2011.01.28: January 28, 2011: An organization founded by RPCV Joshua Stern Envaya aims to get grassroots organizations in Tanzania online
Peace Corps Online:
Directory:
Tanzania:
Peace Corps Tanzania:
Peace Corps Tanzania: Newest Stories:
2011.03.26: March 26, 2011: Envaya, founded by Tanzania RPCV Joshua Stern, aims not just to help connect the 2 billion-plus people worldwide who currently have no access to the internet, but to help these populations build the foundations of civil society :
2011.01.28: January 28, 2011: An organization founded by RPCV Joshua Stern Envaya aims to get grassroots organizations in Tanzania online
An organization founded by RPCV Joshua Stern Envaya aims to get grassroots organizations in Tanzania online
Envaya sites are simple but elegant. There are very few bells or whistles but they contain the basic information you'd want to know about a given organization. The simple design was crucial, since for many of these groups, the best way to access and update these sites is through cell phones with a simple mobile browser. "The connection there is very slow, the organizations' leaders typically have minimal computer experience, and many don't speak English," says Stern. "Envaya works in a low-bandwidth environment, and works in Swahili," taking advantage of a drop-down menu that toggles any site between English and Swahili with the help of Google Translate and a volunteer who cleans up what's lost in translation.
An organization founded by RPCV Joshua Stern Envaya aims to get grassroots organizations in Tanzania online
Booting Up Tanzania With Help From Google
BY David ZaxFri Jan 28, 2011
An organization founded by a Stanford computer science student and former Peace Corps volunteer, Envaya aims to get East African grassroots organizations online. It recently snagged funding from Google.
When Joshua Stern, a graduate of Stanford with a degree in computer science, served in the Peace Corps in Tanzania from 2006 to 2007, one thing soon became clear.
"The major takeaway there," he tells Fast Company, "was that the best development work being done was being done by these local groups, community-based organizations."
The small groups were often the most effective--yet they had no web presence, no effective way to communicate with other small NGOs or to raise funds online. In 2008, Stern came back to California to work for a time at the startup Apture, but he'd left his heart in Tanzania. By early 2010, he and a few others had founded Envaya, whose mission was to boot up the small East African NGOs that had so impressed him. Now, a year later, 250 grassroots organizations in Tanzania use Envaya. The company has caught the attention of no less than Google, which gave Envaya a seed grant.
Envaya sites are simple but elegant. There are very few bells or whistles but they contain the basic information you'd want to know about a given organization. The simple design was crucial, since for many of these groups, the best way to access and update these sites is through cell phones with a simple mobile browser.
"The connection there is very slow, the organizations' leaders typically have minimal computer experience, and many don't speak English," says Stern. "Envaya works in a low-bandwidth environment, and works in Swahili," taking advantage of a drop-down menu that toggles any site between English and Swahili with the help of Google Translate and a volunteer who cleans up what's lost in translation.
Before Envaya, the alternatives for an organization wanting an online presence were not good. "It's really expensive over there," says Stern. "It will cost you $500 to $1,000 to get a custom website built there, and most of them look like something from Geocities circa 1996. Plus the organizations can't update them themselves." Not only can Envaya-assisted organizations update their own content via a web browser on a laptop or phone, but Envaya has plans to enable them to update content through SMS, meaning even cell phones lacking Internet access can be used to maintain a website.
Tanzania is increasingly wired, though--it has changed greatly even in the three years since Stern ended his Peace Corps stint. He'll often be in the sticks somewhere and stumble across a kid with a cheap laptop and a USB Internet connection. As for cell phone usage, it often seems to Stern that Tanzania is ahead of the U.S., in some ways. "Cell phone penetration in East Africa right now is huge," says Stern. "I'll often get a better cell phone connection out in the middle of nowhere there than in San Francisco."
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: January, 2011; Peace Corps Tanzania; Directory of Tanzania RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Tanzania RPCVs; Internet; Computers
When this story was posted in May 2011, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
| Peace Corps: The Next Fifty Years As we move into the Peace Corps' second fifty years, what single improvement would most benefit the mission of the Peace Corps? Read our op-ed about the creation of a private charitable non-profit corporation, independent of the US government, whose focus would be to provide support and funding for third goal activities. Returned Volunteers need President Obama to support the enabling legislation, already written and vetted, to create the Peace Corps Foundation. RPCVs will do the rest. |
| How Volunteers Remember Sarge As the Peace Corps' Founding Director Sargent Shriver laid the foundations for the most lasting accomplishment of the Kennedy presidency. Shriver spoke to returned volunteers at the Peace Vigil at Lincoln Memorial in September, 2001 for the Peace Corps 40th. "The challenge I believe is simple - simple to express but difficult to fulfill. That challenge is expressed in these words: PCV's - stay as you are. Be servants of peace. Work at home as you have worked abroad. Humbly, persistently, intelligently. Weep with those who are sorrowful, Care for those who are sick. Serve your wives, serve your husbands, serve your families, serve your neighbors, serve your cities, serve the poor, join others who also serve," said Shriver. "Serve, Serve, Serve. That's the answer, that's the objective, that's the challenge." |
Read the stories and leave your comments.
Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.
Story Source: Fast Company
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Tanzania; Internet; Computers
PCOL46560
40