Desktop virtualization as means of providing low-cost computers for schools

The development community is experiencing an explosion of interest in providing low cost devices, such as laptops, to students in developing countries. infoDev is now working to develop a web-based “community of practice” that will share lessons among the different initiatives.

Some thirty years ago, most computer use consisted of a mainframe computer and a host of “dumb terminals” in which the processor time was “shared” between users. Each user had a monitor and keyboard and accessed the computing power and memory of the central mainframe computer that occupied a purpose built, air-conditioned computer room.

Starting in 1981, with the development of personal computers (PCs), that model began to change as the computer came out of the closet and began to colonise the deskspace of individual users. As both computer processing and memory became progressively cheaper, the goal became one PC per desk, then a computer in every home and, latterly, the mantra in education has been to provide one computer per child. But when Macedonia set itself the goal of providing a computer for each of the 360’000 students in this newly independent nation, it decided to revert to the old model of shared computer time. Why Macedonia took this seemingly backward step was explained in a brown bag lunch on 6 October, organized by infoDev and the Education Sector of the World Bank’s Human Development Network.

The Macedonian Government’s “Computer for every student” initiative chose a solution based on “desktop virtualization” where the computer power of each PC is shared by seven students, each of whom has their own screen, keyboard, mouse and virtual desktop. The solution, provided by nComputing, a US company, works out at US$70 per student “seat” (excluding monitor etc) and runs open source software using LINUX. The advantages for the schools include the low initial capital costs, but also a reduced budget for electricity, air conditioning, maintenance and training. When the system needs upgrading, the costs are less than 15 per cent of what would have accrued if a PC had been supplied to every student.

Although it might seem like a retrograde policy, Macedonia’s choice was based on the reality that most educational applications employ just a tiny fraction of the computer power of a modern PC. The timesharing of 30 years ago was enforced by a scarcity of processing power, but today’s computer sharing is facilitated by its relative abundance.

Desktop virtualization is just one way of bringing low-cost computing to schools in the developing world. Other solutions involve so-called “thin clients”, that offer a PC with reduced functionality, or an approach based on using mass-produced components and open source software, favoured by the “One laptop per child” project.

infoDev has published an inventory of low-cost devices for education in which more than fifty such initiatives were identified (see: www.infodev.org/devices-list and www.infodev.org/devices-news).infoDev is now working to develop a web-based “community of practice” that will share lessons among these different schemes.

Tim Kelly
Lead ICT Policy Specialist

Cybercrime threat rising sharply

The threat of cybercrime is rising sharply, experts have warned at the World Economic Forum in Davos. They called for a new system to tackle well-organised gangs of cybercriminals. Online theft costs $1 trillion a year, the number of attacks is rising sharply and too many people do not know how to protect themselves, they said.
The internet was vulnerable, they said, but as it was now part of society's central nervous system, attacks could threaten whole economies.

The past year had seen "more vulnerabilities, more cybercrime, more malicious software than ever before", more than had been seen in the past five years combined, one of the experts reported.

But does that really put "the internet at risk?", was the topic of session at the annual Davos meeting.

On the panel discussing the issue were Mozilla chairwoman Mitchell Baker (makers of the Firefox browser), McAfee chief executive Dave Dewalt, Harvard law professor and leading internet expert Jonathan Zittrain, Andre Kudelski of Kudelski group, which provides digital security solutions, and Tom Ilube, the boss of Garlik, a firm working on online web identity protection.

They were also joined by Microsoft's chief research officer, Craig Mundie.

To encourage frank debate, Davos rules do not allow the attribution of comments to individual panellists

Threat #1: Crime

The experts on the panel outlined a wide range of threats facing the internet.

There was traditional cybercrime: committing fraud or theft by stealing somebody's identity, their credit card details and other data, or tricking them into paying for services or goods that do not exist.

The majority of these crimes, one participant said, were not being committed by a youngster sitting in a basement at their computer.

Rather, they were executed by very large and very well-organised criminal gangs.

One panellist described the case of a lawyer who had realised that he could make more money though cybercrime.

He went on to assemble a gang of about 300 people with specialised roles - computer experts, lawyers, people harvesting the data etc.

Such criminals use viruses to take control of computers, combine thousands of them into so-called "botnets" that are used for concerted cyber attacks.

In the United States, a "virtual" group had managed to hijack and redirect the details of 25 million credit card transactions to Ukraine. The group used the data to buy a large number of goods, which were then sold on eBay.

