Kine Diop Free Technology Center

The women targeted in this program are mainly women in the informal sector in the municipality of Dalifort (Dakar), where there is a majority of young population, representing more than 65% of the population, of which 60% are women.

They face several problems: lack of training specially regarding computer knowledge, lack of financial support for their own projects, insufficient skills in managing their income-generating activities, etc.

The solution we are proposing is to create a long-term Free technology center that will improve access the job market. Women will have free access to education where free technology will be taught through 3 itineraries: social entrepreneurship, citizen journalism and electronics & 3D printing.

The solution can be replicated, since its conceived in the free software framework, where sharing, networking and decentralization are key concepts.The use of free licenses enables the free distribution and improvement of any documentation created along the learning process.

The project takes place in Dalifort, a town in the department of Pikine, part of Dakar's banlieu. The municipality of Dalifort has 22 districts with a population of 33,000 inhabitants (2012), most of its housing is spontaneus housing, no proper city infrastructure is guarantee,e.g streets overflow during the rain season

There is a majority of young population, representing more than 65% of the population. At a time, its contribution to the socio-economic development of the locality remains very low, and recurring problems are unemployment and school failure. Women represent more than 60% of the population, trade is their main activity.

The municipality counts only with a CEM, two elementary public schools, two health districts and a maternity ward. But even when, the municipality, tries to support women in the professionalization and structuring of their activities, it is not enough.

There is high rate of school failure and no alternative access to education or training centers. The economic situation of the population does not allow to access any private school or training course and families are so busy searching for survival that they aren't educated enough as to support their children at an educational level.

Kine Diop Free technology center is a learning center, focused on supporting women from the municipality to learn how to use the computer with free technologies as a way to improve their opportunities when accessing to the labor market or for developing their own business.

The solution is based on building teams that work on collaborative and cooperative basis to develop their own learning experiences, through several educational itineraries, entrepreneurship, citizen journalism or electronics&3D printing.

Each itinerary gives the content to be developed while learning computer usage. It is known that many women have an entrepreneurship attitude and the aim is to support it and help it succeed. Also it was detected there are many initiatives based on local media, so by adding citizen journalism we add the online dimension to their current offer and electronics&3d Printing is our commitment to show a vision of technology in the future, as well as a try to have it as an intersectional topic with other disciplines, as it can complement other activities, like the artistic activities.

The usage of free technology, gives an ethical framework but also provides the best option to be able to use low cost technology.

The target population on a first stage are women of the municipality of Dalifort, part of the Dakar's banlieu in Senegal. Afterwards we want to extend it specially to youth.

Women targeted are from all ages, but the ones able to attend on more regular basis are young women under 30, who finished school or at least they almost did, but didn't continue with their studies and they became housewives or do informal jobs. They don't have the economical means to pay for private courses or schools, and the municipality has not educational offer nor exists any organization giving free educational programs.

At the beginning of every training there are two days dedicated to understanding their needs, through several workshops we learn about their skills, expectations and dreams. From those workshops we can see their interests and go deeper in them and together with the participants define the itinerary. Afterwards every 6 weeks we will do an evaluation meeting to see if the expectations, rhythms, contents match their needs/expectations, and this way we will adjust the evolution of the training in a participatory way.

We have to explicitly say that before carrying out the pilot project we have been in contact with women organizations as well as with women in the community who addressed the lack of education specially regarding technology as a big problem when wanting to have access to better job opportunities.

For this reason, we consider that the problem, solution and target population are well aligned because the solution comes from the population itself after they highlight the lack of education on technology and the pilot project using the approach explained had a very successful result.

The project has several innovative aspects as is the use of free technology as an empowerment tool, making use of a human-centre methodology which facilitates that the participants define themselves their learning itineraries.

It has a multidisciplinary approach that makes possible to adjust the itineraries depending on participants, being able to offer a wider range of learning topics. Each itinerary gives approaches to technical solutions, whether online e-commerce, use of image/audio/video/livestream digital tools or 3D printing and electronics. To recognize technology as a wide spectrum of software and hardware solutions, is also part of the technological  learning process.

It can be replicated in other locations, since its conceived in the free software framework, where sharing, networking and decentralization are key concepts and the use of free licenses enables the free distribution and improvement of any documentation created along the learning process.

Networking with other initiatives will facilitate the challenge of improving the educational and socioeconomic situation and make aware citizens that engage in their neighborhood, where the focus will also be in accompanying any sort of entrepreneurship that may arise during the training course.

