Omar Tejedor, Central Director of Public Telephony at ETECSA, announced a pilot test using public pay phones for mobile access. They will upgrade public phones, enabling them to access the mobile GSM network.
the public phones will link to underutilized mobile base stations and their goal is to augment telephone access in rural and mountain areas. This is a small pilot test -- they've contracted for upgrades to 50 phones so far -- and prices have not been announced.
This is not a major development, but it is consistent with Cuba's history. Since the early days of the Internet, they have put more emphasis on rural connectivity than was common in developing nations.
It is also an instance of Cuban ingenuity -- like equipping a bicycle with an engine, pop-bottle fuel tank and oversize seat, creating El Paquete Semanal or growing street nets.
http://www.rikimbili.com/
It also reminds me of a time many years ago in Havana when my wife asked a woman on the street if she knew where the closest pay phone was. She replied that there was one up the street, but it had not worked for years. That was the bad news. The good news was that she had a phone in her home and invited us in to use it.
I've written posts about the wired and wireless neighborhood local area networks that have sprung up around Cuba. They are used for file exchange, game playing and discussion -- but no political discussion.
I came a across a Voice of America video with interviews of a couple of the users (perhaps system administrators -- they did not say). Here are a couple of stills from the video:
Building junction point
Cables run across roof tops and between buildings
Does anyone recognize this switch?
Everybody knows that we are being watched ...
The video reminded me of the way people in rural India used to share cable TV:
Computer programmer is one of the jobs the Cuban government has designated as eligible for self-employment -- let's hope for innovation from these hackers and I hope ETECSA is hiring them for their networking skills.
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Also see:
http://laredcubana.blogspot.com/2014/08/a-report-of-cabled-local-area-networks.html
The first meetup of the Merchise Startup Circle will be held in Havana on May 23. The event is being organized by a couple of Cubans who have worked abroad and hope this is the first of many meetings for people interested in startups, tech and entrepreneurship.
Can Cuba develop a vibrant tech startup community? Cuba may be short on financial capital, but that be raised fairly quickly -- Cuba's human capital has taken years to develop.
A successful software industry requires trained, demanding users and skilled technicians and Cuba's long-standing emphasis on education leaves them with both. As an indication of their commitment to education, Cuba spends 12.8% of its GDP on education -- the highest rate in the world -- and the Cuban literacy rate is 100%.
The United Nations Development Program reports a human development index (HDI) for every nation annually. The HDI includes components for health, economy and education and the only nation in Latin America and the Caribbean to out rank Cuba on the overall HDI and the education index is Chile. (Chile and Cuba rank 43rd and 44th on the HDI and 49th and 50th on the education index).
Cubans are generally well educated, but are they "trained, demanding users of technology?" Internet connectivity is nearly non-existent in Cuba and relatively few have sporadic, slow access to the Cuban intranet, but there a long history of promoting computer use and literacy among the youth. In 1987, Fidel Castro agreed to create 32 Youth Clubs of Computing and Electronics (YCCs) for promoting and teaching computer technology. As shown below, he expressed his envy of the young people at the dedication the YCC headquarters, which occupied the ex-Sears store in Havana (prime real estate) and his support has continued.
Fidel at the opening of the YCCs
Today there are 611 YCCs and over 2.25 million adults and kids have completed their courses. The YCCs are distributed throughout the island, not concentrated in one or a few large cities -- a common pattern in developing nations.
Of course, Cubans have some Internet and intranet experience. Most is at work or school, but there are also paid Internet access "CyberPoints." It is noteworthy that ETECSA (Cuba's single provider of Internet and telephone access) plans to increase the number of Cyber Points from 155 to over 300 by late this year -- evidently there is demand for slow Internet connectivity even if it costs as much as a week's salary per hour. (I would be curious to know who the users are and how they are using it. That would be an interesting survey).
In my 2011 report, I compared the UCI curriculum with the computer science curriculum at Carnegie Mellon University and found that
The work-study balance – ten semesters of professional practice and three studying business topics – differentiates UCI from U. S. universities. Students are expected to work on useful applications in education, health, sport, and online government -- writing software, building Web portals and developing multimedia products.
