In the West African nation of Mali, community radio plays a central role in keeping the often non-literate people of rural areas informed about local and national issues. The problem for these stations, however, is that they are often as isolated from traditional news sources as their listeners, so providing coverage of national news (let alone world news!) can often be quite difficult... In an attempt to make this task easier for Malian community broadcasters, Canadian IT volunteer, Ian Howard, has the spent last six month setting up low-end computers in their studios with suites of open source software that will support wireless Internet connections. As a result, these stations will not only gain access to the sorts of Web-based news services that you and I take for granted but, in time, it is hoped that they might even start up their own streaming net radio stations (which would be a great way for Malians living abroad to stay in touch with what was happening back home.)
(The Canadian geek behind this was sent over there by Geekcorps, an non-profit organisation that sends IT professionals off to do similarly worthwhile project in developing nations around the world. Read more about them here.)
Posted by Warren at August 6, 2004 05:46 PM | Net Radio