African Code school

[DrBlackMan]

Hi all!

I have an idea that id like some advice on form the technical perspective. Though im decent with desktop hardware, im more familiar with gaming, coding is completely knew to me.

I want to take basic technology to a few villages in Africa and basically start a coding school. Reason being, i feel it would allow people to develop skills that a r necessary for the future of humanity and give them a skill they can perhaps earn some money with either in the city or by selling their services over the internet (think Fiverr)

The basic idea is we set up a room with free wifi and basic computers where students can be taught the basics of coding and then can explore computers and programming themselves. There are many challenges with this idea, least of which i the funding (seeing as im a student money isnt exactly easy)

My questions are thus
What is the cheapest type of computer that can be used? Would something like a raspberry pi work for this kind of basic activity?
Do i need any special programme or environments for coding?

Thanks for any help and advice guys, like i say this idea is very early in the making so let me know if you think its stupid, but also let me know why lol.
 

[dizmo]

Interesting idea, however I can't help but think the time would be better spent getting them things like food, medication, and clean drinking water.

Will these villages have power? Are you donating them these PCs? Because they're going to need something to practice it on outside of the classroom. Where are you getting internet from? I'd imagine most villages don't have that either.

 

I get that you're trying to do good, it just doesn't seem like a very smart way of going about it.

[DrBlackMan]

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Interesting idea, however I can't help but think the time would be better spent getting them things like food, medication, and clean drinking water.

Will these villages have power? Are you donating them these PCs? Because they're going to need something to practice it on outside of the classroom. Where are you getting internet from? I'd imagine most villages don't have that either.

 

I get that you're trying to do good, it just doesn't seem like a very smart way of going about it.

Thanks for the reply man, appreciate it.

I get what you're saying. We must understand though that African villages come in a variety of types lol, there are the types that lack even basic necessities like food and drink, and the last thing they'd want is a raspberry pi, it doesn't taste as good as it sounds lol.

The kind of village im talking about is the kind of village my parents are from, its abut a mile from the shore of he river Nile., water is pumped directly to peoples houses. they have decent technology including fridges, TV, phones with 3g data, light, all the usual kind of things really. So for these guys life is no longer just about survival but about education and economic progress. The way the world is moving to a global economy that is connected by the internet and even by cryptocurrency i think coding as a skill would be very useful.

So yep, they have power, the PCs i could either buy, get donated or start a go fund me type thing. The internet would likely be a hotspot type thing (though im not even sure if internet is a necessary thing after set up)

do you code yourself?

[TheGlenlivet]

No I get it, you want to give them a hand up, not a hand out.  Teach a man to fish etc.

A raspberry sounds like a good idea, except that you need a screen and keyboard.  I think a cheap, small laptop is the answer.  Something that could be charged off solar power and batteries.

The good news is software.  Linux is opensource and free so you could install it on the laptops for just the cost of labor.

[Klemmbrett]

12 minutes ago, DrBlackMan said:

I want to take basic technology to a few villages in Africa and basically start a coding school. Reason being, i feel it would allow people to develop skills that a r necessary for the future of humanity and give them a skill they can perhaps earn some money with either in the city or by selling their services over the internet (think Fiverr)

Thats a beautiful idea but about the earn some money as remote programmers not going to happen, there was a big hype about Indian remote programmers many companies adopted because there cheap as hell and had fancy university degrees. Until they realized its a very bad idea because they could not deliver good software that fits the needs of customers and it was non maintainable code. What they company i worked in experienced was that it was more expensive in the end cleaning up there mess or build entire systems new from ground up because there was no way to clean it up it was just so messy code. Biggest problem about programmers from low cost countries is that most people will do it because of the money not because of passion. A Software Developer/ Programmer/ Coder without passion wont deliver a good product. That`s what the company i work in learned (painfully) and many other 1st world companies as well. Its not a hate about Indian Programmers in general but 95 % of the people there learn this for the money and not because they want to be a coder, sure there some good ones that care and will do a good job but they wont stay in India because all the other ones ruined the reputation of all of them. 

