Rwanda is investing in bringing computers into the country’s classrooms through the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization. The goal is to give half of the country’s 2.5 million school children access to a laptop within two years from now, reports TIME Magazine.

The pilot program in Rwanda finished earlier this year, and the country is now planning on investing and distributing another 100 000 laptops, costing around 180 USD each, within a year. The OLPC project is the vision of MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte (read more about his ideas about transforming education through computer access here). The concept is to provide more kids with computer access through a specially developed, low-cost laptop.

OLPC has so far distributed more than 1,4 million laptops in 35 countries, and Rwanda is the poorest country yet to invest in the project. The results in Rwanda will most likely be of great importance for the future of OLPC. The investment in computers for Rwanda’s children is seen by many as part of President Paul Kagame’s vision of the country’s future as Africa’s technological hub. The landlocked country has few natural resources, and currently only 7% of the population has access to electricity.

Read more here.

Source: TIME Magazine.

Written by Fanny Johansson

A team of MKFC students from Pakistan has won My Mobile My Life case competition in Tornio, Finland. My Mobile My life event took place in the peaceful surroundings of Tornio, northern part of Finland. MKFC and Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences Finland organized this event to support and encourage the new developments in mobile technologies. Many researchers and practitioners came together to find out new, simple, innovative mobile solution and authentic practices that have positive impacts on human life. More than 70 participants from 12 different nationalities joined this event. MKFC students Qaiser Maqbool Khan, Babar Maqbool Khan and Ayesha Babar has won My Mobile My Life case competition, their area of mobile solution development was health. They created a mHealth model to spread the awareness among people about basic health, cleanliness and hygiene issues through mobile phones together with web technologies. Their model has been considered to be best on the basis of efficiency, high accessibility, ease of use, sustainability, and cost effectiveness. The pilot study was implemented in the suburbs of Multan, Pakistan.

Today we listened to and meet Peter Shrimpton during a breakfast meeting at the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. Peter Shrimpton is one of South Africa’s leading social entrepreneurs. He is the founder and CEO of Heart and has developed several business models based on profitability by great social enterprise.

Peter told his the story of how he saddled from the financial community to social enterprising and became one of the most successful in the field! It was very inspiring and we learned a lot to take back to our own organization!

Heart transform quality of life by creating, incubating and establishing social enterprises that work long term.

It is our vision and vocation to bring about social transformation by creating sustainable social enterprises i.e. market-based solutions to social problems. We are the nexus between social entrepreneurs needing capital and support to develop their social enterprises, and social investors seeking financial and social returns.

From Heart Homepage

Much was discussed about government’s role in social development. Much of government funding for social work is given to aid organizations, but in order to make sustainable social development enterprise and entrepreneurship needs to be involved. On the other hand, many big cooperate buisness dosen’t care that much about social development. Social entepraises dosen’t get fundings from goverments and risk capitalists and companies sees to many risks in investments in social entepraises. To get governments to understand how to work with social entrepreneurship is the challenge, because many still works with aid organisations and similar. But aid organizations are depended on fundings, this needs to be transformed to a buisness potential instead. Social enterprise is the solution to many development problems and can create a sustainable business for charities, Peter Shrimpton says.

We think that this session gave many perspectives about how different actors can reach more social entrepreneurship and enterprises. If all understand the aims, all things are possible. We know this from our courses and projects here in Stockholm College! Welcome to contact us for more information.

Later today he will speak at the World trade day in Stockholm. This video is an interview from World Forum 2009.

Four in 10 people in Africa own a mobile phone – and the use of mobiles, particularly for news journalism, is in many ways ahead of the West, reports The Guardian.

Since internet penetration is still rather limited in many parts of Africa (although rapidly growing), mobile phones play an even more important role and is being increasingly used as an important broadcast device for news. News can be sent out as text messages and serve as an important addition to radio news, especially in rural areas where newspapers are not commonly read.

