Evolving an Efficient and Effective Off-the-Shelf Computing Infrastructure for Rural Communities of South Africa

Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have diffused into almost every area of life for citizens living in the Global North. Data is seen as a key element in the fourth industrial revolution and is the foundation of Information, Knowledge and Wisdom. Knowledge has become the new “make or break” asset and an inability to access the world’s data and technologies that facilitate access, synthesis and interrogation of data places one at a disadvantage. In 2013, the Department of Communications in South Africa announced a new national broadband policy to promote the reduction of a digital divide and sup-port citizens and the economy in digital interactions. Implementation has thus far not been successful. Furthermore, the Broadband policy does not address how South Africans are to access the Internet once available. The Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL) provides an example of a computing infrastructure model for the introduction of ICTs into rural communities. Through the deployment of “broadband islands” and low-cost computing infrastructure to promote both knowledge creation and consumption, access to the proposed ubiquitous Internet connectivity can be unlocked. However, the initial computing infrastructure deployed to the SLL suffers from a single point of failure. In this paper, we discuss alternative computing infrastructure configurations that were tested and deployed within the SLL in order to determine a more appropriate computing infrastructure model for the SLL and potentially other rural South African communities; such that learners, teachers and community members can be active contributors and consumers of data, information, knowledge and wisdom.