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Show HN: 2.5B people can’t afford internet – need your opinion on our solution

giveinternet.org

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Re: Show HN: 2.5B people can’t afford internet – need your opinion on our solution

#71

Post by Tempest1981 »

Aaronstotle wrote: post #4
jibla wrote: post #2

GiveInternet.org allows anyone to sponsor monthly Internet fees and laptops for underprivileged high school students from refugee settlements and rural areas. Through monthly recurring donations from up to 700 individuals, we have equipped 350+ students with Chromebooks, Internet access, educational resources and our constant online mentorship. Our donors receive monthly transparency reports with details on every cos…

I think this is an amazing project but isn't there a better alternative to chromebooks? Maybe used laptops, can usually get leased business laptops for a similar price, and they don't actively spy you at all times.

Can't you run Linux on a Chromebook? Not sure if it has problems.

https://itsfoss.com/install-linux-chromebook/

Re: Show HN: 2.5B people can’t afford internet – need your opinion on our solution

#72

Post by Tempest1981 »

jibla wrote: post #19
lacker wrote: post #15

It says that you spend $7 a month to give people internet, and that you are giving internet access to 350 students. So, you are giving about $2,000 a month of value to students? It doesn't seem like this is a cost-effective charity if you have even a single employee. I think you would be better off giving the underprivileged people money directly, and letting them purchase their own internet access.

At the moment we are bootstrapping and co-founders work for free, but we hope to become more effective after we reach some scale. We need to keep our team running not only to pay for the internet but for students identification (Working with schools and NGO's), Donor growth, community building, partner relations (ISP's and local Edtech partners who provide their services to our students for free) impact measurement,…

Why start with the students, instead of the 9/10 schools that lack internet access?

(From your website: "In the poorest countries, only 1 out of every 10 students has Internet access at school.")

Re: Show HN: 2.5B people can’t afford internet – need your opinion on our solution

#74

Post by jibla »

tguvot wrote: post #67
jibla wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gamarjoba:) We've researched this issue thoroughly and the infrastructure is not an issue. While 50% of the world's population lacks internet access only 15% live out of the coverage area of 3/4 G networks. This is actually where the number 2.5 Bn comes from. The main challenge is the affordability of monthly internet fees and of course devices. We actually solve both problems by providing devices and an internet con…

I'll disagree. I worked previously "somewhere" that had yearly budget of tens of millions of dollars in order to tackle this specific issue - bringing internet to people that do not have it. We had extremely good data, most of which not available publicly; dozen(s) of people working solely on identifying scope of problem while other people trying to come up with solutions. I don't have the data anymore so I can argue…

I understand and maybe 2.5 Bn might be under question.

But lets just to narrow it down to one country - US. One of the worlds strongest economy. Only in the US more than 3 million families with school-aged children can't afford internet connection (Sprint claims it's 5 Mio families) That's why these programs exist: http://1millionproject.org/, https://www.internetessentials.com/, https://www.fcc.gov/general/lifeline-program-low-income-cons...

Now imagine other countries and cities even developed ones. Not talking about developing countries. Btw 160 million secoindary students which I mentioned exclude rural areas, only those who live in urban areas.

Regarding the devices, I agree that might be challenging but the prices for devices are decreasing dramatically. Plus some models of monthly installments can make it plus 5-10 USD to monthly internet fees, which is pretty acceptable. So we believe in the long run the device problem is also solvable.

Re: Show HN: 2.5B people can’t afford internet – need your opinion on our solution

#75

Post by sumedh »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #36

We probably should analyse the way it's done in India: ultra-cheap mobile Internet (how do they manage to both provide the coverage and sustain such low prices?) and budget-class devices. There has even been a post about the new class of cheap phones which are more like those of the pre-iPhone era. I believe giving everybody access to YouTube, Reddit and Wikipedia is important.

> how do they manage to both provide the coverage and sustain such low prices?

Have another business segment which makes lot of money and also use lot of debt.

Reliance Jio's parent company Reliance is a big player in oil refining.

Re: Show HN: 2.5B people can’t afford internet – need your opinion on our solution

#77

Post by t0astbread »

jibla wrote: post #23
t0astbread wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are Chromebooks really that much cheaper than "regular" Windows or OS-less Laptops? If so, why?

They are cheaper mainly because the Chrome OS is Free (and maybe because they have almost no hard inside;) As far as we know OS and antivirus licenses make Windows more expensive.

Yeah but I'm wondering why Google is giving out ChromeOS at (presumably) no cost to hardware vendors. That means they must make their money from the customer somehow through e.g. extensive tracking.

Re: Show HN: 2.5B people can’t afford internet – need your opinion on our solution

#80

Post by jibla »

devwastaken wrote: post #76

If you're targeting those in countries with less freedom, you will want to be careful about pictures and names. A woman trying to get an education in afghanistan is life or death.

Agree. Good point! We had the same issue in Georgia in a village with a Muslim minority population. We try to be very careful when it comes to the privacy issue. We have signed documents of the family members giving us the rights to use photos on the website. Not everybody agrees. And we never use family names.
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