# Using Mesh devices with Raspberry Pis as collaborative learning tools

## programme | digital + humanities
**day 1: thursday october the 29th**


Abstract:
Popular smartphones are made to be attractive and addictive but offer the least amount of negotiability and safety. To be able to negotiate the internet, means to be aware of its capabilities and possibilities. To be safe, the much harder task is to learn of many ways platforms and apps extract personal data so as to influence the outcome. While phones might be most familiar in low literate contexts, they are inherently personal devices and generally unavailable to the women and the low literate of a household. We explore how a device can instead be inclusive, available to a group, open to adapt to different contexts and how it can be cost effective by encouraging reuse of peripherals. While being open to network each other for local decentralised services.
Our goal with the project is not to just make the girls users of existing services but also enable them to understand the making of such services. The values like play, tinkering, openness and access should be a central part of the platforms that we explore with the girls. Over the last few months we have been playing with such one platform, we call it the Aamne Saamne Pi or Webinar Pi.


Inshot (phones), SyncThing (peers with Pi nodes), Papad (hypermedia annotations) and Kolibri (learning modules)

Bio:
Servelots began in 1999 when a group of computer scientists came together to provide low-cost and user friendly software solutions to small enterprises. In 2002, Servelots initiated Janastu that has been granted 12A tax exemption for its work on “Software Commons”. Based out of Bangalore, our work has revolved around building wifi mesh networks in rural regions and building technological solutions for indigenous communities and nomadic tribes. We have built tools for web re-narration and archiving stories of local communities. We are also working on Papad, a hypermedia annotation tool that can be used in regions with low connectivity and low-literate populations.
Dinesh completed his Ph.D. in 1992, from the Department of Computer Science, University of Iowa and spent several years at CWI, Amsterdam. As technical director of Janastu, he works on tech for development.

references
* this page [j.mp/dh-symp-oct2020](https://bit.ly/dh-symp-oct2020)
* [dinesh slide](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ORFaJfhirR2qeTReqwTv4qZKbjJuHD2KFxOK6sKliMg/ ) (10am ist oct 29 2020)
* https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cvA9HACHpmeKc2ASJSwRNcGTW6rDRZUW/view
* https://www.eventbrite.com/e/digital-humanities-e-symposium-tickets-125475106421
* link for thursday
* URL: https://uws.zoom.us/j/86485603593?pwd=Sy9iRkc5OFNPNWdLdy83Y1l0M1I1QT09
* Meeting ID: 864 8560 3593
* Password: 649514