Kenyan Geekcorps

WhiteAfrican interviews Ethan Zuckerman on his blog this time.

Ethan is the founder of Geekcorps - inspiration for an idea i've been toying with for some time.

Geekcorps is an NGO that brings together techie volunteers to work on projects like Peacecorps does - but only ICT based. eg setup of a community-based wireless network ... and many more.

Imagine a Kenyan version of Geekcorps ... there's a ton of uni students who spend months, years tarmacking ... how about empowering these guys with a little bit of guidance (maybe funding at some point) - to go do things like setup a cybercafe the way Harry did. They would go out to semi-urban and rural areas to run their own ICT ventures.

There's financial incentive (tough to convince current uni students to do anything without this) - since the guy will be running his own business ... you just have to provide some guidance again on accounting systems & running a business.

The whole thing should be organized, so that it takes care of churn - bet guys don't want to be stuck in shagz forever, and there's always new students graduating ...

Other ideas of projects these guys could undertake ? some software development type stuff ? write up some inventory systems for farmers ?

Also in the interview - Ethan recommends you read The Cathedral and the Bazaar - interesting stuff !