We’ve finally made some progress on getting the school a solution to their broken UPS. In March, we tried to use a voltage stabilizer as a cheaper alternative, since buying a new UPS was proving to be too expensive, but that plan didn’t work. The stabilizer couldn’t handle the large voltage fluctuations at the school. [...]

We talked to the teacher at the boys’ high school last night, and he confirmed that they bought one voltage stabilizer for their computers. We think that this can serve 5-6 computers at one time, but he’s going to do some testing and find out for sure. Board exams started at the school at the [...]

This is a mostly comprehensive summary of what we did in Bijawar this December. Computer maintenance We talked to the people at two computer shops in Chhatarpur – Microworld Computers, whom we were referred to by an acquaintance who runs a cyber cafe, and Computer Care & Ware. We stopped by Microworld Computers, but there [...]

I’ve been in Bijawar since Thursday, so here’s what’s been going on since the last time I wrote. I finally got Wipro to fix the broken CPU with a new hard drive (they’d previously replaced the monitor), which we still have to test to make sure it actually works. I’m not sure whether it’s got [...]

I went to the school this morning at 9:30 (the driver didn’t show up until then), where the lab was locked and a bunch of boys were standing around outside, with no teacher. I called the teacher, who said that the fuse from yesterday hadn’t been fixed yet, so we couldn’t do any work. I [...]

I arrived in Bijawar last night after five days in transit: SFO to Delhi, by way of Hong Kong and Bangkok (total travel time: about 30 hours), then to Bhopal (total travel time: about 4 hours), then to Bijawar (total travel time: 12 hours, including lunch in Sagar). Update (July 21, 2009): Now that I’ve [...]

I’m planning on going to India this Thursday night (actually Friday morning) for a month. Originally, I’d wanted to leave two weeks ago, but the monsoon was delayed about a month in central India. As a result, the weather two weeks ago was still around 110-115°F, so I delayed my departure. The temperature high in [...]

As promised, here’s another update of what’s been happening in Bijawar since April. One of the teachers at the Bijawar Boys’ HS School called us from Sagar (about two hours from Bijawar), saying that he was at a store, looking to buy some new equipment – chairs, tables, and assorted computer hardware – for the [...]

My apologies for posting this so late. This update should’ve gone up months ago, and I’ll post another update concerning the developments since April very soon. We talked to the principal at the Boys’ HS school in Bijawar on April 8th. We were scheduled to start the pilot computer project at the school from April [...]

As per my last post, we were scheduled to start a pilot computer literacy program for students at the boys’ HS school in Bijawar from April 1 to 15. The principal of the school has now indicated, however, that he wants to move the whole program back by a week or so, starting April 6. [...]