[TheGlenlivet]

Ha.  How funny, when we think of 'African Village' we think of a tribe in loin clothes with spears, not a small town.  

[PorkishPig]

I like the idea, but I don't really think you're going to get the outcome you're looking for. It can take months to transition people from being complete beginners at coding to create projects on a per-contract basis. You also need to note that serious language barriers can come up when being assigned projects, though I know absolutely nothing about the villages you are looking at.

 

If you feel that you would like to continue anyway, a Raspberry Pi should do you well. From there, you can grab a bunch of Dell E198FP monitors, which can go for as little as $10, a few VGA to HDMI adapters, and a few sets of Dell keyboards and mice. You won't need internet access as long as you preconfigure the Raspbian/NOOBS/Ubuntu MATE distro on another system and clone the MicroSD cards to the other systems.

[DrBlackMan]

1 minute ago, Klemmbrett said:

Thats a beautiful idea but about the earn some money as remote programmers not going to happen, there was a big hype about Indian remote programmers many companies adopted because there cheap as hell and had fancy university degrees. Until they realized its a very bad idea because they could not deliver good software that fits the needs of customers and it was non maintainable code. What they company i worked in experienced was that it was more expensive in the end cleaning up there mess or build entire systems new from ground up because there was no way to clean it up it was just so messy code. Biggest problem about programmers from low cost countries is that most people will do it because of the money not because of passion. A Software Developer/ Programmer/ Coder without passion wont deliver a good product. That`s what the company i work in learned (painfully) and many other 1st world companies as well. Its not a hate about Indian Programmers in general but 95 % of the people there learn this for the money and not because they want to be a coder, sure there some good ones that care and will do a good job but they wont stay in India because all the other ones ruined the reputation of all of them. 

Thank buddy, yeah thats a good point. perhaps thats the fly in the ointment lol

I did think about exploring MITs FabLab things were people can be creative in other engineering ways but thats requires a lot more money and maintenance. Id hope that just the expiernce and learning would help them when computers eventually become as ubiquitous in Africa as they are here. Maybe theyd have the skills to at least work for companies in africa or locally, or even innovate and make things for themselves.

[Ashiella]

1 minute ago, TheGlenlivet said:

Ha.  How funny, when we think of 'African Village' we think of a tribe in loin clothes with spears, not a small town.  

Im going to be honest, i didnt think this at all. The fact that @dizmo did is actually disgusting tho. Im 90% sure if he was having those types of issues like water and power, then he would have listed them, or start a gofundme to fix that in the first place before going to these steps. Its basically a rural area of america or britain, or japan, etc. not exactly up-to-date but they have stuff.

[DrBlackMan]

2 minutes ago, Ashiella said:

Im going to be honest, i didnt think this at all. The fact that @dizmo did is actually disgusting tho. Im 90% sure if he was having those types of issues like water and power, then he would have listed them, or start a gofundme to fix that in the first place before going to these steps. Its basically a rural area of america or britain, or japan, etc. not exactly up-to-date but they have stuff.

Lol, at first i was slightly offended loool
But thn i realised @dizmo probably meant nothing by it, a misunderstanding im sure.

[DrBlackMan]

3 minutes ago, Homeless Pineapple said:

I like the idea, but I don't really think you're going to get the outcome you're looking for. It can take months to transition people from being complete beginners at coding to create projects on a per-contract basis. You also need to note that serious language barriers can come up when being assigned projects, though I know absolutely nothing about the villages you are looking at.

 

If you feel that you would like to continue anyway, a Raspberry Pi should do you well. From there, you can grab a bunch of Dell E198FP monitors, which can go for as little as $10, a few VGA to HDMI adapters, and a few sets of Dell keyboards and mice. You won't need internet access as long as you preconfigure the Raspbian/NOOBS/Ubuntu MATE distro on another system and clone the MicroSD cards to the other systems.

Thanks,

Yeah i think you might be right. Theyre probably not going to, but hopefully just that basic education will be a positive. maybe they can work locally. Or maybe if they take a big enough interest they can work for google one day who knows

[dizmo]

7 minutes ago, TheGlenlivet said:

Ha.  How funny, when we think of 'African Village' we think of a tribe in loin clothes with spears, not a small town.  

