Facebook is harnessing satellite, drone and other technology to beam Internet connectivity to people in underdeveloped parts of the world. Facebook drones are just a plan, now, but it might come true. A fleet of drones might rival Google’s blimps and balloons.
I find this quite exciting. Any Internet ‘connectivity’ implies possible threats of spying and terrorism, as we know. But my first thought about the drones and blimps is that people who work the land and sea might find them very useful.
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Drones and blimps have actually got an interesting competition going on now for increasing internet spread. The best part is, they both just keep helping developing regions more and more. So ultimately development is a consistent winner and that’s what we need. Internet revolution has incredible potential to change conditions in underdeveloped and developing regions. With big names like google, microsoft, facebook etc. coming into development, even governments of these regions are empowered more.
I hoped you’d comment here, being more tech-savvy than I am. Yes the drones and their rival technologies seem exciting.
It is exciting, but I also feel a bit sad by the news. These people will end up relying on technology to help them work the land, increasing productivity and becoming more distanced from it in the process, like we are today, instead of maintaining a close sustainable relationship with the land. Ways of life that have existed for centuries without technology will disappear.
I hear you. Otoh we couldn’t be having this conversation without modern technology. I think that the ancient ways of life, possibly threatened by modernity, might not seem so precious to those born into them. A close relationship with the land might seem to be a life sentence of hardship.
I like what my fellow blogger Olawale Ojo says about African young people in agriculture http://olawaleojo.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/youth-entrepreneur-using-ict-to-grow-agribusinesses/ That post led me to a Facebook initiative called Cool to Farm https://www.facebook.com/Cooltofarm