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Update on eRise.org - Philanthropy making impact

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Rob Monster

Founder of EpikTop Member
Epik Founder
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A month ago we announced a project to select a brand name for the "Goodwill of Domains". The group here helped choose the domain eRise.org, and we are going with that. @Abdullah Abdullah is on point.

In the meantime, I wanted to share that we had 2 domain donations that sold almost immediately.

The domain name My-Logistics.com donated by @CodingTheDomain sold for $3500 on Afternic and is currently due to pay out shortly.

The domain name ProjectMakeover.com donated by @Blitzpotz also got a bid for $3500 on Afternic. We are actually trying to secure a bit more there, but even $3500 is a fine outcome.

These funds are expected to clear shortly, but are immediately going to work across 3 areas:


Country Digital Empowerment Funds


For starters, we are setting up country funds. The first grant went to Nigeria, with the initial grant of $1000 going towards a Nigerian Digital Empowerment Fund, reachable at [email protected], entirely run by Nigerians for Nigerians. It will be used to buy domains, but proceeds from domain speculation will also be sovereignly allocated for Digital Empowerment programs in Nigeria or wherever the Nigerian fund managers decide.


The first 100 Toki Servers

The first Toki servers are coming online. These things are quite remarkable. They are tiny.

For about $60, we can produce a WiFi-ready server that can run on battery for up to 24 hours and can handle up to 500 concurrent connections. The core processor is a Raspberry Pi 4 which we have sourced for $35 each for orders of 100 or more. They look like this:

https://us.tv/videos/watch/c7b867f3-b49d-4f1e-9107-e56694445e65

So we are buying 100 of those plus the batteries, cables, heat-sinks, and outer cases that are needed to deliver a finished Toki server that can run without a fan. The assembled device is about the size of a deck of cards. We can transport hundreds of them in a suitcase!

As for the software, it is a proprietary Linux distro that has been optimized for extreme power efficiency. It serves as a decentralized anonymous search engine but the device itself can host much more, including file-sharing, peer-to-peer commerce, digital wallet, etc.

Here is a demo of a prototype in action:

https://us.tv/videos/watch/970e088e-758d-40cc-b56a-45dee8614a0f

The demo shows the impact of being able to customize search, including the option of ignoring certain data sources from your personalized search engine.

Toki servers are not for sale yet. These are beta testing machines while we validate some core design concepts, one of which is an experiment for transmitting data over Ham Internet frequencies in addition to over shorter distance 802.11 protocol. Sound crazy? It's not.

For more information about Toki, contact [email protected]


Digital Librarians

One of the great challenges for Toki is to bring knowledge to remote parts of the world where there is little power and often no uplink for accessing larger amounts of data on demand. Fortunately, a standard Toki server ships with a 16 GB SD card. That SD card is upgradable to much larger cards.

These SD Cards are to be pre-loaded with locally relevant content, without bias, across areas of greatest local utility:

- K-12 Educational materials
- Healthcare and First Aid
- Reference documents
- Holy writ of all major theologies
- Agricultural best practices
- etc.

As time goes on, the knowledge base can be swapped out, upgraded and expanded just by upgrading the SD card. The content on each library is all royalty-free and can be downloaded and shared with any WiFi-compatible device. Since it is using local WiFi, it is extremely fast -- like 2 milliseconds fast.

To make sure we deliver locally relevant content, locally recruited Digital Librarians will be responsible for curating submissions of content to be included. Anyone can set up these Libraries. We recommend using Armored.net for curating the files. For more information, contact [email protected]


Administrative Update


As for the legal entity for eRise.org, we are filed with the WA Secretary of State. We don't have a 501c(3) status yet. However, if folks want to donate domains, contact [email protected].


Thanks for your Support

eRise is shaping up to be an exciting project. We have no idea where this will go. However, it is being funded by domains. If the Mods allow it, we'll be happy to acknowledge in this thread when a donor's donated domain made impact! We'll fund as many initiatives as we have funds, holding nothing back.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
@Rob Monster , congratulations on bringing these projects together.