This suggested organisation on a huge scale.

"This is not vandalism anymore, but organised criminality," a panellist said, while another added that "this is it is not about technology, but our economy".

Threat #2: the system

A much larger problem, though, are flaws in the set-up of the web itself.

It is organised around the principle of trust, which can have unexpected knock-on effects.

Nearly a year ago, Pakistan tried to ban a YouTube video that it deemed to be offensive to Islam.

The country's internet service providers (ISPs) were ordered to stop all YouTube traffic within Pakistan.

However, one ISP inadvertently managed to make YouTube inaccessible from anywhere in the world.

But in cyberspace, nobody is responsible for dealing with such incidents.

It fell to a loose group of volunteers to analyse the problem and distribute a patch globally within 90 minutes.

"Fortunately there was no Star Trek convention and they were all around," a panellist joked.

Threat #3: cyber warfare

Design flaws are one thing, cyber warfare is another.

Two years ago, a political dispute between Russia and Estonia escalated when the small Baltic country came under a sustained denial-of-service attack which disabled the country's banking industry and its utilities like the electricity network.

This was repeated last year, when Georgia's web infrastructure was brought down on its knees during its conflict with Russia.

"2008 was the year when cyber warfare began.. it showed that you can bring down a country within minutes," one panellist said.

"It was like cyber riot, Russia started it and then many hackers jumped on the bandwagon," said another.

This threat was now getting even greater because of the "multiplication of web-enabled devices" - from cars to fridges, from environmental sensors to digital television networks.

The panel discussed methods that terrorists could use to attack or undermine the whole internet, and posed the question whether the web would be able to survive such an assault.

The real problem, concluded one of the experts, was not the individual loss.

It was the systemic risk, where fraud and attacks undermine either trust in or the functionality of the system, to the point where it becomes unusable.

What solution?

"The problems are daunting, and it's getting worse," said one of the experts. "Do we need a true disaster to bring people together?," asked another.

One panellist noted that unlike the real world - where we know whether a certain neighbourhood is safe or not - cyberspace was still too new for most of us to make such judgements. This uncertainty created fear.

And as "the internet is a global network, it doesn't obey traditional boundaries, and traditional ways of policing don't work," one expert said.

Comparing virus-infected computers to people carrying highly infectious diseases like Sars, he proposed the creation of a World Health Organisation for the internet.

"If you have a highly communicable disease, you don't have any civil liberties at that point. We quarantine people."

"We can identify the machines that have been co-opted, that provide the energy to botnets, but right now we have no way to sequester them."

But several panellists worried about the heavy hand of government. The internet's strength was its open nature. Centralising it would be a huge threat to innovation, evolution and growth of the web.

"The amount of control required [to exclude all risk] is quite totalitarian," one of them warned.

Instead they suggested to foster the civic spirit of the web, similar to the open source software movement and the team that had sorted the YouTube problem.

"Would a formalised internet police following protocols have been able to find the [internet service provider] in Pakistan as quickly and deployed a fix that quickly?" one of them asked.


Source: BBC

2008 Tech Year Review by ZDNet

Spread the Barcamp fever!!!!! ((((((((((((|barcampGhana08|)))))))))))))))

BarcampGhana 2008 was held in Accra Ghana on 22 December @ AITI bring together techies, entrepreneurs, volunteers and students across Ghana, Africa and the World to share in knowledge, challenges, ideas..........

Keynote speakers where Herman Chinery-Hesse, CEO Soft tribe, Estelle Akofio-Sowah, MD Busyinternet and Dr. George Ayittey Lecturer, writer and motivational speaker.

Herman Chinery-Hesse - On entrepreneurship in Ghana: "Learning how to lose and not give up is part of the game"....."Innovation does not occur in a vacuum".... 

Dr. George Ayittey -The Cheetah Generation: A generation of young people who are self sufficient and dont depend on government for assistance..... 

Estelle Sowah - if you run a business in Ghana - you are a hustler. The bigger the business the more posh of a hustler you are..... The next four years are going to be great!...Successful business will drive Ghana's economy forward.....who is going to win the elections? Answer: "We the people".......

Panel Discussion - Mobile Technology and Social media.  Also had a lot of networking  and interesting and educative Breakout Sessions.

A great event and thanks to everyone who participated and helped made it a successes ..... :-)

A different kind of drug war

After consumers send a cell phone text message with the numeric code listed on the drug, they receive a text message identifying the product as fake (as shown) or authentic.

