Inveneo Communications Systems IT hardware uses alternate energy sources

An entire IT infrastructure powered by alternative energy sources has completed testing in Uganda and is now available for deployment to developing countries or areas where power and broadband options are limited. Inveneo intends their Communications Systems, which are composed of a Hub Station with satellite, cellular, or wired Internet connection and Communications Stations for local use by end users, to be adopted by governments, NGOs, and charitable organizations in conjunction with cheap PCs for delivering ubiquitious networked computing access. Communications Stations are connected to the Hub through long-range WiFi connections, with all the hardware cheap to maintain thanks to open-source software and hydro, solar, wind, or bicycle generator options for power. The Inveneo gear is supposedly available immediately, although their online store is closed as of this writing, so pricing remains a mystery. [Warning: PDF link]

[Maxwell Scott-Slade @ Mar 15th 2006 5:31AM]

Now it will be easier to track those scammers on ebay...

[Peter Brooks @ Mar 15th 2006 12:58PM]

The online store at Inveneo.org is open now. Check it out under the "ICT Solutions" section.

[VBAjedi @ Dec 13th 2006 7:25PM]

MaxSmoke: to be blunt, I think your comment is shortsighted, selfish, and (if you are American) an embarrassment to the things our nation stands for.

I am an American currently volunteering as a college instructor in Liberia, West Africa. The few students I have who are lucky enough to have a job make less than USD$3 per day. Do you think that somehow makes them dumb or unaware that most of the world enjoys broadband connections and the ability to make enough money to buy $3000 gaming laptops? They want to be able to email their friends and family just like you do, see stupid video forwards, and all the rest of it. But internet access here costs $150/month because technology like this ISN'T here yet, so my guys come to me asking if I could please log into their email account for them and print off the email from their brother in the USA so they can read it and see the picture of their new niece.

Technology like this gives people hope: hope that they too might someday know what it's like to have opportunities and resources available to them like those who are born into western countries grow up taking for granted.

Sorry - I really wasn't trying to unload on you. . . it's just that when you actually stick yourself into the middle of one of these countries, and make friends with the people that work unbelievably hard trying to catch up to the rest of the world, it has a way of changing your perspective just a little bit.

Bottom line: enjoy your toys, be thankful you have the opportunities you do, and be excited when something comes along that offers others those same things.