Tech on Disaster's Frontlines
The group Telecoms Without Borders is bringing telecommunications and computer equipment and know-how to victims of natural disasters and war
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At 3:30 a.m. on May 27, Oisin Walton, a French former ad executive, was up late doing some paperwork when he got a text message about an earthquake, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale that had hit the Indonesian island of Java. Walton went to bed immediately, knowing that he would need to get some sleep because soon he would be on his way to the disaster.
By the next evening, after 13-and-a-half hours of flying and a one-and-a-half hour drive, he arrived at Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in the earthquake zone, lugging laptops, routers, and satellite equipment. Walton is on a swat team of Telecoms Without Borders.