AFRICA: KENYA AND TANZANIA DESIGNING TECHNOLOGY FOR THE CITIZEN ARCHIVIST PROJECT

Sean Hewens, describes the technology development underway to support the Citizen’s Archivist Projects that the US non-profit organization Small Bean has established in Kenya and Tanzania.
‘Technology is supposed to make things simpler. But the tools needed to be a Citizen Archivist in a rural location without electricity are expensive and complicated. Not a recipe for sustainability.

However a Small bean volunteer (William Johnson) had the idea for a smartphone application that would unify most of the tools needed to be a Citizen Archivist (camera; audio recorder; and video camera, as well as all of the charging devices and batteries needed to power these devices) into a single smartphone application. Thus, the Small bean Android app was born.

‘After months of planning and coding, the first version of the Small bean Android app was finished in April 2011. It was amazing... and unstable. After a brief hiatus, we have reassembled the Android team and are working to have a functioning version of the app ready for Spring 2012

‘The app will allow a user to record oral history interviews, take photographs and movies and then download the information to a computer in a manner that creates a folder for each interview or topical subject. The app is designed to be installed on any Android smartphone, a device increasingly prevalent in the developing world. Our goal is to make the app as widely accessible as possible.

‘In partnership with a diverse group of entities including Newton-Tanzania Collaborative, Design Museum Boston, Samsonite, MSI, the University of Dar es Salaam, and students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), we continue to push forward with our new ESCARGO computer lab in Kwala, Tanzania. The idea behind ESCARGO (which stands for “Excess Solar Capacity as A Revenue Generation Option”) is that a computer lab cannot achieve true sustainability unless it possesses a means to generate revenue to pay for things like computer teachers, internet access, and broken computers. ESCARGO solves this problem by combining a computer lab with a battery rental facility. Extra solar panels on the roof of the building charge batteries which are rented out to members of the community for a small fee.

These batteries provide clean renewable energy for the village and the fees from the rented batteries pay for the operational costs of the computer lab.

‘The design team from Samsonite and Design Museum Boston has almost completed their working prototypes of the ESCARGO system. And the MSI computer company has generously provided energy efficient laptops and other expertise for use in the ESCARGO lab. Hopefully everything and everyone will come together on the ground in Kwala in the next few months.’

• For more information on Small Bean’s Citizen Archivist Project please visit: http://smallbean.org/cap

Source: ORAL HISTORY, OHS Journal, Spring 2012, p. 26.