Fred 2.0

When Dennis introduced me to Mugisha Fred, I was really drawn to his story. (See Fred’s intro video here). This guy sounded a lot like me. My first thought was that this guy was a hacker. He had that glint in his eye, and a passion for computers. He told me:

"When I have power, I forget to eat, I forget to sleep. There is only this machine."

But Fred didn’t own a computer. He repaired laptops for people and when they were fixed, he would just jam on them until the person wanted it back, and then he would find another customer. He surfed from borrowed machine to borrowed machine, learning a little bit here and there. He had all the passion and none of the resources. So I put together this video and I shared Fred’s story at my Blackhat USA 2009/DEFCON talk. I explained that I wanted to buy Fred a laptop (a refurbished 120GB Acer Aspire One netbook) and I was looking to raise $200 to do that.

I posted a little chipin event on our bulletin board and people responded. “TXB” posted a matching challenge, and within two weeks, we had raised more than double the amount I needed to give Fred his netbook. After a bit of consideration, we decided to buy a monitor, keyboard and mouse as well as a power strip and regulator so that Fred would have more than enough gear to get started in his inevitable computer career.

Spending that money was so much fun. I couldn’t wait to give Fred his gear, but it felt too much like charity to just call him up and give him a bunch of gifts. Strange, I know, but that’s how I felt. I was beginning the staging for St. John’s classroom (for the Honorable Migereko) and I needed some manpower, so I called him up and asked if he would mind coming by to help me image machines. He was thrilled and he arrived at the house minutes later after what must have been a very fast and dangerous boda (hired moped) ride.

Fred was a quick study, and before long, we were imaging machines for the classroom, and I found myself giddy over the fact that I was able to have more than one thing going on at a time. The stress over my workload has been pretty intense lately.

Imaging with Fred in the HFC office!

At the end of the day, I presented Fred with his donations on behalf of Hackers For Charity and the donors that supported the chipin event. I’ve captured the whole thing on video (which I’ll upload when bandwidth improves) but suffice it to say that Fred was absolutely ecstatic. He jumped up and down and cheered and laughed and was genuinely blown away at the gift. He was thrilled and so was I. This was a really big event in Fred’s life, and something most of us may never experience.

Fred's reaction to the news!

I could say it’s like one of us getting a new car from a complete stranger, or a suitcase of cash, or a day of CPU time on the Pixar server farm, but none of this is life-changing stuff. Because we have cars and enough cash, and a day on the Pixar farm would only get us in trouble. But this system has the potential to be life-changing for Fred. It opens the door to learning and training. It marks what could be the beginning of a career that could sustain him, his family and even his children.

I dropped Fred off at his house after a long day of work. It turns out Fred lives in the office of a small church.

Fred's home / church

He lives there with his Mom, his older brother and his little sister.

Fred's family

They all live in this tiny room, but by Ugandan standards, it’s nice. It’s clean, it’s secure and it’s comfortable. The problem was, Fred didn’t have any power. I remember him saying that “when he had power, and there was the machine” he would jam all night, not sleep, not eat, etc… But I didn’t know that meant he had no power. I thought that he had spotty power, or dirty power, or anything but not no power. I mean no power is bad like a double negative.

This bugged me to no end.

It drives me nuts when I see Americans (Europeans, whatever.. westerners) tromping around in underdeveloped countries with their big boots “helping” the locals. It’s not for lack of good intention that many of them fail, it’s just that they don’t take time to listen to the needs, to hear the story behind the words.

And now, here I was, being a well-intentioned but slightly dumb Westerner. I gave a monster pile of computer gear to a guy that had no power. Because I thought that would be helpful. That would launch his career in warehousing, or heavy lifting. But not in computers. Because computers require power, bonehead.

I asked Fred about the power situation, and he told me that he was planning to rent his own place and that he was saving up his money.

“But a rented place is expensive,” he explained, “like 15,000UGX a month.”

Seven dollars and fifty cents a month.

My first impulse was to just pay his rent. But that’s not sustainable. That’s charity. And it dries up when we leave. He needed training. He needed some work. And I needed lots of help. After talking to Jen, the solution became clear. We would let Fred live with us. We have a massive guesthouse, and with Dennis (his long-time friend) living back there already, he wouldn’t be alone. He could have his own room (rent-free) and he could work with me, take a huge load off of me and learn something in the process. Eventually, we could even start paying him a salary (not appropriate quite yet according to local custom.. too many gifts at one time).

I pitched the idea and Fred was all for it. We picked up his stuff the same day.

I was nervous about the whole thing, because I am, after all, a “rich” Mzungu, swooping in and snatching up poor Fred to work in my labor camp. (Painting the worst picture for you, gentle reader). But his family blew away all the misgivings. Not only were they not worried about the situation, they were overjoyed at the prospect. In fact, they were happier than Fred was at receiving his gifts. This was a big deal for the whole family.

So like everything else here, this is an experiment. So far, it’s worked out very well, and Fred works so hard that I have to kick him out of the office every now and then to go chill, hang out with Dennis and focus on analog stuff.

It’s great to have him here. I’ve gotten so much accomplished in the past two days that I just don’t know where I’d be without his help. Of course, as I write this, my family’s watching a movie (10:30pm) and I’m blogging. I gotta go. I need to focus on the carbon-based lifeforms in my living room.

Dennis, Fred and Johnny. HFC Team Uganda!