CUWiN and the Mamelodi Mesh Network
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Leslie and Patricia with Ross.
Leslie with Ross.
Ross, David Johnson, Henk Kotze, and Karel Matthee in the lab at the Meraka Institute.
David Johnson explaining the Mpumulanga Network to Ross.
CUWiN and the Meraka Institute are working together to install a wireless network in Mamelodi, South Africa. Mamelodi, a township during Apartheid, is located on the outskirts of Tshwane (Pretoria). The network connects the local school to government buildings, as well as connecting teachers and administrators from their homes to the school's network. CUWiN is hoping to make a site visit to Mamelodi in the next month.
CUWiN's partnership with the Meraka Institute and the Center for Scientific and Industrial Research has been made possible by the generous support of the Open Society Institute.
Site Visit: October 2006
In October 2006, Ross Musselman, CUWiN's Outreach Coordinator, visited Mamelodi High School and the Meraka Institute. Ross spent a day with various members of the staff, including Area Manager Kobus Roux, Implementation Project Manager Karel Matthee, Research Leader David Johnson, and Development Coordinator Henk Kotze, as well as the development team.
After several hours of discussion about the project and forming a stronger partnership between CUWiN and the Meraka Institute, Karel Matthee and Ross visited Mamelodi High School. The Meraka team has installed a CUWiN wireless mesh which uses the connection at the high school as its gateway. The network provides Internet access to teachers at their homes. Currently, Patricia and Leslie, the school's science teacher, have nodes at their homes (pictured right). The Meraka team hopes to expand the program so that promising students will also have Internet access at their homes.
On the second day of the visit, Ross met with Lawrence Mboweni, who is developing a port of CUWiNware to the Linksys WRT board. Lawrence's work is funded by a grant from the Open Society Institute.
The afternoon of the second day focused on other digital divide projects that the Meraka Institute. Digital Doorway is one of the most interesting projects, which is a public console system that can survive most attempts at vandalism (except, of course, the use of a heavy vehicle or a blow torch).
By the end of the day, Ross said, "The Meraka Institute is the obvious leader of wireless networking in Southern Africa and is well positioned to expand their influence to the entire continent. I hope that the partnership between CUWiN and Meraka will be the basis of wireless community networking in Africa for the coming decade."