Our solution is based on free technology, either software or hardware. The use of free technology guarantees that the knowledge acquired is long lasting, that costs are low, therefore accessible for the target population, as since its built on community basis it will be accessible on the long term, as well as its four freedoms enables going deeper in any  technological aspect.

All the learning process will be done on a Ubuntu environment, learning the main desktop tools as are LibreOffice Suite, Gimp, Audacity, OpenShot, ffmpeg converter.

To support cooperative and collaborative online work it will be used etherpad, bigblueButton, mumble, calc and several online services offered by Framasoft.

While regarding hardware we will work mainly with Arduino for electronics, making a foray into wearables with Lilypad. While learning 3D printing by using Prusa 3D printer, with support from the local fablab.

So the idea is using the existing free technology to bring change at a local level through women's empowerment.

Free technology like GNU/Linux and all its desktop distributions are highly used at all levels, on education, administration, network.

Around 25% of the users use GNU/Linux based operating system, over 25 million users use LibreOffice Suite, Framasoft project (https://framasoft.org/en/) is a settled solution for online services.

Arduino is the most famous free hardware company that started in the early 2000s and that now provided commercial supply of around 1 million boards all over the world.

Prusa 3d open source printer, is shipping over 6000 printers worldwide every month! It has become the no.1 fastest growing tech company in Central Europe  (Deloitte 2018) with the growth rate of 17,118 % over the last four years!

The proposed solution is based on a pilot project done  during 4 months, where we had previously detected the need of acquiring computer skills by talking with women's organization as well as interviewing women taking part of the organizations we work with.

The women selected to do the training are mainly part of organized groups, as women’s organizations, health groups, cultural associations and were chosen based on the criteria that they could become agents of change in their locality, directly in their organizations or by developing citizen awareness and engaging in other projects.

The training starts with empowerment workshops to get to know the women, their expectations, skills, problems, dreams. This is key to build a group feeling among the participants, which sets up the basis for team work and cooperation and collaboration within the group during the whole course.

The introduction to free software framework, its freedoms, it’s organizational methods, reinforces on one side the social aspect, as a successful showcase of distributed work on developing tools at a world scale. The high performance of free software on old computers and free hardware, enables a realistic approach of using low cost technology in an environment with low income.

The course done 3 days per week, gives the option, to access the learning center the rest of the week for individual learning, as a space to meet with the other participants, opens the possibility to learn with others and to invite other women of the community to access to a space with technological infrastructure. This way the learning process is not limited to the course but they can continue their learning process, and focus on their own personal projects, so they can take advantage of the infrastructure put at their disposal to improve their skills.

During the course, there will be panels, inviting local women with stories of success or engaged in the municipality that can act a referents and make the participants agents of change, as well as networking with other local associations will reinforce the local development and strengthen each association activities.

Our solution during the pilot project served around 50 people, not only the women directly engaged but people coming to the center. Around 100 people benefit from the panels organized on monthly basis.

In one year we expect to train 100 women, that the space to be used by around 500 people for their own projects and activities regarding technology issues and local development. And public activities should reach around 2000 people, having an average of attendance of 250-300 people.

Since within the local network there is local media, the center will become known among a large number of the population and we expect an increase of attendance but also that the project is replicated in other neighborhoods.

In 5 years the expectation is to have replicated the project idea in 3 neighborhoods of the banlieue of Dakar. Hopefully other groups will themselves implement the same center in their localities on their own, but networking with the existing ones. So the aim is to build a national network of free technology centers and then extend the idea to other African countries.

We believe that educational projects can scale in a feasible way by both, replication and networking . Replication can allow to adapt to local context, and networking can benefit from all experiences, share materials, knowledge, exchange about new challenges and work together. So the aim is to build or join other African networks that are working on educational issues and/or technology.

For example there is the Fablab network in West Africa where we would join and in the previous years we should identify which projects have similar approaches as to build up this inter sectional network.

Like in any starting project there are several barriers. On one side its the financial sustainability of the project itself, since the goal is to generate its own economical means and not to depend only on external funds. But is not easy to succeed in an economical model in an area where there is low income, high rates of unemployment and lack of educational opportunities, since it makes difficult to have fees that guarantee the existence of the project on the long term.

On the other side, the lack of educational opportunities make it difficult to have staff that can accomplish the management of such a project, with expectations to grow.