While they may not have experience with the latest technology, Cuban graduates should be ready to do practical work and good students may gravitate toward startups since state enterprises are the only alternative source of employment.
Even without domestic users, outsourcing can help bootstrap a tech community and Cuba's outsourcing prospects look good. Cuba is close to the large U. S. market, is in the Eastern time zone and there are many Cuban expats in the U. S. and elsewhere with professional and family ties to Cuba. Cuban developers have been doing small-scale, sub rosa work for U. S. firms for some time, but now that we have approved work by independent Cuban programmers (as opposed to state enterprises) that work can expand openly.
UNDP HDI and education ranks
I checked the 2014 A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index™ and it turns out that the top ranked nation for outsourcing is India and Mexico (4th) and Chile (13th) are among the top 15. Given their UNDP Human Development and Education indices, Cuba looks like a formidable competitor to all three.
I've focused on tech and education to this point -- what about Cuban culture?
Of necessity, Cubans are resourceful. The old cars that Cubans have managed to keep running are as well-known as Cuban cigars. Homebrew computers are common. Before the government cracked down, homemade TV dishes were ubiquitous in Havana. There are even illegal satellite links in Cuba. These are a few examples of Cuban resourcefulness in the face of constraints. For more, watch this video:
The legacy of years of socialist rhetoric might also contribute to the success of a startup community. The early ARPA/Internet community or Silicon Valley in the 70s and 80s provide examples of success that was partially due to a somewhat idealistic, cooperative culture and a sense that the participants were doing something important.
When the PC revolution was just getting under way, computer clubs sprung up around the country. One, the Homebrew Computer Club (HCC) met in an auditorium at Stanford University in the heart of Silicon Valley. The meetings featured a "random access" session during which people stood up to ask for help or offer to share information. At one meeting I attended, Steve Wozniak offered schematics and a parts list for anyone who wanted to build a copy of the single-board computer he had designed, while his partner Steve Jobs stood at a table showing off wire-wrapped versions of the machine. After the meetings, "competitors" met at a hamburger place in Menlo Park (I forget its name) to talk about their latest S-100 but boards.
Random access session at the Homebrew Computer Club
Might the Merchise Meetup and the YCC Freeware Festivals turn out to be Cuba's HCC?
I've been painting a rosy picture -- talking more about what I would like to see happen than what I think will happen -- "Silicon Malecón" faces many obstacles.
Readers of this blog well know the sad state of Cuban Internet connectivity. As neuroscientist Frances Colón, acting science and technology adviser to Secretary of State Kerry says, "More than anything else, Cuban science and technology entrepreneurs need connectivity to finally move into the 21st century of scientific discoveries and technology development."
A lack of capital is another obvious problem, but Cuban entrepreneurs with good ideas and organizations will be able to attract capital if government polices encourage foreign investors. That being said, the Cuban economy is already looking up with easing of tension with the U. S. and Cuba may find it desirable to finance significant parts of its own Internet infrastructure.
A lack of business and marketing experience may also hinder Cuban entrepreneurs. That should be mitigated by close ties between Cubans and the expat community. Business schools are also eyeing Cuba. There is also Proyecto Cuba Emprende, which offers "training and advisory services to Cuban entrepreneurs who wish to start or improve a small business in order to contribute to the development of an entrepreneurial culture, social progress and to improve the quality of their lives."
The biggest problem for the startup community may be Cuban bureaucracy and the power of incumbent state software enterprises. Will the government stifle startups with micromanagement and regulation (as exemplified by their list of jobs eligible for self-employment) and taxes? Will politically entrenched state software enterprises like Albet and Desoft view startups as competitors to be beaten or will they be a training ground for future entrepreneurs? (This is similar to the question of the infrastructure policies of ETECSA).
I've mentioned some of the things the Cuban startup community has going for and against it. Let's hope it takes off.