Here are couple of thoughts that might help:

Is there going to be a board that is going to be overseeing how the donations are handled and used both as far as the collection process and when being used by the recipients.

Also when designing the Toki servers it's important to keep in mind that it's very likely that they are going to be used in places with extreme and adverse weather conditions where there might not be an air conditioning system to keep the temperature at what is normal operating conditions that regular servers require and so the Toki servers should probably be made to be very rugged and to have components that can withstand extreme conditions.

IMO
 
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@Rob Monster , congratulations on bringing these projects together.

Here are couple of thoughts that might help:

Is there going to be a board that is going to be overseeing how the donations are handled and used both as far as the collection process and when being used by the recipients.

Also when designing the Toki servers it's important to keep in mind that it's very likely that they are going to be used in places with extreme and adverse weather conditions where there might not be an air conditioning system to keep the temperature at what is normal operating conditions that regular servers require and so the Toki servers should probably be made to be very rugged and to have components that can withstand extreme conditions.

IMO

Yes, eventually. The entity is still being administrative established but as it gains resources, it will need a board, a finance manager and an auditor. For now, we are just focused on impact. However, with scale comes accountability for governance. We get that.

As for the Toki servers, they are being designed for resiliency, which is why they had to endure heat with heat sinks and no moving parts. The batteries are proven Samsung batteries based on 8 year old technology, and not prone to electrical fires but still shelf stable.
 
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If you really want to get into it, the lead hardware engineer for the Toki server is quite a talent. We did a lot of experimentation to benchmark test to see how hard you could run it without overheating it. The custom heat-sinks basically let you overclock the server to get maximum processing capacity out of it. These things are crazy. Sample output from recent benchmark testing for anyone curious:

upload_2019-11-9_11-47-53.png
 
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If you really want to get into it, the lead hardware engineer for the Toki server is quite a talent. We did a lot of experimentation to benchmark test to see how hard you could run it without overheating it. The custom heat-sinks basically let you overclock the server to get maximum processing capacity out of it. These things are crazy. Sample output from recent benchmark testing for anyone curious:

The speed is great, but keep in mind that the fans are going to be pulling in very hot air in certain parts of the World, so the components might have to be similar to what is used in cars where they might have to operate in very hot environment.

Also because Toki is so portable and probably small enough to be a handheld device have you done any drop tests like if its dropped to the ground when you are holding it.

IMO
 
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Really really cool stuff! Congrats to all involved!

And good news about the sales .. I have to be honest and say I was rather sceptical about the potential for sales as I figured most would be donated last minute before expiration without much chance to sell. How many domains have been donated so far? What was the average time before expiration? To get 2x mid-4-figure sales is quite an accomplishment in such a short time! :)
 
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Really really cool stuff! Congrats to all involved!

And good news about the sales .. I have to be honest and say I was rather sceptical about the potential for sales as I figured most would be donated last minute before expiration without much chance to sell. How many domains have been donated so far? What was the average time before expiration? To get 2x mid-4-figure sales is quite an accomplishment in such a short time! :)

Providence at work. Philanthropy making impact.

The sellers can't believe these names sold for such sums so quickly.

It is what it is. I call it "Co-creating Abundance". Scarcity is an illusion.
 
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The speed is great, but keep in mind that the fans are going to be pulling in very hot air in certain parts of the World, so the components might have to be similar to what is used in cars where they might have to operate in very hot environment.

Also because Toki is so portable and probably small enough to be a handheld device have you done any drop tests like if its dropped to the ground when you are holding it.

IMO

It won't move around too much. As for heat, the main use case is a single server that sits in the private residence of what we call a "Mayor". They are basically the local ISP.

The server has on-board power management so it basically stops overclocking when the temperature hits some threshold level. That all works like a champ.

That said, the server designer is going to experiment with other concepts like water-cooling of tightly packed clusters, i.e. where the server is clustered in array.
 
