Solar Powered Wi-Fi for African Refugee Camps

A new venture has set up a solar powered WiFi network at refugee camps in Uganda to offer communications for aid charities, and the refugees. Inveneo, a non-profit social enterprise says that it partnered with the BOSCO (Battery Operated Systems for Community Outreach) Uganda Relief Project to provide access to computers, the Internet and VoIP telephony for Northern Uganda's Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps.

The conflict forces many civilians to live in internally displaced person (IDP) camps. The Labuje IDP camp (pictured) is near Kitgum Town.

The camps offer shelter to people fleeing the Lords Resistance Army which has raged a murderous civil war in the area since the late 1980's

The current phase of the project serves nearly 100,000 people and provides a communications network of computers and telephones connected via long-range WiFi for multiple locations in seven IDP camps and the Archdioceses office in the city of Gulu.

The Inveneo network is powered via solar panels which power battery arrays.

Internet connectivity is carried from the city of Gulu via the Inveneo WiFi network to the IDP camps up to 70 Kilometers away.

The system is specifically designed to be operable on 12 volts with a range of power options, and is resistant to heat, humidity and dust - so that it can operate in environments where computing has traditionally not been found. It has been designed for ease of use for both users and administrators who are new to technology.

The network will be used for all types of communications needs, including logistics, emergency notification, school-teacher training, consultations between clinics and doctors, communicating with American and European donors, and getting out critical information on human-rights violations.

"Many of Uganda's adults, and especially its children, have suffered greatly due to a war that has lasted more than 20 years. We believe that providing affordable, sustainable communication technologies to the organizations which serve them, like those provided by Inveneo, can change the lives of these people in dramatic ways - simple ways that so many of us take for granted," said Ted Pethick, Navitor Systems of Indiana, the Technical Director and Designer of the BOSCO Project.

The project has also gotten the attention of the Ugandan government. "We intend to make every effort to support this project, which gives a voice to our people that had been cut off from the outside world," said John Alituma Nsamba, the State Minister for Information and Communication Technology in Uganda."

Posted to the site on 17th April 2007