BeckyStrause
In many places in the world steady internet connectivity is hard to come by. Ushahidi has come up with a prototype of a device that would solve that issue. They designed BRCK to redesign connectivity in their world, which happens to be mostly in Africa. Their team also includes individuals in Europe, South America and the U.S.
Ushahidi, according to their website, is a non-profit tech company that specializes in developing free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping. They started as a website that was developed to map reports of violence in Kenya in 2008.
The team at Ushahidi is all too familiar with the problems of spotty internet service. So they came up with “BRCK – your backup generator for the internet.” Some of the features of BRCK are:
Ethan Zuckerman, Director of the MIT Center for Civic Media, described BRCK as, “…the equivalent of a backup generator for the net, a battery wired to an access point, mated to a GSM modem, designed so that your coding session doesn’t have to end when the power goes out.” This seems to be a device people feel they can back, since their Kickstarter campaign already has more than 400 backers and has raised nearly 1/2 of their goal… in just 4 days!