Teacher in Ghana has no computers so he draws Microsoft Word on the blackboard

Yeesh, what industry are you in? I'm lucky enough that I haven't used windows since high school, but my impression was that OS X, chrome books, and mobile were now common enough among consumers that no one _expects_ windows familiarity the way they did during the days of the monoculture.

A friend of mine is from Ghana, and wanted to be a programmer. He had to build a battery bank to power his laptop, so he could do his exams without issue.

I helped him design the bank, and another little tool we found helpful.

Because power is such an issue, we used a couple Arduinos to build something reminiscent of the TRS-80, 200 [0]. Instead of BASIC though, we inbuilt a C-repl, based around Cling [1], though much less featured. It ran off 4 AA batteries, and lasted about six hours between charges, which though kinda crap, was enough that his power bank was always ready to recharge it, and he could keep going. It was all his idea, I just served as the technical expert.

I believe he's currently building and selling a few of these out of his house since he went back to Ghana, to help people get a hang of computing.

[0] http://oldcomputers.net/trs200.html

[1] https://root.cern.ch/cling

A group of about 10-12 of us contacted ABC and asked how we could help. The journalist connected us together and we self organized to fund her university and accommodation.

The university was very helpful, setting up a bursary for us to pay into and helping to get her settled into her residence and course (Teaching).

I had to buy her a computer, and that was a frustrating process. I couldn't ship one from here mainly due to shipping batteries being problematic. I ended up enlisting the help of a computer shop and having them verify that I wasn't using a stolen credit card.

That was 4 years ago. She's very close to graduating, she struggled with English subjects early on, but now it's just practicals and she can go out into the workforce.

Moral of the story, you can help, and you can make a difference if you put your mind to it, even when no easy path exists.

[1]: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/cry-freedom-promo/4881242 (The relevant section is 28:43 into the episode)

Edit: Grammar

Edit 2: Link to program

a) how common solar panels are (and how easy it is to partially repair broken solar panels)

b) how simple they are to make if efficiency doesn't matter (optional glas + conductive grid + any black isolator + aluminum foil will result in power delivered between the grid and the aluminum. Paper (even white laser printer paper frankly) will do fine as isolator, also I heard balloon plastic works very well. Of course a transparent conductor works way better than a grid (which is where 80% of the efficiency comes from), but it works at like 5-10% efficiency with a grid) (the optional glass is to keep it clean, you can of course also just clean it regularly)

c) how long batteries last if you only ever use 5% of their capability