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As countless Cubans have proudly told me over the years, "Cubans invent." They use creative workarounds to get by in an environment with limited access to outside resources. Glass beer bottles are sawed off to become drinking glasses; helmets transform into flowerpots; shoestrings and bottle caps are affixed to doors as makeshift locks.
And with a growing need for online access to function in the modern world, Cubans have been inventing new ways to connect to the Internet, too.
Jaime Santos-Menéndez, a Havana-based documentary filmmaker, has often lacked the money to pay for Wi-Fi cards, and so, like most Cubans, he came up with a workaround. For years, Santos-Menéndez relied on his mother, a state-employed biochemist, to receive messages for him at her office via her government email account. Friends were instructed to email his mother's work account, she downloaded the messages to a USB drive, and she gave it all to Santos-Menéndez to view on his home computer. He would then respond to messages, load his outgoing emails onto the USB drive, and rely on his mother to send them from her office the next day.
In 2018, Santos-Menéndez's mother was selected as part of a government program that provides doctors and other state employees in elevated positions with 30 hours/month of free dial-up Internet in their homes. Though Santos-Menéndez is now able to check email at home with some regularity through his mother's dial-up account, the connection is so slow that his time allotment runs out long before the end of the month. Thankfully, his mom is still willing to help with her old routine.
arstechnica.com
They are pretty damn clever at making things work.
And with a growing need for online access to function in the modern world, Cubans have been inventing new ways to connect to the Internet, too.
Jaime Santos-Menéndez, a Havana-based documentary filmmaker, has often lacked the money to pay for Wi-Fi cards, and so, like most Cubans, he came up with a workaround. For years, Santos-Menéndez relied on his mother, a state-employed biochemist, to receive messages for him at her office via her government email account. Friends were instructed to email his mother's work account, she downloaded the messages to a USB drive, and she gave it all to Santos-Menéndez to view on his home computer. He would then respond to messages, load his outgoing emails onto the USB drive, and rely on his mother to send them from her office the next day.
In 2018, Santos-Menéndez's mother was selected as part of a government program that provides doctors and other state employees in elevated positions with 30 hours/month of free dial-up Internet in their homes. Though Santos-Menéndez is now able to check email at home with some regularity through his mother's dial-up account, the connection is so slow that his time allotment runs out long before the end of the month. Thankfully, his mom is still willing to help with her old routine.
How Cubans make island Internet work for them
Cuba has been increasing Internet access, but the current digital divide grows, too.
arstechnica.com
They are pretty damn clever at making things work.
