GiveInternet.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.
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We 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.
I 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.
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. 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?
I 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.
If 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?
If 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.
Maybe 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.
Gamarjoba,
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.
Your 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.
Not 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?
Make 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.
> 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.
It 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.
Some 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
Perhaps, this was a previous project name and the links haven't been fixed?
The 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.
You 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.
The 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.
Do 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).
Look at where money is parked around the world, and you have your answer.
Improve 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.
In this era, I am no longer convinced that the internet is such a good thing.
Better idea... give out AOL CD's.
Perhaps 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.
My 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.
Don'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.
In a world were people can't afford health care your problen is giving them internet... Ridiculous.
You 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.
Interesting, 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)
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?