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Presenting AirJaldi to Dr. Abdul Kalam, former President, India and John Chambers, Cisco CEO
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On October 30, we were honored to present our work and technology to Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, the former President of India and a staunch supporter of bringing technology to rural areas, and Mr. John Chambers, CEO of Cisco. The presentation was given as part of the inauguration of Cisco’s newly-built Globalization Centre East, located in Bangalore. The presentation, given by Jim Forster, a distinguished Cisco engineer, a leader of Cisco’s Digital Inclusion network (DINet) Project, and an AirJaldi director and supporter, included an overview of one of our basic CPE nodes, and a live video conference - carried out using two of our nodes - between Jim and members of our team located outside the demonstration theater. |
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 Cisco Globlization Centre East, Bangalore
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| AirJaldi in the inauguration of Cisco’s Globalization Centre East (GBE)? A few weeks ago, when DiNet team was asked to present their work on affordable and viable technologies for connectivity in rural areas, they approached us with a kind offer to feature AirJaldi as a major part of the presentation. We were, naturally, very happy and quick to agree. We have been working closely with members of the Cisco team in India (mainly on the establishment of the AirJaldi Networking Academy), and have presented our technology and work to a large number of Cisco employees both in India and the US. This was an excellent opportunity to reach to a great number of people within and outside Cisco. |
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 Tibetan monks - part of Cisco's 'Welcome to the Human Network" promotional video |
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| How can affordable technology be presented by three people in about three minutes with less than three weeks to prepare? This question was put to the DiNet and AirJaldi teams, located at the time in three locations – the west and east coasts of the US and Dharamsala, India. Following (more than three…) trans-oceanic brainstorming sessions, we decided that to work on an actual demonstration of the network and its components, one which would take our guests out of the demo theater at the briefing – virtually at least, as time did not permit them climbing up on rooftops to take a closer look at our equipment. |
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| Narrowing in on an approach, we now needed a theme and layout for our demo. This required finding two appropriate locations through which we could establish a link using the AirJaldi equipment, and a way of showing that such a link can (and is) be established with similar ease and at very affordable costs in almost any rural location. Enter the fruit vendor plan – one of the locations, we decided, will be a combination of a solar-powered node and a “Himalayan fruit vendor”, and the other will be placed on a rooftop close to the demo theater. | |
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| Equipped with this action plan we arrived to Bangalore a few days prior to the inauguration. Dinesh and I came from Dharamsala/Delhi with a huge pile of equipment, Jim and Yahel who both came from California with similarly-sized bags and boxes. Solar panels and batteries were purchased in Bangalore, a local vendor willing to lend his trolley for the demo found through our local fixer – our taxi driver Gowada, and a graceful Tibetan woman, Tenzin Nordin, recruited as the “fruit vendor”. | |
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For the live link we used two Linksys routers installed with the AirJaldi mesh firmware and mounted inside a 19 dBi Rootena. Both Rootenas were powered through an 18Ah 12V battery, one charged through a 50W solar panel.
The outdoor link, view from "fruit vendor". Note the Rootena at the top of the roof (far left) After three hectic days of dry runs and a few rainy evenings, we were ready on Demo day with the two live link units installed and working, and the demo unit placed inside the demo theater.
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| The presentation itself generated great interest from both Dr. Kalam and Mr. Chambers, as well as many other visitors to GBE during the two inaugural days, which included some of India’s leading companies and in the field of ICT and development. The demo equipment will be kept on display at GCE and operated by the Cisco team at the center. | |
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Dr. Kalam, John Chambers, Owen Chen and Jim Forster interacting with Tenzin the "fruit vendor" during the presentation
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The "fruit vendor" demo unit outside Cisco's GBE Cafeteria |
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View of "fruit vendor" from the demo theater |
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For those of you who happen to visiting Bangalore and Cisco, do make a point of looking for the AirJaldi equipment. All fo you are always to come and see the fruits of our work in Dharamsala itself (and soon in other locations – but that’s for the next blog…) |
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Many people helped us with the task of getting a “fruit vendor” to talk to Dr. Kalam and John Chambers via AirJaldi. We want to thank the Cisco team at GBE (made of Cisco employees from India, Singapore and Hong Kong) – Ajith, Mamtha, Jaran, Dravindar, Sean, Colin; the DiNet team and helpers – Paul, Elizabeth, Debbie; Tenzin Nordin from the Tibetan Youth Hostel at Bangalore; Jagen and the Cisco Networking Academy team; and the large number of Cisco employees and contractors at GBE who were most patient and helpful with our somewhat unusual requests for assistance.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
Good Luck
Keep it up, Mikey,such presentation will go a long way, you are really taking Dharamshala to a world map.
Good Luck
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