Because a town and village are distinctly different.

4 minutes ago, Ashiella said:

Im going to be honest, i didnt think this at all. The fact that @dizmo did is actually disgusting tho. Im 90% sure if he was having those types of issues like water and power, then he would have listed them, or start a gofundme to fix that in the first place before going to these steps. Its basically a rural area of america or britain, or japan, etc. not exactly up-to-date but they have stuff.

It comes down to wording. Village is not a town, now is it? They're two separate entities. A lot of what's classified a village, even in Alberta, don't have internet access, so why would they in a continent that's vastly behind the rest of the world at the adoption of said technology?

 

There's a reason there's still charity groups focusing on Africa. It's a valid question.

[Klemmbrett]

Just now, DrBlackMan said:

Thank buddy, yeah thats a good point. perhaps thats the fly in the ointment lol

I did think about exploring MITs FabLab things were people can be creative in other engineering ways but thats requires a lot more money and maintenance. Id hope that just the expiernce and learning would help them when computers eventually become as ubiquitous in Africa as they are here. Maybe theyd have the skills to at least work for companies in africa or locally, or even innovate and make things for themselves.

The problem is even when electricity is available there in the village its very expensive for these people from someone i know who spent a year there i heard that the people there buy pre paid cards for some electricity and they used it for some radio for information and music. There were like 20 people in one room listing to a radio for 2 h. So i think computers are wrong there in very poor parts of the country not to speak of internet connection at all. Clean water, food and electricity at all are bigger problems before they want to adopt computers as daily part of their life. Small steps dont do the 10th step before you completed step 1 2 and 3. 

[Ashiella]

3 minutes ago, DrBlackMan said:

Lol, at first i was slightly offended loool
But thn i realised @dizmo probably meant nothing by it, a misunderstanding im sure.

Yea, youre right.

 

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Because a town and village are distinctly different.

It comes down to wording. Village is not a town, now is it? They're two separate entities. A lot of what's classified a village, even in Alberta, don't have internet access, so why would they in a continent that's vastly behind the rest of the world at the adoption of said technology?

 

There's a reason there's still charity groups focusing on Africa. It's a valid question.

He did not initially state it to be a "Village" 

 

I get where youre coming from, but its still better to focus on the task at hand and assume he has all of that type of stuff covered. Its kinda a given in these situations.

[DrBlackMan]

3 minutes ago, Klemmbrett said:

The problem is even when electricity is available there in the village its very expensive for these people from someone i know who spent a year there i heard that the people there buy pre paid cards for some electricity and they used it for some radio for information and music. There were like 20 people in one room listing to a radio for 2 h. So i think computers are wrong there in very poor parts of the country not to speak of internet connection at all. Clean water, food and electricity at all are bigger problems before they want to adopt computers as daily part of their life. Small steps dont do the 10th step before you completed step 1 2 and 3. 

I get you

But ive been to this village, its where i was born. Food and water arent an issue. Education is an issue
They have able electricity and stable internet, its not necessarily cheap but thats i problem i can solve.

[DrBlackMan]

Does anyone have any good resources for how to set up  raspberry pi as a coding machine?
ill obviously do some googling too.

That is the cheapest option i assume? Ill look at cheap laptops too
Are they durable or would a laptop be more durable? please note my village is very sandy, and dust and sand tend to get everywhere (maybe i could solve that by keeping all he PCBs in a box and have leads running out of the box.

thanks guys
 

[dizmo]

20 minutes ago, Ashiella said:

Yea, youre right.

 

He did not initially state it to be a "Village" 

 

I get where youre coming from, but its still better to focus on the task at hand and assume he has all of that type of stuff covered. Its kinda a given in these situations.

Yes, he did.

Quote

want to take basic technology to a few villages in Africa and basically start a coding school. Reason being, i feel it would allow people to develop skills that a r necessary for the future of humanity and give them a skill they can perhaps earn some money with either in the city or by selling their services over the internet (think Fiverr)