Building the Solidays’ network

The Solidays' truck

The Solidays’ truck

Solidays is the biggest music festival in France and take place at the Longchamp Racecourse,  a 57 hectare horse-racing facility, located on the banks of the Seine River in Paris.  The event brings together more than 150 artists and 170,000 festival-goers for three days.  The proceeds from the festival are donated to organizations fighting against AIDS, especially for those focusing on the African continent. Continue reading

Designing the digital Education Plan for Higher Education and Research in Haiti

Computer center of the university of Quisqueya

Computer center of the university of Quisqueya

I worked for three months on designing the digital Education Plan for Higher Education and Research in Haiti named PENDHA (Plan d’enseignement numérique à distance en Haïti).  This program was intended to provide significant support in the reconstruction of Haitian higher education and research system.  Indeed, Haitian universities welcomed 60,000 students and 2,000 teachers before the earthquake and these people need to keep going in their academic activities. Continue reading

Innovative solutions from Geekcorps in Mali

La Source

La Source at the Bamako main market

I spent two years in Mali from 2005 to 2007 such as the Country Director of Geekcorps which is a non-profit organization that sends people with technical skills to developing countries to assist in ICT infrastructure development.  At Geekcorps, we built a couple of innovative technical solutions such as an open FM transmitter, a CanTV, an offline wikipedia, a bottleNet, DIY solar panels, a rural information center named Cybertigi or a digital kiosk named la Source.  We had a nice office located in the Bamako hippodrome district with a lab and six rooms to welcome fellow geeks. I was lucky enough to run the office after Ian Howard and Matt Berg who had already built amazing adapted ICT solutions for Mali. Continue reading

Overland Story: a long journey through Asia

On the Bosphore river in Istanbul

On the Bosphore river in Istanbul

I finished my studies at McGill University in Canada and I didn’t want to work right away.  Unlike my American and Canadian fellows, I didn’t have to reimburse a loan for my university studies and I wanted to travel for a couple of months before looking for a job.  I flew in January 2004 to Istanbul with my good friend Maxime, a camcorder and an online photo’s blog still available at: http://overlandstory.com/go/Continue reading