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John "maddog" Hall preparing to speak at DebConf10
Around the middle of last year I wrote about Brazil as “somplace wired.” Though a developing nation, it has a power grid and it is possible to get online there. I mentioned in that post something Jon “maddog” Hall was reported to have said in a talk about open source tech in developing nations. Essentially, he said there was nothing he could do for the child in the vast nothing of extremely rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Yesterday I had the opportunity to hear him say this in person at DebConf 2010. His idea for what can be done for people living in urban poverty, beginning in Brazil, may be just what I’ve been trying to find for part of my own future work in community development.
Project Cauã is an attempt at launching a fully sustainable, environmentally-sound means by which the urban poor of Brazil can support themselves as system administrators. Rather than being job training for a corporate position (of which there are few and for which there is great competition already), this project captures the entrepreneurial spirit of the Brazilian people. When I lived in Brazil I knew people who made candy at home to sell in the street and even saw a man fixing umbrellas in the street downtown. Brazilians in general are quite creative about dealing with hardship and finding ways to make a living.
As I understand it, the basic idea of Project Cauã is as follows:
- Train a person on how to administrate Linux systems and a Wifi network, to the point where he or she can be legally certified, licensed and bonded (this matters a great deal in bureaucracy-heavy Brazil, and I would argue is a vital step in breaking the underlying chain of corruption that exists on all levels in that country).
- That person goes to the bank and gets a small business loan to by the hardware, including thin-clients computers that operate on GNU/Linux. These computers, using already-available components, would consume less power by design and be far more environmentally friendly than the usual Windows desktop.
- The newly-minted sysadmin takes leases out the hardware and admin services to local users. For example, office buildings in São Paulo are often full of multiple, small companies. A sysadmin could lease services and equipment to users in the building, working from a small office or even the basement. In a residential area the sysadmin would be able to do the same for neighbors.
Figuring in Internet access, payments on the loan and other expenses, “maddog” figures system administrators could make as much as $1800 a month. This might not sound like much to us in the United States, but in Brazil $1000 is about what an entry-level system administrator can expect to make in a company, perhaps as much as $2000 if he or she is really good.
There is more to this than what I’m describing, but that’s the bare-bones outline. It may seem idealistic, but it’s entirely “doable” and makes a great deal of sense in the context of Brazilian economics and civil society. It should also be obvious how this could serve as a key element in an overall community development strategy. I’ve wondered for a long time how open source tech could be used effectively to break the cycle of poverty in a sustainable way in Brazil, and now I think I’ve come upon it in Project Cauã. I’ll investigate further and, hopefully, find a way to go forward with this strategy.
In many fields you expect a professional to have a degree. Who would want to go to a doctor who never attended medical school? In other areas experience alone is still acceptable, at least in the United States. I’ve found that to be the case in computer science. Although a degree and/or certificates are preferred, work experience and solid recommendations from past employment can be enough to get a job in system administration or programming. Such is not the case in Brazil, and therein lies a concern I have with getting a tech training program up and running there.
Without a degree in Brazil, a young person had better have a recognized certificate in the area in which she wants to work (if that’s an option) or else a less desirable field will be necessary. High school graduates are a dime a dozen, and most can expect little better than retail or factory work. That’s fine if that’s one someone wants to do, but if a job in technology or virtually anything else is what a Brazilian is looking for, more education is needed.
Although there are free (as in, students don’t pay tuition), prospective students have to pass on one of two somewhat different national tests and achieve a high enough ranking to get one of the limited “seats.” Failing in this, the only other option is to pay for a private university course, something which is out of the realm of possibility for those in the lower economic classes.
Projects like One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) have distributed laptops in schools in Brazil (click here to see a post with an OLPC video about one school in Porto Alegre) and I think this is good, to a point. Although Internet cafes are plentiful in most cities in Brazil now, many children there may not have regular access to a computer or else have one that is Windows based (usually a pirated copy) that isn’t very conducive to learning computer science. The OLPC laptop might spark and interest that will last a lifetime and blossom into a career, but not without training and certification.
Thinking this over, it becomes clear to me that any development project in which I may involve myself in Brazil needs not only promote learning how to program computers and/or administer systems, but also be oriented to either provide recognized certification directly or prepare students for testing and approval. Also, if I were to be involved in this myself, it wouldn’t be enough for me to be a very experienced tech (something I am not, yet). In order to have the respect and perhaps even permission (from a governmental perspective) to engage in this type of work, I’ll need some certifications and perhaps a degree myself.
The field of technology, and specifically that portion working with open source solutions, is a meritocracy. If you are good, prove it. Paperwork isn’t essential to this, and is meaningless if a person has a degree combined with incompetence or just plain disinterest. From an academic standpoint in Brazil, though, the meritocracy is only valid if degrees and certificates are factored into the equation.
I’d be glad if anyone working in the tech field in Brazil would like to discuss this, particularly if you think I am dead wrong about the need for educational formalities. From what I saw and experienced in Brazil and have heard from Brazilians, I’m pretty sure I’m right on this one.
See Also:
Somplace Wired (Igneous Quill)
