Tribewanted: Vorovoro

21st July Update

Today I had a meeting on an island without electricity about broadband and satellites! It was very surreal. ‘Love Island’, a reality show on ITV in the UK is currently being filmed at the other end of Fiji. They have a production team for 300 people – now we obviously don’t need this kind of set-up on Vorovoro, we just need wireless broadband and a few PCs. It is really important that we get this set-up as soon as possible, as one of the biggest challenges of this project is to communicate what is going on the island with the online community and vica-versa. The production team on Love Island could come and set-up broadband for us within a few days – so this is great news. I will have the full tech spec tomorrow and I will be sending this out to potential sponsors who are keen to get involved with this project. Shatoka, a great force on the forum, is currently pushing lots of tech companies for support. With a little bit of creative persuasion, I am confident we will have this up and running on Vorovoro by mid August, so we will be able to be in real-time contact with you 24/7. This will make the communication and decision making process 10x easier!

Ulai and I have a meeting with energy companies in Suva next week about solar power for the broadband set-up. We will need to consider what power options we will need for other parts of the infrastructure – namely refrigeration. I will keep you updated on the results of the meeting next week.

The Goal

To have internet and phone connections from the island for tribe members to use.

The Challenge

To keep the tribe members online in touch with those on the island we will be looking at setting up a satellite link. We are currently talking to possible technology partners who will be able to help with this process.

The Debate

Those with the techno know-how please pass on your thoughts and ideas as to how this can be achieved.