In the village of Bourem Inaly, Mali there are over 120 television sets powered by 12-volt car batteries, but there is almost nothing to watch. With its CanTV project, Geekcorps has helped the local radio station stream video content to the local community over WiFi. The radio station, which rents these units out, benefits from a new monthly revenue stream while the villagers benefit with an improved source of news and entertainment.

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Cybertigi, based in Mali, is a project aimed at extending the ICT services available in relatively urban centers outward to village sized (and smaller) communities. The goal is to design and build a system which addresses the basic communication demands of rural communities, and construct it in such a way that it can be an autonomous, entrepreneur-based, and commercially viable system shortly after its implementation.

The Desert PC is a sealed, fanless system based on VIA Technologies' Mini-ITX form factor. It has a heatpipe for passive cooling, a solid-state disk to eliminate moving parts, and a Linux distribution, Kunnafonix, customized by IESC Geekcorps to minimize the number of disk writes. While regular computers consume approximately 300 watts of electricity, the Desert PC (including the screen) normally consumes only 35 watts or less of power, with a peak value of 60 watts-i.e., it uses less power than a 60-watt light bulb.

Our technical team leads by Ali Toure is working on a new model of radio transmitters. This is an amelioration of the first version used in northern Mali. The first prototype of the new version is already made and tested with success. We hope to use that new version with an LCD screen for the new radio stations in northern Mali.