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Update 5/26/2015
The Merchise Startup Circle meetup was held last Saturday. Over fifty people came -- there would have been more if they had had more space (and a larger pizza and beer budget :-).
An elegant meetup setting
Two of the organizers, Alex Medina and Medarado Rodriguez welcomed the attendees (the third, Rodney Hernandez was out of the country and could not attend).
They will now allow cooperatives a year to hire workers (it had been 3 months) and are studying 205 proposals to create new cooperatives.
Since 2012, 498 private non-agricultural cooperatives have been established (347 are still operating) and the authorities are presently studying 205 proposals to create new cooperatives.
Cooperatives are allowed to have Internet accounts, but do any readers know if any of these cooperatives -- existing or proposed -- involve technology or the Internet?
The Miami Herald has published an article profiling several Cuban software startups. It describes their applications and the difficulties they face. A "window" is starting to open for Cuban software startups -- how long until it is closed by established competitors -- from the US and other nations or Cuban state software enterprises?
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Update 8/4/2015
The second Merchise Meetup was held last Saturday. Read about the meetup here, see photos of the meetup here and check out all the tweets here.
It sounds like it was a great meeting with good speakers and a lot of enthusiasm. Here are a few quotes from folks who were there:
Cuba still lacks high-level Internet infrastructure, but it is full of programming talent.
I attended the event it was great. The technical knowledge is very strong.
Lots of smart people *already* doing lots of interesting things... instead of just waiting :-)
Bold prediction we will see better startups out of #habana than #miami in the coming years
It was great talking with so many engaged and interesting people. Thank you for your contribution and support!
Fantastic to hear investment topics described in an enlightening and entertaining way.
Awesome words of startup wisdom by @ubaldo, co-founder of http://fonoma.com. Many thanks!
Awesome ... Over 50 techies for 5 hours.
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Update 8/13/2015
The C.A.A. Foundation is sponsoring four Cuban student internships at a Manhattan tech incubator.
C.A.A. founder Miles Spencer, four Cuban interns and advisor John Caulfield, former
chief of mission at the US Interests Section in Havana.
They are the first interns in the C.A.A. Innovadores program, which seeks to provide opportunity, networking, mentoring and resources for promising innovators in Cuba.
C.A.A.'s first initiative is "to offer Cuban Innovators fully underwritten opportunities to intern and study with some of the best incubators and boarding schools in the Science and Technology space in the United States."
Nearshore America has published a market research report on Cuba's IT infrastructure, policy and software development community.
The report is written for those interested in outsourcing IT work to Cuba and it costs $749, but the atypically interesting executive summary is free.
The report includes results of a survey of Cuban IT professionals (half of whom report that they are already doing work for foreign clients). Here are a couple of figures summarizing characteristics of the developers who were surveyed:
You should check the post out, but a couple of things caught my eye. It says that El Paquete is paying taxes in Cuba. We've speculated on reasons for government tolerance of El Paquete -- reducing demand for Internet access and providing employment -- and it seems the government is also sharing in the revenue through taxes. (There has even been speculation that El Paquete is government run).
Revolico and CiberCuba pay taxes and employ people in Spain, where they were established. There was no mention of Vistar taxes, but it has 23 employees in Cuba. Revolico has 7 million page views per month, with 50% of the traffic from within Cuba. It has 25,000 ads daily and is profitable.
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Update 12/2/2015
There will be a meetup in Miami featuring the founders of five Cuban startups: Hiram Centelles - Co-founder, Fonoma, Revolico & Yagruma, Marta Deus - Founder, Deus Expertos Contables, Yondainer Gutierrez - Founder, Alamesa, Ubaldo Huerta - Co-founder, Fonoma & Yagruma, and Elio Hector Lopez (el Transportador) - Creator, El Paquete Semanal. Ted Henken will be the moderator.
You can read about the Connecting Cuba meetup featuring five Cuban Internet entrepreneurs here and here or watch the following archived live-stream video.
