Credits
This book was started as the BookSprint project at the 2005 session of WSFII, in London, England (http://www.wsfii.org/). A core team of seven people built the initial outline over the course of the event, presented the results at the conference, and wrote the book over the course of a few months. Throughout the project, the core group has actively solicited contributions and feedback from the wireless networking community.- Rob Flickenger was the lead author and editor of this book. Rob has written and edited several books about wireless networking and Linux, including Wireless Hacks (O'Reilly Media) and How To Accelerate Your Internet. He is proud to be a hacker, amateur mad scientist, and proponent of free networks everywhere.
- Corinna "Elektra" Aichele. Elektra's main interests include autonomous power systems and wireless communication (antennas, wireless long shots, mesh networking). She made a small linux distro based on slackware geared to wireless mesh networking. This information is of course redundant if one reads the book...http://www.scii.nl/~elektra
- Sebastian Büttrich (http://wire.less.dk/) is a generalist in technology with a background in scientific programming and physics. Originally from Berlin, Germany, he worked with IconMedialab in Copenhagen from 1997 until 2002. He holds a Ph.D. in quantum physics from the Technical University of Berlin. His physics background includes fields like RF and microwave spectroscopy, photovoltaic systems, and advanced maths. He is also a performing and recording musician.
- Laura M. Drewett is a Co-Founder of Adapted Consulting Inc., a social enterprise
that specializes in adapting technology and business solutions for
the developing world. Since Laura first lived in Mali in the 1990s and wrote
her thesis on girls' education programs, she has strived to find sustainable
solutions for development.
An expert in sustainability for ICT projects in developing world environments, she has designed and managed projects for a diversity of clients in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Laura holds a Bachelors of Arts with Distinction in Foreign Affairs and French from the University of Virginia and a Master's Certificate in Project Management from the George Washington University School of Business. - Alberto Escudero-Pascual and Louise Berthilson are the founders of IT+46, a Swedish consultancy company with focus on information technology in developing regions. IT+46 is internationally known for promoting and implementing wireless Internet infrastructure in rural areas of Africa and Latinoamerica. Since 2004, the company has trained over 350 people in 14 countries and released over 600 pages of documentation under Creative Commons License. More information can be found at http://www.it46.se/
- Carlo Fonda is a member of the Radio Communications Unit at the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy.
- Jim Forster has spent his career in software development, mostly working on operating systems and networking in product companies. He has experience with several failed startup companies in Silicon Valley, and one successful one, Cisco Systems. After a lot of product development work there, his more recent activities involve projects and policies for improving Internet access in developing countries. He can be reached at jrforster@mac.com.
- Ian Howard. After flying around the world for seven
years as a paratrooper in the Canadian military, Ian Howard decided to trade
his gun for a computer.
After finishing a degree in environmental sciences at the University of Waterloo he wrote in a proposal, "Wireless technology has the opportunity to bridge the digital divide. Poor nations, who do not have the infrastructure for interconnectivity as we do, will now be able to create a wireless infrastructure." As a reward, Geekcorps sent him to Mali as the Geekcorps Mali Program Manager, where he led a team equipping radio stations with wireless interconnections and designed content sharing systems. He is now a consultant on various Geekcorps programs. - Kyle Johnston, http://www.schoolnet.na/
- Tomas Krag spends his days working with wire.less.dk, a
registered nonprofit, based in Copenhagen, which he founded with his friend
and colleague Sebastian Büttrich in early 2002. wire.less.dk specialises in
community wireless networking solutions, and has a special focus on low-cost
wireless networks for the developing world.
Tomas is also an associate of the Tactical Technology Collective http://www.tacticaltech.org/, an Amsterdam-based non-profit "to strengthen social technology movements and networks in developing and transition countries, as well as promote civil society's effective, conscious and creative use of new technologies." Currently most of his energy goes into the Wireless Roadshow (http://www.thewirelessroadshow.org/), a project that supports civil society partners in the developing world in planning, building and sustaining connectivity solutions based on license-exempt spectrum, open technology and open knowledge. - Gina Kupfermann is graduate engineer in energy management and holds a degree in engineering and business. Besides her profession as financial controller she has worked for various self-organised community projects and nonprofit organisations. Since 2005 she is member of the executive board of the development association for free networks, the legal entity of freifunk.net.
- Adam Messer. Originally trained as an insect scientist, Adam Messer metamorphosed into a telecommunications professional after a chance conversation in 1995 led him to start one of Africa's first ISPs. Pioneering wireless data services in Tanzania, Messer worked for 11 years in eastern and southern Africa in voice and data communications for startups and multinational cellular carriers. He now resides in Amman, Jordan.
- Juergen Neumann (http://www.ergomedia.de/) started working with information technology in 1984 and since then has been looking for ways to deploy ICT in useful ways for organizations and society. As a consultant for ICT strategy and implementation, he has worked for major German and international companies and many non-profit projects. In 2002 he cofounded www.freifunk.net, a campaign for spreading knowledge and social networking about free and open networks. Freifunk is globally regarded as one of the most successful community-projects in this field.
- Ermanno Pietrosemoli has been involved in planning and building computer networks for the last twenty years. As president of the Latin American Networking School, Escuela Latinoamericana de Redes "EsLaRed", www.eslared.org.ve, he has been teaching wireless data communications in several countries while keeping his base at Mérida, Venezuela.
- Frédéric Renet is a co-founder of Technical Solutions at Adapted Consulting, Inc. Frédéric has been involved in ICT for more than 10 years and has worked with computers since his childhood. He began his ICT career in the early 1990s with a bulletin board system (BBS) on an analog modem and has since continued to create systems that enhance communication. Most recently, Frédéric spent more than a year at IESC/Geekcorps Mali as a consultant. In this capacity, he designed many innovative solutions for FM radio broadcasting, school computer labs and lighting systems for rural communities.
- Marco Zennaro, aka marcusgennaroz, is an electronic engineer working at the ICTP in Trieste, Italy. He has been using BBSes and ham radios since he was a teenager, and he is happy to have merged the two together working in the field of wireless networking. He still carries his Apple Newton.
Support
- Lisa Chan (http://www.cowinanorange.com/) was the lead copy editor.
- Casey Halverson (http://seattlewireless.net/~casey/) provided technical review and suggestions.
- Jessie Heaven Lotz (http://jessieheavenlotz.com/) provided several updated illustrations for this edition.
- Richard Lotz (http://greenbits.net/~rlotz/) provided technical review and suggestions. He works on SeattleWireless projects and would like to take his node (and his house) off the grid.
- Catherine Sharp provided copy edit support.
- Lara Sobel designed the cover for WNDW 2nd Edition, as well as the look and feel of the WNDW website. She is an artist currently living in Seattle, WA.
- Matt Westervelt (http://seattlewireless.net/~mattw/) provided technical review and copy edit support. Matt is the founder of SeattleWireless.
The publication of this work has been supported by Canada's International Development Research Centre, http://www.idrc.ca/. Additional support was provided by NetworktheWorld.org.