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The sellers can't believe these names sold for such sums so quickly.
Absolutely correct. :xf.smile:

I forgot to delete the donated name from Afternic and so received the sale confirmation a few days ago myself. We see these donations are used to fulfil their purpose so I am very happy.

New donation lists are on the way to eRise. :xf.love:
 
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@Rob Monster , congratulations on bringing these projects together.

Here are couple of thoughts that might help:

Is there going to be a board that is going to be overseeing how the donations are handled and used both as far as the collection process and when being used by the recipients.

Also when designing the Toki servers it's important to keep in mind that it's very likely that they are going to be used in places with extreme and adverse weather conditions where there might not be an air conditioning system to keep the temperature at what is normal operating conditions that regular servers require and so the Toki servers should probably be made to be very rugged and to have components that can withstand extreme conditions.

IMO
We are slowly building the team and are focusing on recruiting people who have experience in NGOs for the main positions that require in-depth understanding of donor rules, regulations, and compliance. This part is vital particulary when we want to apply for grants focusing on Digital Empowerment while in the same time being fully committed and firmly headed toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
 
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We are slowly building the team and are focusing on recruiting people who have experience in NGOs for the main positions that require in-depth understanding of donor rules, regulations, and compliance. This part is vital particulary when we want to apply for grants focusing on Digital Empowerment while in the same time being fully committed and firmly headed toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

One of the crazy things about @Abdullah Abdullah in Yemen is the degree to which the Internet and the banking system there are both largely on lockdown. I think we need to get him to another domicile! In the meantime, he is gearing up for the recruiting operation and that looks exciting. Interested parties can PM him for a preview of the plan.
 
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For those of you who learn to Shoot The Moon:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/yall-wanna-shoot-the-moon.1162085/page-3#post-7483299

When you get a windfall from selling a domain for an outrageous sum, consider contributing to eRise. When contributing cash, you can also earmark specific funds for specific initiatives or specific countries.

The talent pool is enormous and substantially untapped.

Keep co-creating abundance!
 
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Raspberry Pi's are the most under appreciated hardware made. Love to hear how they are put to use in the "Toki" setting.
 
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Raspberry Pi's are the most under appreciated hardware made. Love to hear how they are put to use in the "Toki" setting.

And now we have Orange Pi, and various white label stuff coming.

This is a lot like when Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mark for the mile, or when Eliud Kipchoge broke 2 hours for a Marathon this year. They say it can't be done, until someone does it. Then everyone does it.

Moore's Law tells us that we'll have smaller and smaller servers. It is therefore logical that within the very near future, every community will be online.

The big Telecoms have a vision that everyone gets herded into compact metros that are networked with 5G. I don't think we need that at all. So, Toki comes from the opposite direction: bloom where you are planted.
 
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"The far right’s favorite registrar is building ‘censorship-resistant’ servers"

After reading it I can't work out if it is positive or negative publicity......

But "Any publicity is........take it as you want I suppose......

If you consider the timing of the article being around the arrival of Parler at Epik, you can likely infer that the message of the article is that the same people who run Epik are deploying more counter-measures against censorship. However, Toki was never about evading censorship. It was mainly about bringing the "Internet" to the 2-3 billion people who have no "Internet".

The project has been a bootstrap to date but perhaps with the added visibility the right people will learn about it and help accelerate our progress about this exciting project. I am thankful for the few folks who donated domains along the way which in fact helped fund this project and other eRise projects, though in fact Epik has carried the vast majority of the water on all of it.
 
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The media is all biased and manipulative.

I highly respect these specific efforts. I hope the best for eRise and Toki Projects. Keep adding information on how all can get involved. I'm sure it will grow.
 
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The media is all biased and manipulative.

I highly respect these specific efforts. I hope the best for eRise and Toki Projects. Keep adding information on how all can get involved. I'm sure it will grow.

Thanks.

The other one to check out is Websites.org. That is now operational -- the ability to archive website snapshots for offline archive distribution to Toki servers.

That is another eRise project and has 100 TB online for archiving, which can be scaled as needed.
 
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Was this another case of vaporware?

O_o
 
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