When patients go to a drugstore to pick up medicine, they expect it to be authentic and to manage or resolve a health condition.

But what if that prescription was fake, a counterfeit drug that could cost them their health, or even their life? That is a critical concern for many patients outside of the United States, said Ashifi Gogo ’05, a graduate engineering student at Dartmouth College. He is co-founder of mPedigree, a nonprofit organization working to protect the prescription drug supply chain in West Africa through cell phone technology he helped develop.

The World Health Organization calls counterfeit medicines “an enormous public health challenge.” Counterfeit drug sales are projected to reach $75 billion globally by 2010, an increase of more than 90 percent from 2005.

“Some of the counterfeit medicines don’t contain anything; it might be cornstarch pressed into a pill,” Gogo said. “Other medicines may contain too much or not enough of an active ingredient.” The worst-case scenario is a counterfeit that contains deadly toxins.

Gogo is particularly concerned with counterfeit malaria pills in his native Ghana. “People take an anti-malaria pill thinking it’s effective, so when they get malaria, they typically don’t go to the hospital,” he said. “By the time they seek treatment, they are in the later stages of the illness.” He knows this from experience. After contracting a regular case of malaria, he took the predominant anti-malarial medication that was authentic but slowly being replaced due to reduced efficacy. The result was an unsettling midnight hospital visit. “I experienced what it would be like to take a fake drug,” he said. “I could have been a Ph.D. candidate killed by a disease that has flu-like symptoms and is easily curable with over-the-counter medication.”

“It’s a start, but there’s much more to do.” 
— Ashifi Gogo ’05

Existing technology can help identify counterfeit drugs, but all the “techno-centric” methods tend to be either too high-tech for a developing nation — Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags and nanoparticle embedding, for example — or provide too little protection, Gogo said.

The identification method developed by Gogo and his classmate from Ghana is simple, cheap to implement and effective. Gogo explained it like this: “Lottery ticket-type numeric codes are placed on the drug’s packaging. When you buy the drug, you scratch the panel and see a string of 13 digits. In Ghana, it’s very simple. You just send a free cell phone text message with the information to a four-digit number — 1393, very easy to remember. You get an instant response to indicate if the drug is genuine or fake while you are at the pharmacy. If the drug is fake, you can query the pharmacist and keep testing drugs until you get an authentic medication or take the matter up with law enforcement agencies, armed with factual evidence of counterfeit medication.” This method is viable because cell phones are plentiful in Ghana, he noted.

A trial run of mPedigree’s authentication method in that country in the first quarter of the year was successful, and the project will be launched with local drug manufacturers this winter.

 

Ashifi Gogo ’05

“Next,” said Gogo, “the project needs to migrate to Nigeria. Studies show Nigeria has a pressing need for anti-counterfeit solutions — when INTERPOL did a drug audit in Lagos, Africa’s most populous city, four out of five pharmaceuticals were fake. That’s 80 percent of the drugs, only five years ago,” he said. “How do you survive in such an ecosystem?”

 

While mPedigree implements this technology, it also works to amend laws. “We’ve had initial success,” Gogo said. “The Ghanaian law enforcement agency created a special unit for counterfeit issues and is working on moving counterfeit activities to the same punitive level as narcotics,” he said. “Just a few months ago, the Ghanaian FDA organized the nation’s first anti-counterfeit conference, inviting notable West African health experts, such as Professor Dora Akunyili, who survived an assassination attempt linked to her efforts to rid Nigeria of fake drugs.

“It’s a start, but there’s much more to do,” Gogo said. “Experts indicate that the large fake drug operations are being run by former narcotics drug rings, mainly because of the comparatively lenient punitive measures for fake drug operations in many developing nations.”

As Gogo travels back and forth between African countries, personal security is paramount. However, the risk hasn’t slowed him down. He continues his work with legitimate drug manufacturers in Africa and his studies at Dartmouth. Through the engineering school’s Innovation Program, Gogo receives entrepreneurial training and the theoretical and technical expertise he needs to keep his drug authentication initiative moving forward.

Gogo double-majored in math and physics and minored in economics at Whitman, where he was, admittedly, “all about the academics.” That academic rigor included opportunities to tutor other students in math and physics, “a positive, rewarding experience,” co-author a paper published in the “Physical Review,” present a paper at a physics conference in Victoria, B.C., and participate in professors’ research, including that of Associate Professor of Physics Mark Beck, who worked with Gogo on an experiment to demonstrate a “Quantum Eraser.”

