IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2018 - 20
By
LesLie Prives
An EPICS
Adventure
F
For Engineering Projects in Community
Service (EPICS) in IEEE Project Leader
Brenda Vilas Boas, a project bringing
telephony and Internet service to the
Amazon rainforest is having a two-way
impact: not only will the communities
there have better communication with
each other, but the rest of the world will
be able to learn more about their culture
too. "Outside of their municipality, nobody really knows when they have their
festivals, what they do to make a living,
or other specifics about these communities' cultures, so there will be an opportunity for them to share that with all of
us," Vilas Boas explains.
Of course, the project was designed
with community impact in the Amazon in
mind, but the results are proving to expand outward for the students who work
on the project team as well as the rest
of the world. EPICS in IEEE aims to do
just that, as "a program that organizes
university and high school students to
work on engineering-related projects for
local humanitarian organizations," according to its website. Vilas Boas learned
about the program via IEEE e-mail communications and then worked to submit
the project proposal and secure the grant
with both the local IEEE Student Branch
and professors at the Federal University
of Pará (UFPA) in Brazil, where she received her bachelor's degree in electrical
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2018.2810394
Date of publication: 8 May 2018
20
IEEE womEn In EngInEErIng magazInE
engineering and is currently pursuing a
master's degree in the same field. She is
also participating in an internship at the
LASSE research laboratory under the supervision of Prof. Aldebaro Klautau, the
coordinator of the Community Cellular
Telephony (or CELCOM) project.
CELCOM utilizes open-source technology currently based on Global System
for Mobile Communications standards to
bring telephony and Wi-Fi to provide Internet service to Campo Verde, a community in the northern region
of Brazil. The service began
with the installation of a
radio tower to propagate
the signal connected
to PRODEPA, a government agency that
provides Internet connectivity though a 26 km
radio link. "It's not a
commercial network,
but one that the community can govern,"
says Vilas Boas. "They
will learn how to manage the network, deciding who will have
access, how much a call
will cost, and more."
Because the community
residents are spread out across
the region, many are isolated, and
telecom service historically has not had
good coverage to connect them nor much
commercial interest in building coverage
june 2018
Bringing telephone
and internet service
to the amazon
©CirCle ©iStoCkphoto/Creative-touCh
1942-065X/18©2018ieee
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2018
Contents
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2018 - Cover1
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2018 - Cover2
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2018 - Contents
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2018 - 2
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IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2018 - Cover3
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