Great article on a group of East Bay activists who rehab junk computers, using semi-skilled volunteers who train other semi-skilled volunteers. The resulting computers are sent to the developing world for activist use.
For the Amazonian villages where there's no electricity or where phone lines are scarce, the activists plan to set up free computer labs in the nearby cities. Many cities already have commercial Internet cafes, but they cost about a dollar per hour of use, Henshaw-Plath says, which is about a day's wage for most of the population.
The IMC activists plan to ship off these computers to Guayaquil, Ecuador's main port city, by the end of September. Because none of the computers are being sold in Ecuador, and because they're being transferred from an American nonprofit to an Ecuadorian one, the activists won't be charged any international shipping duties on the computers. "It's what you call real free trade," says Eddie Nix.
(Thanks, Markoffcharney!)