Conference: WiFi Opportunity for Developing Nations

The WiFi Opportunity for Developing Nations

W2i: THE WIRELESS INTERNET INSTITUTE and the UN ICT Taskforce is holding a conference in New York about WiFi and it's applications in the Developing world. It's on the 26th of June.

I'm not sure I'll be going, or even whetrher it's worth going to, but I do know that it's a kind of confirmation of what I have dedicated the last year of my life to.

When I got back from my GeekCorps posting in Accra in May 2001, I pretty much knew that WiFi had some special advantages in developing world applications. When I started wire.less.dk with Sebastian in May 2002, the goal was to push that advantage and make a difference by helping apply the WiFi advantage to the developing world. After a year of wire.less.dk, we've still been unable to fund our projects, but at least now the world is catching up to the opportunity.

OK, so one interpretation might be that I had the right idea, but not the skill to push it, another that the timing was bad. I prefer to see it, in fact, as a case of perfect timing. I was there to promote the idea, and test the reality in that first year, and I'm still here now that the world has caught up ;-)

Oh and BTW, this has nothing to do with Universal Access, or any debate about the importance of medicine, schools and electricity over Internet Access, this is solely about Opportunity, i.e. in those projects where Internet Access is indeed necessary, does WiFi provide a better, cheaper and more viable alternative? The answer, in many cases, is yes!