The AirJaldi Network Academy’s new offering – Wireless 108 – is on at the AirJaldi premises in Upper TCV. The four week course, delivered by Tenzin Yonten, is AirJaldi’s new offering. Wireless 108 is our basic wireless course, which is aimed at anyone who has basic computer knowledge, good knowledge of English, interest in the field and willingness to put one’s hands and head to work.

The course is designed to cover the basics of computers (hardware and software) and networking (wired and wireless). At the end of the course, participants are able to carry out basic PC troubleshooting, create a simple server-based network and connect computers to it via wired and wireless interfaces.

Recently, a fine article by Anurag Behar, co-CEO of the Azim Premji Foundation , entitled "Limits of ICT in Education" was published in LiveMint.Com .

In it, Mr. Behar concludes that “After 5 years [of developing a digital learning resource library and supporting schools who made use of it], when we took stock at a fundamental level, we realized that the whole thing was at best a qualified failure.”

Having read it with great interest, and being involved with activities in the derided ICT4D field, I thought of sharing my own thoughts on this thougtful and provoking piece. 

It's been very long since my last blog post here!

So many things have changed since I moved to Berkeley a bit more than two years ago...

On the personal front, I'm now the proud father of two kids (yes two in two years) - Divya (just turned two) and Nitai (he's now seven months old).

As for the technology, I came across an old document yesterday - "Keeping the network alive", http://wiki.airjaldi.org, which I wrote back in September 2007, in the hopes it would spark a lively discussion and might turn into a productive collaborative environment. The document presented a perspective on what has changed and what remains valid today. Particularly, some issues at the forefront of our R&D agenda back in 2007 have since been resolved, while surprisingly many others, where we've and others have made little or no progress, remain open problems to address today.

That document did result in substantial academic studies, starting with our own paper (with a very similar title) - "Beyond Pilots: Keeping Rural Wireless Networks Alive" - http://www.usenix.org/event/nsdi08/tech/surana.html
Published in August 2008, this paper have already inspired many researchers, led to many studies and has been quoted in 33 peer reviewed publications: (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=12485503342736570061 ) -- not bad for less then two years. Additionally, I was surprised to find this paper on the syllabus and reading lists of many classes and seminars at leading universities worldwide.

A long absence from one’s own website, such as the one visitors to this website have witnessed for quite some time, requires explanations.

Well, we were here all the time, but as sometimes happens (though shamefully should not happen to an ICT-minded outfit such as ours), our small team was always busy doing other things, or rather – those of us who are willing to submit postings (most are not – they prefer to be out and about putting up nodes and would rather struggle for hours with a pesky connection rather than try to articulate what it is that they are doing).

The past few months at the AirJaldi Network Academy have been quite hectic and very fruitful. Amongst other things were eight weeks spent in Delhi, a key outcome of which is a brand new Red Hat Certified Engineer in our midst! (Me! :-) Of course, it's best to set this fancy titles (and its barefy impressive acronym) aside... This qualification is valuable for the expanded and formalized understanding of Linux internals and basics; a first step, a launch pad from which to blast off towards being "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger." As AirJaldi grows, with its technology and experience spinning off into a rapidly expanding network, there are exciting opportunities to hone and develop these skills. But more on all that, in other posts and at other times.

As importantly, another iteration of Cisco's IT Essentials: PC Hardware and Software is almost over, just in time before the onslaught of the monsoons is unleashed. Staged a few kilometres from Dharamshala, participants for this episode of ITE were members and associates of Nishtha and Jagori Grameen , two prominent local grassroots NGOs.

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