Great to hear that the Wikimania organizers are encouraging more of this, especially since there may be great applications for the region.
If that is the case, perhaps we could submit something related to LoRa/Meshtastic now, get it in the system, and then combine or figure out how we do a session on it. Some ideas: 1. A group of folks are running the "Cyberpony Express" project in conjunction with the Burning Man organizers, on how to create an offline BBS and Wikipedia system using LoRa/Meshtastic in the desert (or in a survival scenario), and are already using IIAB. They might be interested in collaborating on something. See: https://highdesertinstitute.org/2025/03/19/initial-cyberpony-express-workshop-recap-and-next-steps/ 2. There don't seem to be any active Kenya groups (that I can see) using LoRa/Meshtastic, so Wikimania could be a great training ground for testing some services. Usually amateur/Ham radio groups are a good conduit for getting folks interested in Meshtastic, so we might want to reach out to them, or universities doing similar things. 3. We could experiment with setting up a Meshtastic network just for Wikimania, so people can try it out themselves. Access devices are as low as $30-40 USD. -Andrew On Thu, Mar 27, 2025 at 4:59 AM Stephane Coillet-Matillon < steph...@kiwix.org> wrote: > Well folks from the organizing committee told me offline access would be > front and center this year so there’s definitely room for more offline > sessions! > > > On 26 Mar 2025, at 22:35, Andrew Lih <andrew....@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Hi all, while I'm not sure there is room for a third session about > offline Wikipedia, there might be some interesting things to do during the > Hackathon. > > > > Specifically, there is a lot more attention to "offline friendly" > technologies like LoRa/Meshtastic, an inexpensive, long range wireless > peer/mesh system of radios to communicate with text messaging at low > bandwidth (1 kbps). This might be an interesting opportunity to see what > types of offline Wikipedia services might be practical using these types of > inexpensive devices. The good news is that LoRa uses unlicensed ISM bands > depending on the locale, and does not requiring a license or any > subscription fees. > > > > There are "international" devices that can use wireless spectrum > appropriate for different countries, so this might be a good time to > experiment or showcase these types of applications. > > > > Sample device: > > > https://www.seeedstudio.com/SenseCAP-Card-Tracker-T1000-E-for-Meshtastic-p-5913.html > > > > Example BBS/service on LoRa: > > https://github.com/TheCommsChannel/TC2-BBS-mesh > > > > -Andrew > > _______________________________________________ > > Offline-l mailing list -- offline-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > To unsubscribe send an email to offline-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org > > _______________________________________________ > Offline-l mailing list -- offline-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe send an email to offline-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org > -- -Andrew Lih Smithsonian Institution - Wikimedian at Large Metropolitan Museum of Art - Wikimedia strategist Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American University, Columbia University, University of Southern California --- Email: andrew....@gmail.com, and...@andrewlih.com WEB: https://muckrack.com/fuzheado PROJECT: Wikipedia Space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE
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