Projects Overview

Development poses complex challenges that permeate across many aspects of society. ISF recognises these complexities and offers comprehensive solutions that take into account the economic, technical and cultural dimensions. Our projects aim to address foundational weaknesses in education, accessibility and ownership.

At this time, our efforts are concentrated on areas of most need, specifically Sub-Saharan Africa. We believe that the starting point of Africa’s ICT development is capacity building and network infrastructure. Some people need new technologies to learn how to read and write, some need them to run businesses, and others need them to carry out tertiary-level studies. The MANGO Net proposal sets out to address the fundamental lack of ownership in the computer manufacturing process and the inaccessibility of competitive technology at affordable prices in developing African countries. MANGO Net will create a network of computer assembly and maintenance schools all over the continent. These schools will not only produce skilled technicians, they will also act as computer assembly centres, selling and supporting the low-cost computers they build.

Computer democratisation, however, needs a parallel development of network accessibility. Geographical issues, political problems and social differences make broadband networking in Africa a hard task. Therefore, ISF has partnered with W3C on an initiative to promote the Mobile Web, or more generally mobile computing, by using the protocols that are normally used by mobile phones (GSM, GPRS, 3G etc.) as a portal to the Internet. Mobile Web will provide a standardised platform for websites to make use of these lower bandwidth mobile networks. This could make access to the Web easier for populations that would otherwise have to wait many years to be connected to broadband networks.

Lastly, education must be approached from the two ends of the spectrum, from those who lack basic literacy to those performing advanced research. For the lower end, ISF proposes LIFE, a project to humanise Linux and use it as a tool for both basic literacy and also computer competency. Illiterate users will start with a limited interface that teaches reading, writing, and basic computer functionality through multimedia instruction. As these users progress through the tutorials, the interface starts opening up more advanced functionality of the computers until the user has full command of language and computer proficiency.

For advanced users, ISF has teamed up with a number of ICT research and development centres to help create an African GRID. GRID computing is at the forefront of ICT technology, and it is becoming an essential tool for scientific and industrial research. The GRID offers research centres unprecedented computing power, by sharing all available resources in a common planetary pool. Unfortunately, while GRID technology is extensively present in most continents, it is virtually non-existent in Africa. Researchers at leading African universities, therefore, have to rely on other computing centres in the world to analyse data. It is imperative to establish an African GRID in order to bring ownership of advanced research back to the continent. Designed and built together with the CERN GRID team, the African GRID will enable Africa to join worldwide research projects.