Having sponsored Haiti Connects work in Haiti for the last 2.5 years Aruba Networks is now continuing it's support by providing equipment to be tested during the RELIEF/JIFX disaster response exercise taking place in Camp Roberts, California next month.
Haiti Connect (a charitable trust) has been providing internet access and building local networks for hospitals, schools orphanages etc in Haiti since shortly after the earthquake in 2010. You can see a presentation they gave at the recent Airheads convention in Nice, France here.
Building on the experience and contacts gained in those 2.5 years the organisation recently decided to form a dedicated rapid response team which would be on call to build wifi networks as a means of communications for disaster response and humanitarian aid work across the globe. Discussions with other organisations in this field has led to an inviation to particpate in the RELIEF/JIFX exercise organised by the US Navy Post Graduate School.
During the exercise Haiti Connect will be testing Aruba Outdoor Mesh AP's and specifically how Clearpass works in disaster response situations where there is a large & un-managed influx of people and devices. We will also test several autonomous power sources for the AP's such as solar and wind. Lastly we plan to test NAS type devices holding disaster response specific data that can be accessed through a captive portal and how this can be worked into the network architecture.
For this exercise, which takes place from August 13th - 17th, we are looking for a few volunteers to help us build the network and run the tests. As we are a charity we cannot pay you to volunteer however what we can offer you is the following:
- The opportunity to build a Wifi network and test it under some unique circumstances.
- The satisfaction of working with a charity while doing some seriously cool stuff.
- The chance to meet some of the other participating organisations and get a first hand experience of cutting edge technology.
More information on the exercise and previous participants can be found here.
So if you're interested in volunteering and you think you have what it takes then please contact s us via email.
If you can't volunteer but are looking for a way to support us please have a look at our webpage for other means ways of supporting our work.
Thanks you!
Evert Bopp
Founder, Haiti Connect
www.haiti-connect.org
www.disastertechlab.org