We participated in the Silicon Valley Simulation Day on September 22nd.  It was a demonstration of a deployed crisis communications center using key wireless technologies in a simulated field environment.  Marc and I spoke at the event as well as showed our newest SoFi (our new name for the solar powered wifi nodes).  It is pictured above and was great to have there to show off it's features.  HumaniNet and TechReach International sponsored the event and were great to work with.  There was a fabulous write up about the event in the San Jose Mercury news, with a nice mention about Green-WiFi.  One of the other companies present was Sahana, a new open source software for Open Source Disaster Management. I am quite excited about integrating Sahana with the SoFi system. Recently, I converted some retired laptops to diskless operation using compact flash memory cards.  The idea here is to have a cache of re-purposed laptops, preload with Sahana on the compact flash drive, SoFi units, and a Sahana server ready to deploy when a disaster hits, and all solar powered.  Just an idea right now.

Looking forward to October, Marc and I are very happy and fortunate to both be able to attend the AirJaldi Summit 2006, in Dharamsala, India.  The summit will address some of the ways that wireless solutions can be used to provide affordable Internet access in rural communities. It will also focus on the advantages that wireless networks can provide, by enhancing the quality of education, governance and health-care, increasing economic development, and promoting cultural exchange. The summit is support by his Holiness, the Dalai Lama.  Marc and I will be there from Oct 22nd  to the 25th.  Look for a report of this exciting event in our October newsletter.

We have also been working very hard to develop a funding and business model for Green-WiFi to be sustainable.  Over the past month, Marc and I have personally met with dozens of experts to help gain advice on the best way to achieve this goal.  Stay tuned for more about our progress next month.