Humanity First USA Donates Wireless Network to Baker City School System



On the weekend of January 28th and 29th, Humanity First, a worldwide humanitarian relief organization, implemented a wireless network system for Baker City High School in Baker, LA as part of its Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. The donation consisted of the equipment and services necessary to provide a turn-key solution for the school.

"During our initial phase, our on-site team had identified Baker City School System as a potential candidate for our assistance program. Baker City School system had to absorb a significant number of students from the surrounding [damaged areas and as a result, has had an additional burden as far as resources go," said Munum Naeem, the Executive Director of Humanity First USA. "During our discussions with the school representatives, the idea of implementing a complete turn-key wireless network clicked with both sides. We discussed it with our board members and decided to go ahead with the project. From that point on, it was a matter of identifying the expertise amongst our volunteer pool and letting them run with the project."

Aruba Networks was selected as the infrastructure equipment vendor. The coverage was provided in the approximately thirty class rooms using four access points and the Aruba 800 Mobility Controller. Wireless PCI cards from Linksys were also donated to provide connectivity for each desktop.

"We narrowed down our vendor list to three companies: Linksys, Cisco, and Aruba Networks," said Fouzan Pal, the Lead Network Architect on the project. "We went with Aruba due to its centralized architecture for configuring and managing the access points. Ease of management was a key criteria for us since we had to pass on the maintenance of the network to Baker City folks after the initial deployment."

"The City of Baker School System experienced a huge growth in student population following Hurricane Katrina. Our capacity to provide additional services was very limited and our ability to address the diverse needs of our new students was compromised by our lack of internet connectivity at Baker High school. That has now been provided for with the assistance Humanity First", said Lester Klotz, the superintendent of Baker City School System. "Our system indeed appreciates the efforts of Humanity First and of the volunteers."

Humanity First is a leading humanitarian relief and development organization. It seeks to provide disaster relief and community development services to the affected communities in United States and around the globe. For further information about Humanity First, please visit www.humanityfirst.org or call 877-99-HFUSA.

PRESS CONTACT:
Mateen Khan
Corporate & Media Relations
Humanity First USA
408-802-4580





Humanity First USA Donates Wireless Network to Baker City School System