ReliaTech and Goodwill Industries of San Francisco have jointly announced today a partnership to offer affordable access to computer refurbishing and upgrade support for low-income families in San Francisco.
Goodwill offers refurbished computers at its downtown San Francisco store while Reliatech technicians provide computer support for Goodwill computers. Services include free diagnostics and a “No-Fix, No-Fee” Guarantee.
“We see this partnership as an opportunity to help bridge the digital divide by offering high-quality tech support to San Franciscans,” said Barrie Hathaway, CEO of ReliaTech. “We are very excited about this partnership and we hope to be able to expand this program into other parts of the Bay Area.”
ReliaTech and Goodwill Industries of San Francisco are both members of the City of San Francisco’s Digital Inclusion Initiative, which aims to more broadly empower people to use computers with Internet access, with a particular focus on low-income, limited English speaking, and disabled populations.
Goodwill, of course, has low overhead — they pay their workers very little and get their stuff for free.
The PBS series Expose, has a program on The Oregonian’s story by Les Zaitz, Jeff Kosseff and Bryan Denson (watch)
Could a well-intentioned government program become a cash machine for businessmen bent on enriching themselves at the expense of the disabled? In 1971, Congress created a program to channel federal contracts to charities that train and employ workers who are blind or have severe disabilities. Known as JWOD (named after the law that created it, the Javits-Wagner-O’Day act), it eventually came to have a $2 billion dollar budget.But no one, it appears, was keeping track of where that money was going, until journalists from The Oregonian decided to have a look. What they found was abuse of the system and anemic oversight resulting in a massive bilking of taxpayers and precious few jobs for the genuinely disabled.
Successful “digital divide” programs include Free Geek, which recycles old computers. They install Linux software after giving hard drives a though cleaning. Volunteers do the work and get a free computer in exchange. PersonalTelco operates hundreds of free hotspots around the Portland Metro region through an all volunteer force and has unwired a large section of the Mississippi Neighborhood with free WiFi.
One Economy has an influential program that many consider a national model.
United Villages (above), provides villagers in Asia, Africa, and Latin America uses low-cost, store-and-forward “drive-by WiFi” technology, installed on existing vehicles (e.g. buses and motorcycles) and automatically provide access for WiFi-enabled Kiosks along the roads.
The Sputnik Control Center provides a secure, web-based interface that lets wireless service providers remotely configure hundreds of access points, create custom-branded captive portal pages, track usage, enforce network policies, generate reports, and bill for access.
Open source software like CUWIN, DD-WRT, OpenWRT, HyperWRT and Tomato Firmware can be flashed onto $50 Linksys and Buffalo access points without the advertising and revenue sharing requirments of Meraki.
The Wifidog project is an open source captive portal solution, designed primarily for wireless community groups, but caters to various other business models as well. ChilliSpot, an open source captive portal or wireless LAN access point controller, is used by Toronto’s free community network called Wireless Nomad.
The Vancouver BC Wireless Group hoped to establish a free WiFi network by installing Meraki WiFi units around town. The Meraki price hike could kill those plans and others like it.
Sonic.net, an independent DSL ISP in California (map), has launched the San Francisco WiFi Project, to deliver free Wi-Fi to San Francisco residents.
Customers can buy a $40 Wi-Fi starter kit that includes a Meraki Mini, a WiFi repeater, with Sonic’s DSL service (from $29/month).
Network users will see a Google ad bar at the top of the browser, explains GigaOM. In the future the ad revenues generated by this ad bar will be split between those who choose to opt and place a wireless router on their connection, and will be credited against their broadband bill.
NetEquality is a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to providing free internet access for low-income communities. They provide planning, deployment resources and internet mesh products worldwide and install free network hardware in qualified communities in the Pacific Northwest.
NetEquality has a free planning, installation, monitoring, alerting and mapping site designed for use with Meraki wireless mesh networks. Their Meraki Dashboard lets you make changes or updates, and view detailed usage data in real time, as well as diagnose network problems.
At a Portland PersonalTelco meeting this March, Michael Burmeister-Brown (left), co-founder NetEquality, explained how they use the $50 Meraki box to bring wireless Web access to low-income housing.
Motorola’s CPEi 300 (above) is a $200 WiMAX client that will be compatible with Clearwire’s Mobile WiMAX service in Portland. Perhaps a $50-$100/month WiMax backhaul might be shared by a dozen different residents, using $50 Meraki repeaters for less than $10/month (or free with ads).
Maybe a $300 laptop (right) could be packaged with educational content for $199, plus $15/month or less for WiFi access. Education is a business. Sell it.
Rather than One Economy’s portal, The Beehive, load it up with a Virtual Newspaper.
