ALEUTIA - About Us

Aleutia's aim is to distribute online computers at a price point that is affordable to as many families and businesses as possible in the developing world, and particularly in Africa.

Response to a Problem
In the summer of 2006, our founder set up an Internet cafe for an NGO in Takoradi, Ghana that works with streetchildren. The twenty HP desktops that were sourced locally were three years old and $500 each, prone to hardware faults because of their age, and consumed inordinate amounts of power, the ongoing cost of which almost crippled the project. In response to these challenges, we started this venture and have now brought to market the E1 — a tiny, silent, rugged computer that consumes just 8W of power, about 5% of a traditional desktop. We quickly established customers in 18 countries and have now replaced it with the E2, providing upgraded specs in the same, rugged case and with no more power consumption. The faster performance allows our users to run more demanding apps like OpenOffice and Skype, or just browse YouTube.

Computers as Appliances
Our take on the market is that large computer manufacturers overshoot the needs of most customers. We prefer to think of computers as appliances — simple devices with a minimal learning curve that people can use to to get something done. Unless you're editing videos or playing advanced 3-D games, you don't need the processing power of a modern desktop. Most people just want to write documents, create spreadsheets, send emails, and browse the web. We provide a system that does that well, and whose minimal power requirements can be met by small, inexpensive solar panels or 12V car batteries.

Longer, Local Warranty
In many countries, computer vendors only offer 1 Year Warranties. We'd prefer to stand by our E2 for longer, which is why we offer as standard a 3 Year Warranty. And our system's simpler design — everything is compressed onto the motherboard — lends itself to local maintenance — the board just needs to be swapped out. And it means our systems might be assembled locally as well, transferring know-how and encouraging ICT development — a step we're actively looking to take in Ecuador and Mozambique.

What's Next?
We're building up our wiki (wiki.aleutia.com), so that it can serve as a user manual not only for our E2 but for anyone new to Linux, and provide instructions for people that have never used a computer (how to create and save a spreadsheet) that are actually readable.

Aleutia's currently working to integrate ZigBee into our desktops, a new wireless mesh-networking technology that doesn't drain batteries like Wi-Fi does and has a range of up to 1km. In areas where connectivity is expensive and hard to obtain, this would allow one computer to share its Internet connection with hundreds of others, and, in areas without Internet connectivity, would enable free email, file transfer, and messaging over an enormous geographic area.

As with we everything we do, this is meant to help overcome the challenges that inhibit access to computers in so many parts of the world.

We're always looking to take on smart people, whether as partners or as part of our team. If you like what you read, drop us a line on vision@aleutia.com. If you want to learn more about "Appliance Computers", take a look at this presentation Mike did at the O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin last November.