Adopt‐an‐Haitian‐Internet‐technician‐or‐facility

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1

All,

Attached is a project description by Reynold Guerrier, Network Engineer and Treasurer of the Association Haïtienne pour le développement des technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (AHTIC).

I know many have helped and many have offered to help, and kit and people have been sent, and are continuing to be sent, however there is an unmet need, the continuation of the "fuel, food, families" trio that kept the Boutilliers NAP powered and its surviving technical team intact. And the most effective aid is cash, which enables the recipients to prioritize according to their needs, and the bulk purchases of aid recipients proximal to them.

The budget and resources for this project is as follows:

o $100,000 for salaries to support technicians and their family to get them back on track
o 5 content production units
o Production software
o Management software
o 10 data center in a box

The data centers in a box resource was identified by Reynold on the 19th, a week after the quake, when he wrote to NANOG:

> We would like to provide to the haitian government a UC systems with several branches:
>
> o President office: 10 endpoints
> o Prime Minister office: 10 endpoints
> o 12 mayor city hall offices: 3 for each: 36 endpoints
> o Ministries (9 differents locations 3 for each): 27 endpoints
> o Communications Center: 20 endpoints
> o emergency Clusters: 14 ednpoints
>
> Total: 117 endpoints
>
> So if someone can provide recommendations, equipment, skilled technician for that it would be fine.

There is wire transfer information in the attached pdf, and if anyone finds that cumbersome drop me a note and we'll work something out.

Yes, there are a lot of aid dollars going to Haiti, but dollars given to AHTIC will go specifically to re-build the network infrastructure and keep the families of the surviving engineers and technicians fed and their basic needs met.

Thanks in advance,
Eric

2

Arg! The attachment died the death of "132485 bytes with a limit of 100 KB". Oh well, it could have been the line eater bug in a USENET post.

I posted an HTML version here:
http://wampum.wabanaki.net/vault/2010/02/005491.html

Cutting and Pasting (a high tech skill) yeilds:

Project Title: Adopt-an-Haitian-Internet-technician-or-facility

Project Description: The project aims to collect money and telecom gear to provide mid-term financial aid to IT technicians that have been affected with their families during the January 12, 2010 earthquake. Money, telecoms gears, time, software, etc will serve to setup technology community centers to support schools, universities, vocational centers that have collapsed.

Begin Date
February 2010

End Date
August 2010

The Context: On the January 12, 2010, Haiti one of the poorest country in the world is hurt by a 7.3 Earthquake that caused major damage to Port-au-Prince, Jacmel, Leogane and other settlements around. Many notable landmark buildings were significantly damaged or destroyed, including schools, universities, vocational schools even the Port-au-Prince Cathedral, and the main jail. Among those killed are a lot of technicians, students, teachers.

Many countries responded to appeals for humanitarian aid, pledging funds and dispatching rescue and medical teams, engineers and support personnel. Communication systems, air, land, and sea transport facilities, hospitals, schools, universities, and electrical networks had been damaged by the earthquake, which hampered rescue and aid efforts; confusion over who was in charge, air traffic congestion, and problems with prioritization of flights further complicated early relief work. As rescues tailed off, supplies, medical care and sanitation become priorities. Among them we also need to address education on a mid term run. With a lot of destroyed schools and dead teachers e-learning can be a good way to overcome this problem.

Deliverables and criteria for close-out

The projects has 2 majors deliverables:

    1. Providing financial support to at least 50 technicians whose houses have been destroyed during the seism. The idea is getting them a job so they don’t have to worry about their family basic needs and keeping them on their workplace
    2. Setup mobile IT community centers to provide IT services to schools and universities.
    3. Contents production for e-learning

The project boundaries: This project aims to provide technical support to teachers helping them putting their courses online or on DVD and make it available for remote schools or schools whose teachers have been killed during the quake. Data Center in a box will facilitate access to those courses by the students. Project will be conducted in joint venture with the Ministry of Education that will define the priority based on must affected area and teacher availability.

The main risks: The main risk of this project is not having enough funds to address all the needs in supporting the schools in producing online courses because it’s a well-known fact that in schools in Haiti adopted their own curriculum ignoring sometimes the official one. The second concern

Stakeholders:
Client(sponsor): Ministry of Education

Project Manager: Reynold Guerrier

Project Team: Reynold Guerrier, Max Larson Henry,

Steering committee: Reynold Guerrier, Stéphane Bruno, Sergey Gaillard, Roque Gagliano, Max Larson Henry

Other Stakeholders: Local ISP, LACNIC, ISOC, IDB

Budget and resources: ($, people, equipment, facilities, software, etc.)

     * 100,000.00 USD for salaries to support technicians and their family to get them back on track
     * 5 contents production units
     * Production software
     * Management software
     * 10 data center in a box

Milestones
Date Key deliverables

Feb-March 2010: Financial support to technicians and families
March 2010: Data center in a box
March-August 2010: Implementation period

Bank Account Info:
Bank: SOGEBANK
Bank Address : Route de Delmas, Delmas 29, Port-au-Prince, HAITI
Account Number: 130212988

Swift code : SOGHHTPP
Beneficiary : Association Haïtienne pour le Développement des Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication
Beneficiary Address: 18, rue Moise, Pétion-Ville, HAITI

People interesting in working in Haiti can send me a skills and availability statement too, but what is needed soonest is a budget that can be applied to existing backfill cash needs passed through the AHTIC.

