I invited the nonprofit organization, Inveneo, to visit Mozilla to tell us about the ICT solutions it provides to the developing world. In the organization’s words, it is the on-ramp to the information superhighway for many in the world who have never accessed the Internet. During the introduction to the presentation, the members of the team provided some interesting figures as context for their project: 2.5 billion people in the world have little or no access to the very basic forms of technology (telephone, computer, etc.). An even greater number has no Internet connectivity.

Inveneo offers a solar-powered desktop that runs an entire open-source suite, including an operating system, browser, instant messaging client, VOIP, and more. The browser it delivers is compiled from the Firefox code. The entire software suite is under 100 MB. Open-source solutions are critical to keeping costs down. By some estimates, a proprietary software solution might cost as much at $15,000 more than the Inveneo solution, which can run between $550 and $1850 depending on what is needed from community to community.

The organization sells its hardware, software, and solar power systems at low-cost to international nonprofits, local governments, and private entities who understand the local country needs and context. Inveneo’s partners then work to deliver technology to people who will use it for economic development, education, relief, agriculture and health care projects. To date, Inveneo is serving 15 organizations, more than 50 communities, and over 40,000 people in countries like Rwanda, Uganda, Ghana, Mali and Haiti.

Part of the presentation was to show us the organization’s compiled version of Firefox. We also learned that Inveneo often meets people in the developing world who would like to localize Firefox into their local language. In one example, the team told us about a person who is localizing Firefox in a Rwandan dialect. Mozilla provides a great software solution for Inveneo because, as the team claims, using a proprietary browser would never enable its target market to localize in different languages.

If you have any ideas or would like to contact Inveneo, please email me or visit the website. http://www.inveneo.org

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