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Update 5/22/2016
Merchise has been organizing startup activities and meetups in Havana and is in a partnership with Stripe to help Cuban entrepreneurs export their goods and services -- commercial activity. But, they began as a programming research group and are now returning to their roots as organizers of MonadLibre V2016, a conference on functional programming, in August. I've not followed functional programming since playing a little with LISP as a student, but they seem to have invited a number of well known speakers from Haskell and related communities.
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Update 5/25/2016
Cuba is going to legalize small and medium sized businesses, but there are many open questions -- what is the difference between a small business and a cooperative or a self-employed person who hires others, what about taxes, can someone who is not a Cuban to make an equity investment in a small business, could a small business own an office space and hire Cubans directly, how small must a business be to qualify as "small or medium-sized," will they be allowed to compete with state-owned enterprises, etc.
For a tech-related example -- could a non-Cuban provide capital to establish an offshore programming business in Cuba? Cuba already allows self-employed computer programmers -- has this law changed anything for them?
The answer to such questions may become clearer when Cuba's National Assembly approves the proposed law.
Will Cuban programmers be allowed to sell software and do offshore programming and localization in the US and online?
Many people have asked me whether I expect the Cuban Internet to thrive after the rapprochement with the US, and I tell them that is up to the Cubans -- the ball is in their court.
My first reaction was a big grin -- I am more interested in what Cuba can sell in the US than I am in what US and other companies can sell in Cuba -- and I imagined Cuban companies and professionals offering high margin goods and services in the US.
But, Obama's offer is limited to "independent Cuban entrepreneurs" -- who are those entrepreneurs and what do they do? This report by Richard E. Feinberg lists the 201 self-employment job categories that were open to Cubans as of September 26, 2013 and it is a goofy list with jobs like three-wheeled pedal taxi driver (not to be confused with pedal taxi driver or horse-drawn cart operator). I'd advise you to check the list for laughs and also a glimpse into the Cuban bureaucratic mind.
Well, that was discouraging, but then I looked more closely at Feinberg's table grouping the 201 jobs into eight categories and one jumped off the page -- computer programmers were included in the "other" category along with clowns and magicians!
How did programmers get on this goofy list? Was it an oversight or an intended loophole for would-be app developers, Web site designers and developers, offshore programmers, software localizers, etc.?
There were 476,000 self-employed Cubans in December 2014 -- I wonder how many were computer programmers and how many more would apply for a self-employment license if software and software service export is actually allowed.
If any readers know any of these self-employed programmers, I would love to hear from them -- to hear what they are currently doing and what they would do if allowed to export to the US.
Programmers are close to my heart, but the Cuban economy can export much more than software. If Cuba is to take advantage of the offer President Obama has made, they must drop what Ted Hencken and Arch Ritter call the "internal Cuban embargo." The Cubans would be wise to adopt the economic and Internet reforms suggested by Hencken and Ritter if they hope to export more than artisan crafts, pottery and religious articles.
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Update 2/19/2015
Official daily Juventud Rebelde said participants in the forum stressed the need to "promote exports of computer services and products, establish business models among telecommunications operators and providers, and foment the creation and development of state companies in harmony with non-state forms of management."
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Update 2/20/2015
If Americans can now purchase goods and services from Cuba, can Cubans crowd-fund projects in the US? Cuban drummer YISSY raised €5,000 on Verkami, a Spanish crowd-funding site. Why not Cuban software projects (and everything else) on kickstarter?
Cuban software exports will come from the nascent developer/startup community. I will have more to say on this in a future post, but for now, check out this Meetup group. The meetup is being organized by several former members of the Merchise software group and they are interested in software development, entrepreneurship, networking, venture capital, etc. etc. -- the sort of thing you would expect.
The article says some LANs use underground cables to avoid detection and others run their cables above high voltage electricity cables. (Wouldn't they have problems with interference if they used cables with standard insulation)?
Cabled LANs are faster and able to accommodate more users than WiFi-based LANs, and, to the extent that the cables were under ground, harder for authorities to detect. (The article sites a case where, 5 months ago, a network was detected and the system administrator was fined 30,000 Cuban pesos).
