30510: Roebling (announce) Haitian coffee going WiFi (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Elizabeth, lizieames @ yahoo.com, wrote:

    Tra abilite du Cafe to Give Haiti's Coffee Cooperatives Internet Access 
from Their Plantations by Applying WiMAX and RFID Technologies
5/31/07 - Paris - Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) announces that 
it has signed a two-year cooperation agreement with Cafes Malongo, the 
University of Nice Sophia Antipolis and Haiti's mobile telephone operator 
ComCEL to offer broadband Internet access to the isolated rural areas of Cap 
Rouge in Haiti.

This pilot project called "Tra abilite du Cafe" (Coffee Traceability) will give 
Haiti's coffee cooperatives Internet access from their plantations by applying 
WiMAX and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technologies. By having such 
access to the latest information technologies, they will be able to monitor the 
traceability of their fair trade labeled production and sell their coffee on 
optimum terms by reducing the number of intermediaries. Training in information 
technology for the staff and members of Haiti's cooperatives is also being 
planned. This project again demonstrates Alcatel-Lucent's commitment to 
narrowing the digital divide and combining economic development with social 
responsibility.

The coffee tracking project's main goals are to:

   help Haiti's farming communities so that they can manage coffee production 
to meet demand and improve production techniques through appropriate remote 
learning in order to ensure that the cooperatives are more profitable,
   help to develop expertise in two advanced technologies (universal WiMAX for 
broadband Internet and RFID labels for traceability) to support the development 
of agricultural telecenters in Haiti,
   pioneer a range of innovative services in agricultural telecenters to serve 
education, health, e-government and ecotourism.
 The four partners have mutually supportive roles to ensure that this 
unprecedented cooperative venture in Haiti succeeds:

   Alcatel-Lucent has undertaken to supply the telecommunication equipment free 
of charge (a WiMAX station and the associated terminals), and will help to set 
up and run the project,
   Cafes Malongo, operating in Haiti, is providing the financing and designing 
the software for the coffee traceability system, while maintaining its 
medium-term presence in the country in order to help finalize the Project's 
applications,
   the University of Nice, which has had a presence in Haiti since 1998 when it 
created the MBDS (Interactive Multimedia, Database and Systems Integration) 
masters qualification and has initiated the project, is committed to providing 
project management, developing the necessary software applications and finding 
local partners to ensure that Haiti's agricultural cooperatives and an NGO get 
involved in the project,
   ComCEL has undertaken to bear all the connection costs for two years for the 
three planned sites, from the time when the connection is first set up, and to 
operate the WiMAX station supplied by Alcatel-Lucent.
 Thierry Albrand, director of Alcatel-Lucent's "Digital Bridge" initiative 
says: "We are particularly happy, through our partnership with Cafes Malongo, 
the University of Nice and ComCEL, to play an active part in this project in 
Haiti. This action fits perfectly into Alcatel-Lucent's commitment to narrow 
the digital divide in regions that receive little or no service, since it will 
provide broadband Internet access to the isolated rural areas of Cap Rouge in 
Haiti, thereby promoting the economic and social development of the communities 
involved".

Cafes Malongo, which has been operating in Haiti for more than six years, is 
working closely with 40 cooperatives accounting for more than 10,000 farmers. 
Its aim is to set up training in the cooperatives and in schools, via WiMAX, so 
that small producers can gain access to training, information and 
communication. The University of Nice Sofia Antipolis and the University of the 
State of Port au Princehave created a Masters qualification in new 
technologies, "Multimedia, Database and Systems". As a result, two Haitian 
students and a French student have produced the traceability software that 
forms the basis of the project.

Keywords: broadband wireless internet access, alcatel lucent, haiti, euronext 
paris, cafes malongo, coffee production, radio frequency identification, 
comcel, nyse, traceability, cooperatives, wimax, rfid radio frequency 
identification, alu, nice sophia antipolis, tra, RFID
By Robert Hoskins





Elizabeth Eames Roebling
http://www.elizabetheames.blogspot.com

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