Beck describes Gogo as a “very good student who worked hard. He was especially adept at computer programming, and it seems that the technical side of the business he started requires that skill.”

“I wanted to find a career that would help me get home (to Ghana) for the long term,” Gogo said. “I switched to engineering when applying to grad schools because I could work with my hands and produce something useful for developing nations.”

That something, it appears, is helping to secure the pharmaceutical supply chain of West Africa.

— Lana Brown

Elections in Ghana to head for second round

Preliminary tabulation of voting results from 224 constituencies across the country by Joy 99.7 FM indicates that presidential elections are headed for a run-off.

According to analysis by panelists at the radio station’s Kokomlemle studios in Accra, 8,346,279 (Eight million, three hundred and forty-six thousand, two hundred and seventy-nine thousand) valid votes, representing collated results from the 224 constituencies have New Patriotic Party candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Prof. John Evans Atta Mills of the National Democratic Congress in a neck-to-neck race.

With results from only the six constituencies to go, NPP’s Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has 4,099,942 votes (Four million, ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and forty-two), representing 49.12 percent of total valid votes cast.

Prof. John Evans Atta Mills of the NDC is in second position with 3,999,465 votes (Three million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, four hundred and sixty-five) or 47.92 percent.

The remaining six constituencies have a total registered voter population of 227,081.

Nana Addo requires no less than 169,708 votes of the lot to make it a first round win, while Prof Mills cannot make a first round win even if he were to win all the remaining ballots.

The analysts projected a high national voter turnout of 68.2 per cent.

In the parliamentary race, the NDC has won 107 seats as against 102 by the NPP. Four independent candidates have clinched seats, the People's National Convention, two, (2)and the Convention People's Party has one (1) seat.

Fourteen constituencies are outstanding.

The Electoral Commission, legally mandated to call the elections, is set to announce time and venue to declare its official results.

Credit: myjoyonline.com

Race tight in Ghana's vote count

Ghana's two main presidential candidates are running neck-and-neck as votes continue to be counted a day after the country's peaceful elections.

It is a public holiday and people are glued to their radios and television sets as the results trickle in.

A number of ministers have lost their seats in the parliamentary elections.

Poll officials reported a huge voter turnout and monitors hailed the exercise as a shining example of democracy in action for Africa. President John Kufuor, 70, is stepping down in January after serving the maximum two terms.

The main contest is between Mr Kufuor's governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) of former ruler Jerry Rawlings, which was in power until eight years ago.

The leading contenders are ex-Foreign Minister Nana Akufo-Addo and the NDC's John Atta Mills, who is a presidential candidate for the third time. The winner is expected to be named later on Monday.

But the electoral commission has until Wednesday afternoon to release the final official results. It is too early to tell whether either candidate will be able to secure an outright victory, says the BBC's Will Ross in Accra.

A third contender who was tipped as a potential kingmaker or spoiler has performed poorly increasing the chance of a first round win for one of the frontrunners. There is little love lost between the two main political parties, our correspondent says.

The governing NPP dominated the outgoing parliament with 128 of the 230 seats.

'Good day for Africa' Parliamentary results so far show the centre-right party has lost at least half a dozen seats to the NDC, including that of President Kufuor's information minister.

Initial results show that a third contender who was tipped as a potential kingmaker or spoiler has performed poorly, increasing the chance of a first-round win for one of the frontrunners. Papa Kwesi Nduom, candidate for the Convention People's Party, which ushered in Ghana's independence from Britain half a century ago, had hoped to spring a surprise.

The vote appeared free of the intimidation and violence that have marred other recent African polls, according to local and international observers.

Baroness Valerie Amos, a former British minister who is leading a 23-nation Commonwealth observer mission, said Sunday had been "a good day for Africa".

Our correspondent say this election is important not just for Ghana, but also for the continent, where bloodshed and claims of fraud have dogged polls from Kenya to Zimbabwe and Nigeria.

The fact that the hallmark for a successful election is that it is peaceful is seen by some as a worrying sign of just how low the bar has been set when it comes to judging democracy in Africa, he adds. Ghana was the first African state to gain its independence in 1957, but was plagued by coups until the return to multi-party democracy in 1992. It is the world's second biggest cocoa grower and Africa's number two gold miner. 

Source: BBC News