NapoNet

Book: Portfolios of the Poor

August 25th, 2009 by Brian T. Schwartz

One of my favorite economists linked this book on his Amazon.com page, and it looks relevant to the project. Here’s the summary from the book’s website:

Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a Day tackles the fundamental question of how the poor make ends meet. Over 250 families in Bangladesh, India, and South Africa participated in this unprecedented study of the financial practices of the world’s poor.

These households were interviewed every two weeks over the course of a year, reporting on their most minute financial transactions. This book shows that many poor people have surprisingly sophisticated financial lives, saving and borrowing with an eye to the future and creating complex “financial portfolios” of formal and informal tools.

Indispensable for those in development studies, economics, and microfinance, Portfolios of the Poor will appeal to anyone interested in knowing more about poverty and what can be done about it.

The site includes a few reviews of the book and examples of actual individual portfolios.

Next actions for NapoNet

August 17th, 2009 by espinozd

Napo Project – WiFi phone service

1. Design and configuration

VOIP service

Select proper access points and antennas (How to integrate this equipment in the current network)
Select and configure VOIP server (Laptop? Asterisk?)
Get familiar with WiFi phones (Compatibility?)
Configure the entire system

Energy system

Select energy system for access points (From GTR PV system or independent system?)
Select energy system for VOIP server (Located at the school?)
Select energy system for WiFi phones (How will people charge phones? Will the generator current damage the phones?
Configure the entire system

(more…)

NapoNet Promotional Video – Summer 2009

August 13th, 2009 by Brian T. Schwartz

ECEE Professor Alan Mickelson, ATLAS faculty member Revi Sterling, and ITP master’s student David Espinoza recently traveled through the Napo River basin in the Peruvian Amazon to better understand and facilitate technical community development needs. They will be spearheading an e-education project this fall, involving three communities and expanding to several others. The initial team is looking for interested students and sponsors to participate in “NapoNET.”

Check out this video about the project .