There are other possible barriers as is the fact that the project will be carried out in a cultural center of the municipality, which at some point can restrict the usage of the space if other groups need it, or not renew the support, which would mean to change location.

The attendance of the participants on a regular basis is also not guaranteed, since everyday life is hard, and working for living is a priority, so there can be drop-down of participants that make difficult that the goal of acquiring certain knowledge is reached.

Regarding how to be financially sustainable without depending only in external funds, we hope to make it possible by building a network with other organizations, so that each organization can give a fixed fee for the project, as well we hope to be able to produce things or cultural activities that can provide some income. 

In order to have staff that can carry out the project, the aim is that it will be the women themselves who will be able to do the training in a more formal or informal way, can be giving a course or peer to peer learning, and among the participants we expect to train in management tasks those women who are interested in the project and that give some time to it.

In case that we cannot continue using the current location or that we need to grow, we will reach other organizations working in the neighborhood and try to find a way to use their space.

To have a good learning environment, high quality, human center and friendly, we think are key to motivate participants to attend the courses, including some flexibility to those who any reason cannot follow it on regular basis.

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Full time staff are 3 people

Part-time staff between 4-6

Other workers/contributors 5-10

We consider ourselves as the most appropriate organisation to undertake this project because our members have been very active in the neighborhood for many years and have demonstrated year after year their social commitment to the problems faced by the population, which has earned them social recognition in the neighborhood  and respect for their actions and their message. Among the members who are part is the well known Senegalese rap group FuknKuk, active members of the Y'EN A MARRE movement.

We are already networking with Senfablab part of the worldwide Fablab network and is also part of the French-speaking network of West African Fablabs.

At the individual level, we will have two experts in their respective fields to coordinate the project:

Carolina García Cataño - More than 20 years involved in civil society organizations, dealing with topics such as citizen participation, self-organization, digital rights, free technologies and its social approach. She has given numerous international conferences, published numerous articles and written contributions in collective books. Founder in 2005 of a social enterprise of women working as a free software consultant.

Emile Thiaw - is a social entrepreneur, he was born and raised in Dalifort. He is interested in entrepreneurship and its correlation with his goals, he holds a degree in cultural entrepreneurship following a training in Entrepreneurship, Marketing of Arts and Cultures, Booking and Artistic Career Management at Africulturban within the framework of the FOCUS project [Forums des Cultures Urbaines du Sud]. General Secretary of the association We management.sn.

Currently we are partnering with several groups, with whom we have developed the pilot project.

Daf hip hop is the organization with whom we have developed the pilot project and they are co-coordinating the full project.

Also we have been working with the women group "La maison de la femme", who  are also involved as participants of the project and interested that the project becomes long term.

The association Pecc Ndakaru, who have put at our disposal the location, since there were renovations works taking place at our headquarters.

We are networking with Senfablab, a fablab working on 3D printing, electronics and other maker issues.

Kine Diop Free Technology Center provides a clear value to the population since its providing a non-existing learning opportunity, which came up from a need detected by the organizations working in the neighborhood. This need was double checked by doing a query among women in different associations as well as to some individuals. To give the option to learn about the use of technology as well as providing a center with the needed infrastructure (absent in 90% of the households) will for sure improve the learning capacities and their option to get better job positions or improve the management of their own business, as that was the demand.

Kine Diop Technology Center will be provided with the appropriate infrastructure to around 25 people, that is access to computers, Internet, 3Dprinter and electronics. On one side we will provide specific training courses on free technology, social entrepreneurship and 3d printing & electronics which will empower women and give them confidence to carry out their professional life. On the other side it will be a center open on daily basis to use its computers and other technical equipment, which allows people to access to the use of the computers as well as to Internet for their own personal needs.

The revenue will be diversified, on one side we will ask for an affordable amount to the participants of the courses, also to those using the center in its opening hours. We will apply to get funds from the municipality and the city, as well as we will reach other organizations that can benefit from our infrastructures or NGO’s that support local processes. Since we want to minimize the dependence on external financial support, we expect to create products/services that can be provided to third parties and once a year we will launch a crowdfunding campaign to get funds but also as a way to activate our supporters network abroad.

If we get some financing we hope to settle the first year project so that during that year we can develop better strategies to assure the sustainability of the project, and if thanks to Solve we can count on having some mentor-ship and strategic advice that can help us in better planing this sustainability  as well as is good to join a community with whom to exchange experiences and learn from.