Case Study Template

Name of reporter: Rory McCann

Name of NGO: Camara

Location (city, country): Main office/workshop in Dublin, Ireland. Other workshops in Ireland and various Africa countries

Web Links: http://www.camara.ie

Summary Camara (http://www.camara.ie) is an Irish Charity that sends donated computers to schools and educational institutions in Africa. They've been in operation for a few years and as of June 2009 have sent 10,000 ubuntu computers to schools in Africa. The ubuntu machines are used in schools in Africa to teach IT skills.

Challenge or situation The challenge was to provide computing hardware suitable for schools in the developing world. One also needs a long term plan, so propriatry hardware has a problem here.

Solution The solution was to use Ubuntu Linux.

Benefits – with subheadings

• No per seat licence
• 1 CD install has all the software
• Installer can be customised which makes it possible to mass install ubuntu.
• FLOSS software works well with the long term goals of the development community.

Other Software

• Did you used also other linux distros?

  • Some experimentation with other linux distros, like YellowDog for Mac and SuSE. However Ubuntu is now the standard.

• Did you used also proprietary software?
  • In this case, what feature do you think is missing in Ubuntu that forced you to choose proprietary software?

Suggestions

• What would you suggest Ubuntu to do for better match your needs?
  • Better offline support for installing and upgrading machines
• What would you like to see improved on Ubuntu resources

Experiences

• What's the biggest difficult you encountered with this experience?
  • Convining people to use Ubuntu Linux and not windows
  • Hard to upgrade the software and install new software.
• and what do you think it's the best trick you learn with this experience?
• What would you suggest to our readers that would do a similar initiative?

Photos and stories

• Collect few photos of the initiative
• Ask if there's particular anecdotes, good or funny stories, best lessons that reporter would like to tell to the world.

CategoryNGO