The tech circus - computers in rural Sierra Leone

We have a new character to meet - the clinic's new laptop!

One of the obvious logistical problems with setting up an electronic medical records system in Sierra Leone is the "electronic" part. It turns out that fixing computer problems in Kono is not as easy as just taking your computer back into the store. You can't order computer-related stuff online and have it delivered. Power is not a public utility and prone to unexpected blackouts. Heat and humidity are hard on fans and hard drives. Even simple problems with a charger can leave a computer useless. And the problems are not merely environmental - malware and viruses seem to be a constant problem.

So what are Katie and I going to do about it?

Recently an American man currently working at the clinic donated the money for a new laptop for the clinic. So Dan Kelly tasked Katie and I with buying one and bringing it with us to go to Sierra Leone. This means that we have a chance to try and address many of those logistical difficulties through our choice of laptop.

Our first thought was to get a simple Dell laptop. But then we did some research. It turns out that there are computers built to resist the heat, humidity, dust, and power inconsistencies common in developing nations - the XO, designed by the One Laptop Per Child foundation. The XO uses a solid state flash hard drive instead of the more common spinning hard drive, because the fewer moving parts, the better. It's small and energy efficient to increase the battery life. The smallness and compactness also contributes to its durability. It doesn't have much processing power, nor does it have much onboard hard drive space, because solid state hard drives are slower. But it doesn't need that for its purpose; instead, the lack of high speed processing or graphics capabilities means that the production cost is low: ~200 USD.

Of course, they're not exactly what we want for the clinic. So we went in search of commercial laptops that approximate the durability, battery power, and minimalism of the XO. That lead us to a segment of the laptop market known as "netbooks." Netbook is a term that describes a small laptop primarily designed for surfing the web, checking email, and using web applications. The first netbooks to become widely known were produced by Asus; this New York Times article describes netbooks as "the Honda Fit" of the laptop world.

After a couple of hours reading product comparisons and looking at Amazon to determine which laptops could feasibly be delivered by today (this was yesterday; we leave Monday!), we settled on the Asus Eee 901. It's tiny - only 9 inches. But Asus is arguably the most reliable brand out there. (I like this story, which briefly tells about two guys that trekked across the Canadian Arctic for 70 days with Eee 901 computers). It also runs on a 20 GB solid state flash hard drive, has great battery life, and wireless capabilities. And, it runs on Linux.

Don't worry about it if you have never heard of Linux. It's an operating system, analogous to Windows, except that it is open source. That means that both Linux itself and all of the computer code used to make it work are freely available for anyone to edit or use. And when I say "freely", I mean "free" - Linux costs nothing. Even better, Linux computers don't get viruses. I won't pretend to be a tech expert; I can't explain all the reasons why Linux is so much more secure.

In the context of the clinic, Linux has the edge on Windows for a few reasons. First, the security. Second, Linux will always be free, and updates itself. Third, while one of the major obstacles to more widespread use of Linux is the fact that it is not always easy to port files from proprietary systems (ie Windows) to Linux, the clinic has hardly any preexisting files to be ported. Last, OpenMRS is a web application - it is written in Java and runs out of Firefox, so it can run perfectly well on either Linux or Windows.

So our new baby laptop arrived today, and she looks great. The hinge for the monitor is sturdy; the chassis is solid. I'm excited that we've had the chance to "buy outside the box" in order to make sure the clinic has a computer that will last.

Let me close by thanking my primary tech consultant, my roommate Sajid. He knows much more about computers than I ever will and is also very happy to help me muddle through. He actually has a blog of his own, where he writes about neat tech policy issues. Take a look, and don't be intimidated by the seeming difficulty of the subject matter - the issues he writes about are very pressing and often don't get the attention they deserve.