y agoThe mechanical knitting machine will take all of our jobs and we'll be unemployed. Lets break the machines in protest and go back to handlooms!
- jibla 7y agoDo you think we, those who are connected, should give up our internet connections? If not should we leave the rest of the world's population without it?
- hairytrog 7y agoNo. I'm addicted.
- DoreenMichele 7y agoWhat are the benefits The LGBTQ crowd is benefiting tremendously from online dating. People with weird health issues are benefiting tremendously from the ability to do research and safely talk to others with their condition, something that would be difficult or impossible to arrange and potentially quite dangerous to do in person due to cross contamination issues. I'm not going to sit here and try to point-by-point rebut your points, but, man, what a gloomy, glass-half-empty point of view. There is zero attempt at all to be even-handed about it.
- hairytrog 7y agoMaybe tech companies would contribute based on the extra money they can make. If Google can earn $5 for each additional user, they should be willing to pay 4.99 to create new users.
- jibla 7y agoGood talking point! Will keep in mind, thanks
- brownbat 7y agoI really like the idea of transparent charities helping spread access to information. The most difficult challenge will be demonstrating effectiveness relative to other charities operating near this space. Computer Aid International focuses on refurbishing used computers and providing them to those living at income levels 1 or 2, spending only around $42 per recipient. Room to Read specializes in building low cost libraries and schools, serving communities at a cost of $5 or $25 per child respectively, and they are really highly rated on transparency and effectiveness. I think you can justify the focus on Internet and Georgia, but I think you should be mindful of where the bar is set and aggressively try to push towards that. That might involve some hard choices, like whether Chromebooks can help as many students as lower cost options. Emphasizing that donors choose how much is allocated to administrative costs seems like another odd choice to me. If you are serious about that, then you could get in an unstable situation. Donors could easily have unsustainable preferences here, because they generally lack experience running charities. If you're just trying to convince donors that you are not wasting their money, I'd focus instead on independent audits on effectiveness. Then be vocal when you make hard choices about expenses, like through a blog of some kind, so you can show you're trying to save money where possible, and trying to spend money in ways that will maximize your impact. Spreading access to information can be incredibly powerful, so I hope you find a way for your program to take off, thanks for taking on this challenge.
- jibla 7y agoHey, thanks for the great feedback. - We've tried used laptops. In the short run, they might work, but the maintenance of the used ones is very hard & expensive in the long run. The initial cost might be around 42 USD, but overall we might end up with a much higher cost. But still, we're always looking for more effective ways. - The problem is so big, there are many untapped geographies. We might even consider working with Computer Aid on this. They might become our partners in some regions. - Since every donor is choosing how much to give for the operations & innovation we don't see any problem. It's almost the same as tips, which are widely practiced by many charities. Though you're right we have to be conscious about it. The average at the moment is 17% - Independent audit is a good idea. We are talking to EY and BDO about it. So that they could run/approve our transparency. - The blog to reveal hard choices is a wonderful idea. Thanks a lot!
- adammunich 7y agoI would recommend meeting up with the SudoMesh folks in Oakland if you are nearby, they get together every Tuesday. Though, probably better to do after CCCamp wraps up. https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh
- jibla 7y agoWill reach them out. Thanks
- vkaku 7y agoYour solution to what? To People who don't need an Internet but have other important issues to deal with? You're hoping that by putting them on the Internet you're going to create a new market? I don't understand the point of this. I thought the people who cared about being on the Internet already were.
- mycall 7y agoif "IoT/Robot/AI" or whatever it becomes can adapt to their needs, the people who don't need the internet, maybe there is a market there.
- vkaku 7y agoWell, this is the general idea: People can either afford the Internet or not. If they can't afford it, there are good chances they can't afford to pay any other bills. These people are usually not in developing countries, but the developed ones. The developed ones where no amount of government laws can bring affordable Internet to the public, nor any places with free WiFi nor good libraries with free browsing facilities. So clearly, there is something bigger at play, and it is about artificially pricing people out of a market being the ultimate goal. The people who do really need to be on the Internet in such a society would have already worked their way around it. And if not, they have other issues to take care of before they go to artificially high priced internet.
- jibla 7y agoSure there are more important things to solve for so many families, but In the modern world, we can skip on gradually solving basic needs. We can and should leapfrog. Furthermore, we believe that internet access and access to information can play a catalyst role in solving those problems. Today we take the internet for granted, but it's luxury for so many people. It is a commodity like water and electricity. One thing is, what we think people need and another is what they really need. It will be more relevant to use so-called LSM's - Lifestyle measures while evaluating the importance of the internet. That said how do we explain the resident of the village with no clean drinking water, buying a cell phone or kitchen appliance? or a mother paying for her son's education tutoring, even when she goes hungry? A farmer investing in cattle before improving his house? These are all facts and I am sure many of us have heard these stories. One thing is what we perceive and another is what people really need. Btw by working with the local communities, providing resources, training and constant assistance, we also seem to encourage them to see the relevance of an Internet connection. We hope to prove that most of our beneficiaries will be willing to continue paying for their Internet fees long after we have stopped paying for them. According to preliminary studies most of the families are ready to reprioritize their costs and maintain an internet connection. Because of the high price barrier, they couldn't afford the internet and now since they understand its role in their lives and its relevance, their priorities have changed.
- commandersaki 7y agoYou asked for an opinion, so here it is... Schools don’t need computers or Internet to provide a breadth of education. I don’t know if computer literacy should even be taught in schools considering there’s so many different kinds of computers and they keep changing.
- jibla 7y agoWe never target children at an early age. We focus only on High school-school age students, who need it most. As soon as we connect a student the whole family gets access to the internet. It becomes a family thing. You should see high-school students (age 16-18) living in refugee settlements and rural areas. They almost don't have access to any kind of education and information. No link to the worlds. Because of that, they have such a limited worldview. Internet helps them discover their interests and passions, trying things out and learn about new professions they've never heard about. Also, we run online mentorship programs to teach them how to use the internet in a proper way. (Here is the copy of my recent reply to another comment: Besides connecting students, we run an online mentorship program via Chat, online groups, sometimes phone/ video calls. First Students receive a link with a "welcome package"-list of most popular and relevant educational platforms which are available in the local language. We also partner with the local EdTech partners who provide their services for free for our students, so if anyone is interested in any platform we teach them how to use it and provide free access. We are also long term partners with Khan Academy and Code.org and actively promote these platforms to the students. On a weekly basis, we post in an online group different educational content, free offers from our partners and education organizations who provide their courses for free (both online and offline), we post different scholarship opportunities, fellowships, programs, etc. We plan to provide tailor-made educational content separately to each student according to their interests and challenges. Also thinking to test different models.)
- maxheadroom 7y agoSome links on your site are directed to the vanity 'charte.ge' but are still branded with 'giveinternet.org'. An example would be the 'Meet our team' link on this page: https://giveinternet.org/en/faq https://giveinternet.org/en/faq Perhaps, this was a previous project name and the links haven't been fixed?
- jibla 7y agoOops, thanks. Will fix it.
- russdpale 7y agoLook at where money is parked around the world, and you have your answer.