The rapid expansion of the New Technologies of Information and Communication in developing countries is creating conflicts and unbalances that can lead very soon to unsustainable situations, with negative effects on development.

In order to help bridge the digital divide and bring a constructive contribution towards a socially and financially correct implementation of ICT solutions, emerges Informaticiens Sans Frontières (Software Without Borders) as an independent structure composed of international volunteers, with its main offices where the web was born: the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), Geneva (Switzerland).

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At present, we are active on four main programmes:

• MANGO Net 
  A grassroot Capacity Building Network MANGO Net stands for “Made in Africa NGO Network”. Its goal is to build a network of NGO based schools of computer assembly and maintenance. Based in several African cities, these schools will offer training in computer building technology, while at the same time producing locally assembled computers, during lab sessions. These computers are sold ad locally affordable prices, generating income for the schools, and supplying local institutions with brand new, state of the art computers. The project will also help graduate students corporate in small, local computer assembly businesses, starting a grassroot movement that will create jobs and lay an infrastructure for a new industry.


• The African GRID - Empowering African Research
  GRIDs are used today for compute intensive scientific and economical calculations, based on mathematical models. These range from weather forecast, to space missions, pharmacology research and physics analysis. Industry too use GRIDs extensively for modeling, R&D and marketing projections. Without GRIDs, no laboratory or large company in the world can insure to be efficient and competitive. But this is only true in the West. Africa has no GRIDs. No GRIDs means no chances of development, not way to compete or at least align on international R&D. Based at CERN, one of the leaders in development of GRID technology, ISF is a promoter of the creation of GRIDs in African universities. GRIDs not only allow to process data locally, but can open the worldwide GRIDs to African scientists, allowing them to join international research collaborations without leaving their home country.


• AFRICA@Home – Computing against Malaria
  CPUs to compute a number of mathematical models designed for Epidemiology studies. The first model created for AFRICA@home was MalariaControl, a research study on assessing the status of Malaria in Africa, seen from the epidemiology point of view. The model was developed by ISF, CERN, the STI (Swiss Tropical Institute), with the help of ICV, and the Geneva University. After three years of run time, MalariaControl was downloaded by some 26000 clients, from 180 countries, totalling half a billion credits, or roughly the equivalent of 75 thousand CPU years. MalariaControl's results will soon be used by the International community to help fight Malaria. Meanwhile the AFRICA@home collaboration is working at creating new plugins for TB and HIV Epidemiology studies.


• The Mobile Web – Access for everybody
  The Mobile Web (www.w3.org/Mobile/) is an initiative launched by Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, and Director of the W3 Consortium (W3C). The basic idea is very simple: there are over 1 billion networked computers and more that 2.5 billion mobile phones in the world. However most of the computers are in the West, whereas most of the mobile phones are in the developing world. ISF joins this initiative as a technology partner, helping to use the Mobile Web as a tool to connect isolated communities in Africa and other developing countries who do not have our chance