Thanks and a tip o' the hat to Bill McCall who appraised me of the truncation.

Eric

3

Thanks Eric for support this project.

To all of you who want to donate, donations can be sent to directly to AHTIC
account:

*Please find below the AHTIC bank account information so you can proceed
with the money transfer. Please confirm this is the same information you
have since the beginning.

4

As a matter of form, how might one check out the legitimacy of requests like this? (No, I don't think this one is fake...)

5

I got your point Steven. It's an initiative of the AHTIC the Haitian
Association for the ICT development, Reports will be available on the funds
will be used.

http://www.ahtic.ht

http://www.e2tech.ht

Those sites are references of the AHTIC organizations.

Regards

reynold

6

(it isn't, for the benefit of any casual observers)

Technically, a `Very Good Point`. We'd all like to think we're not

Discuss..

I'm thinking: a personally-known web-of-trust, for a start. NANOG is a
small, specialist community. I'm also thinking most are familiar with
PGP/GnuPG, so most if not all of us can provide proof, even if we don't
normally.

Gord

7

Steve,

Hmm. Are there other requests like this one? I suppose the pilot's associations may be trying to raise money to fix the secondary airfields -- a note from a member of Congress who's significant other has been shuttling a Cessna and stand-alone early relief payloads from the US VI to secondary fields in Haiti made me think of that as another social affiliation targeted activity. I'm sure others are possible.

There is the general problem of control, one reason the IRC contacted CORE was to investigate a .redcross so that they could reduce their loss to disaster fraud. Of course, we have to wait on ICANN to get a .redcross or .icrc or ... .ouch into the root so that it becomes more generally useful as a trusted sink of private and public packetized cash.

Then there is the specific problem of opportunity. We didn't wait until FEMA authorized us to begin work when Katrina impacted the NOLA and surrounding area, and if had, more would have died than did. As we, who are not in the humanitarian relief line of work, look at the loss of our peers, do we act, or do we leave specific tasks to the general relief agencies?

I don't have a "best answer" and I'm aware that aid is difficult, for all involved.

Eric

8

Although folks on the ground are focused on doing good work, this is an
area where the reputation and infrastructure of well-known organizations
can be used to validate and coordinate fund raising. Unfortunately, with every disaster comes opportunites for fraud and con-men. Like Steve, I don't think this is fake, but is always a good opportunity to educate people who want to help.

One possible starting point is the Internet Society

http://isoc.org/wp/newsletter/?p=1536

   We especially wish to draw attention to the immediate response of
   organizations such as Inveneo, NetHope, the Network Startup Resource
   Center (NSRC), Packet Clearing House (PCH), LACNIC, the IEEE, and many
   others, all mobilizing for much-needed, practical, on-the-ground
   assistance.

ISOC provides links to those organizations, but you should get the links directly from ISOC or the organization not my mail message.

For those in the United States, another well-known starting point is the WhiteHouse.GOV website

http://www.whitehouse.gov/haitiearthquake_embed

Again, those are just pointers. You should still verify people claiming to represent those organizations, and contact them using some out-of-band method. Phishers often email, postal mail, phone calls and even in person contacts pretend to be well-known, well-trusted entities.

Suggestions from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation about scams and how to report them in the US.

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel10/earthquake011310.htm

9

Sean Donelan wrote:

As a matter of form, how might one check out the legitimacy of requests like this? (No, I don't think this one is fake...)

Although folks on the ground are focused on doing good work, this is an
area where the reputation and infrastructure of well-known organizations
can be used to validate and coordinate fund raising.

Another good reason is so that the funds are tax-deductible. People are willing to give more when they know they can get a tax break and most corporations won't give anything unless it's a tax-deductible donation.

There are special rules for personal donations for Haiti this year - if you donate by the end of February 2010 you can take the deduction off of your 2009 tax return. This means you realize the tax benefit more-or-less right away, rather than having to wait a year to see the tax benefit realized with a bigger refund (or smaller amount owed) when you file your taxes in 2011.

jc

10

There is the general problem of control, one reason the IRC contacted CORE
was to investigate a .redcross so that they could reduce their loss to
disaster fraud. Of course, we have to wait on ICANN to get a .redcross or
.icrc or ... .ouch into the root so that it becomes more generally useful as
a trusted sink of private and public packetized cash.

I'd leave that statement and discussion for another thread, I think
that stating that the DNS and ICANN's mission is to provide certain
level of trust for worthy causes is out of the scope of the original
message and I'd also say this list.

With all due respect I don't believe that this is the time or cause to
inject the gTLD applicants "propaganda" to justify the need or
implicit community approval for such a gTLD.

Let's go back to the original subject.

I'd not mind if somebody properly sets up an easy and legit way for
individuals or members of the "networking community" a way to donate
small quantities to help Raynold and his crew directly via things such
as PayPal, but there is a ton of aid going to HT, perhaps somebody
with access can influence the process to better direct the funds where
they are needed.

Regards
Jorge