Typically, users pay 2 convertible pesos or 50 Cuban pesos per month for access, which the article says is less than the going rate for pirated cable TV. (Years ago, people in Havana openly pirated broadcast TV intended for hotels, then they started pirating satellite TV and now LAN TV -- Cubans are natural cord cutters).
The article quotes a 22 year old user who says he can play games, download movies, post comments and upload photos ... "of course, nothing against the government." We heard the same thing about WiFi LANs -- they are being used for games and selfies, not political debate or subversion.
This article is anecdotal -- are any readers using a cabled LAN in Cuba? Are they widespread in and outside of Havana?
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Also see: https://laredcubana.blogspot.com/2014/08/a-report-of-cabled-local-area-networks.html
Necessity is the mother of invention., proverb, unknown Small Is Beautiful, E. F. Schumacher, 1973.
When personal computers became availaible, people began developing low-cost medical diagnosis equipment like this PC-based endoscope, which replaced a $30,000 instrument with a PC interfaced to an $800 scope:
Today, smart phones are being used as computers in diagnostic equipment and the savings are even more dramatic, as in this retinal scanner, costing $500, phone included:
What's happening in Cuba?
Cuba is known for the quality and quantity of their doctors, health care system and medical research. Cuba also has many computer scientists and resourceful developers. While Cuba has second-generation cell phone infrastructure, Cubans still have third and fourth-generation smart phones, which they use as cameras and handheld computers.
All that is good news. The bad news is that Cuba does not have a lot of capital for building clinics and purchasing diagnostic equipment.
Cuba sounds like a perfect environment for innovation in medical applications of smart phones. Are Cubans developing and using smartphone-based tools for medical diagnosis and community health? If you know of such examples, please let me know.
More generally, what sorts phone-based applications are Cubans using and developing? No doubt they are taking selfie-photos, listening to music and playing games, but what else are they doing with those pocket-sized computers?
According to articles in the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, the anonymous businessman has sold at least 35 personal satellite systems in Cuba -- for Internet access and low-cost international calls.
The video, which was uploaded on July 26, 2009 has the following description:
SI NECESITA SERVICIO DE INTERNET EN CUBA LE PODEMOS AYUDAR CON NUESTRA EXPERIENCIA, ALTA VELOCIDAD AL ALCANCE DE SU FAMILIAR, FUNCIONA PARA TODO LLAMADAS VOIP, DESCARGAS, CAMARA, VARIAS PC CONECTADAS,SOMOS LA UNICA ENTIDAD CON EXPERIENCIA PROBADA PARA HACER ESTO EN CUBA, EL SISTEMA INSTALADO ALLA CUESTA 3500$ PAGOS ANTES DE ENVIARLO, PARA MAS INFO 7864431240.
The articles also quote Ricardo Arevalo, general manager of Exede, a company that leases satellite internet equipment, as saying the "number of such systems in Cuba is closer to 300."
These systems are not cheap by Cuban standards -- getting the equipment in and installed costs between $3,500-$4.200, paid in advance in Miami. The bills are generally paid for by families members who live in the US and it seems that the motivation is purely business -- cheap phone calls and Internet access -- not political.
These reports leave me a bit skeptical -- it seems it would be too easy to entrap customers -- but, if these reports are for real, Alan Gross and USAID could have saved a lot of the taxpayer's money and Gross could be a free man.
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Update 11/10/2014
The video this post linked to was taken down. I've revised the video link and it works at least for now. I also tried to contact the installation company, but they did not reply to an email or call.
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Update 6/13/2015
Before HughesNet stopped servicing them, this post estimated that there were 30,000 illegal satellite dishes in Cuba. If that estimate is even remotely accurate, it makes what Alan Gross was trying to do look very small indeed.
Presumably, HughesNet cut their Cuban users off because they feared US government sanctions, but the government has now indemnified US companies against such sanctions. I believe HughesNet provides connectivity to many of the embassies in Cuba and I wonder if they would now be willing to resume servicing those illegal accounts.
