Themis: your access to knowledge

Project objective, problem to be solved, and main actions

The objective of the project is to give these young people the possibility of accessing educational content and interacting in real-time with their peers through an independent and free network, a series of network protocols, a specialized software suite, and an antenna system.

After analyzing the data obtained in the survey carried out with the institution’s student community, we found that of the 717 students with devices capable of connecting to the Internet, only 34% have residential broadband service; 28% connect with mobile internet and the remaining 41% do not have access to the internet, making this a big problem, as these students would be without the possibility of accessing the educational service amid the pandemic.

For the planning of the project, first, an awareness stage was necessary, then a documentation stage, a prototyping stage, and finally a test stage. The problem for us was very easy to identify, as, in our school of 1,060 students, 717 had no connectivity, which meant a problem that could be solved.

The project was the idea of ​​young people, who then came to me.

 

 

Access the materials and references provided by the teacher

Deepening into the issue and involvement of the school and local community

The directives had no direct participation in the development of the initiative, in addition to opening the school spaces during extracurricular hours.

After exposing the project’s objectives, it was presented to the Tecnoglass Foundation and the Barranquilla Department of Education, which provided financial support for the development of the prototype.

The development of the solution

To get to the prototype of Themis we went through many difficulties. First, not knowing anything about computer networks took us through a long process of document review and training; then we moved on to the review phase of what software was needed and adapted to our solution. After deciding on an operating system called Ubuntu Linux, we decided to switch to one called Lubuntu, which was a lighter distribution; but then came the first stone: where were we going to install everything? We had to make the computer march, looking for damaged computer parts to be donated to assemble our first version of the prototype that at the time was going to be called Frankenstein, but seeing that many students showed solidarity and that in reality they were all after the same goal than us, decided to change the name to Themis, for justice and equality. Thus was born the first version of Themis, but the second difficulty came: how would we distribute the signal? We knocked on the doors and no one answered. So, we had to self-finance the first antenna which, although very limited, served to test both the hardware and the software we chose. Having the prototype and proving that what we wanted to create worked, we called the private company and it was Tecnoglass who helped us in the first place, injecting us with capital that allowed us to acquire better equipment with which we could expand our radius of action and install more specialized software.

The construction of the prototype

Themis is in operation and has a coverage of 150 meters around the school and includes the IED’s facilities.

 

 

 

 

Evaluation of the process and the developed solution

We evaluate user satisfaction with the system in terms of UI and UX. In addition, students were evaluated by taking into account their exit behavior and their evolution throughout development.

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