MicroSolar® Distance Learning Initiative
Galapagos
The MicroSolar® Distance Learning Initiative was created to provide educational opportunities and channels of communication between youth in highly industrialized countries and youth in remote rural areas around the world. Once new communication infrastructure is in place, the opportunity exists to identify interests and needs from both sides of the development spectrum, to create a context where the ironies of privilege and deprivation can be discovered and addressed. While conventional wisdom might suggest who is privileged and who is deprived, it might turn out that the tides are turned when youth have the opportunity to discover the challenges that others face and the treasures they hold.

To bring modern telecommunications into deep rural areas, the first hurdle to be overcome is often access to electricity. With the objective of meeting this fundamental prerequisite, it was found that, if coupled with very energy-efficient computers, lights and appliances, a modestly sized solar system can power a small telecenter, and thus the term "MicroSolar."

This website is a comprehensive resource for the development of telecenters to support the Microsolar® Distance Learning Initiative.

  • The first section is a collection of documents that provide a general Overview of the program.
  • Then, you can read documents describing the full range of existing and planned Projects.
  • A series of Tutorials covers all of the technological elements necessary to accomplish the construction and operation of a remote telecenter. (At this time the tutorial is available only in Spanish.) In this section, students can learn about solar energy, telecommunications, and computer information systems.
  • With access to the internet, through the virtual Schoolhouse, students can learn and exchange observations with their counterparts around the world.
  • The MicroSolar® team has created an array of Technology and tools to deliver the infrastructure which supports our mission. This section includes diagrams and installation manuals for the systems that have been integrated to contruct and maintain telecenters.
  • The website also contains specifications and installation documentation provided by the Suppliers whose products are incorporated into the MicroSolar telecenters.
Overview Projects Tutorials Schoolhouse Technology Suppliers
Bhutan
Overview
Projects
Tutorials
Johannesburg Summit
Porvenir Moses Nevada
Schoolhouse
Technology
Suppliers
Mexico
e-Inclusion Uganda
"Not until the creation and maintenance of decent conditions of life for all people are recognized and accepted as a common obligation of all people and all countries - not until then shall we, with a certain degree of justification, be able to speak of humankind as civilized. -Albert Einstein, 1945."