Read the entire article here.

Source: The Guardian.

Written by Fanny Johansson

MKFC Stockholm College Ghanian partner eCap Ghana will present their work about “ Through educating the community of the importance of healthy living and the benefit of education” at ICACD 2010.

The conference would be organized in Kumasi Ghana from 14th to 17th of November 2010.

The conference celebrate the golden Jubilee of more than seventeen African countries this year the conference has chosen the theme dubbed Post Independence Africa -Cultural Imperatives for Development.

eCap Ghanas presentation has also been selected among the few to be published in the first Culture and Development Journal of Africa which will cover 23 African countries with Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Sierra Leone as the focal countries.

There are more hungry people in the world than ever before, with a historic high of over one billion undernourished people. A majority are rural poor living in developing countries.

Lack of food is not the problem – poverty is. Natural disasters, gender inequality, conflict, lack of access to land for the world’s poor, economic crises, and the use of natural resources in a non-sustainable way are some other important factors. Sharing a vision of a world without hunger is the first step. Take a stand by signing this petition, and put pressure on politicians to end hunger, no matter where in the world you are.

Source: 1billionhungry

Written by Fanny Johansson

Anne Kagiri is working for eCap Kenya and MKFC in Kenya. This presentation is from her trip to visit schools and communities in Sololo in Kenya.

I managed to talked to some women groups (quite willing to participate) the Local leaders ( to try and influence people especially the men and Youth ) the sister at the mission Hospital ( Promised to attend and send her staff along ) and Head Teachers. Leaders, teachers, women and the youth are a very important group to address and get on board. It feels like those were the right people to talk to.

The biggest challenge would be Power. The only two places with adequate power is the mission hospital and one Primary school. ( Both use solar Panels)
Given the geographical position of sololo, it would have been a surprise that there is sufficient on grid electricity.

The challenge of electricity is also an opportunity, which can work in fever of eCAP. To bring ideas that can contribute in bringing change to the locals, whether be in elearning, CAP methods or other entrepreneur activities.

We could use safaricom modems for Internet connection, I was using my safaricom line for my mobile phone and it worked pretty good. In the school they told me they use Telkom wireless but my orange that is a Telkom partner was not working. It is a good sign that there is a network that works well there making communication a possibility. The workshops can be held in schools the head teachers were cooperative and said they would participate. There is also the catholic women’s hall ( I didn’t meet the Chairperson but I could ask if it is available).

I was told in the past some organizations paid people to attended their seminars. They also gave them allowances like bus fare ( don’t know for what because I never any local buses except those going to Moyale ) snacks and lunch. This has given people a bad mentality. ( not only in sololo ) but in many parts of Kenya that they can only attend seminars or workshops if they are paid.

The funny is that UNICEF had a health campaign here, where they paid the Traditional midwifes 100 shs if they refered any pregnant mothers to the hospital  and it didn’t work, yet the traditional midwifes are giving their services free. This was a good opportunity for them to earn money and offer the mothers proper healthcare by referring them to the hospitals

That is indeed another challenge and changing this attitude is usually difficult but i trust that evenif a few attended, the truth will grow with them because the approach which MKFC/eCAP uses has been working all along.

Sharing Awareness needs two parts – our actions in authentic environment actions have two partners who have something to bring for input and something to develop.

Lessons we learnt since 1990 is that The Wisdom of the Crowds makes Changes for Good happen.

Join MKFC and Eva Kagiri when she has a story to tell.

Eva Kagiri is working in MKFC Helsinki College and started activities in Kenya. Her description in the workshop is one of good histories from diasporas. Eva and her followers need support from all of us, ordinary people, governments, European Union, NGOs, microfinance institutions etc to get funding and make the changes sustainable.

Sharing Awareness puts Teacher Training in Service. It means that learning happens in schools. The theory is online and creating a global ICT4D environment to the local reality. The method itself combines local environment straight ahead and adds the best global practices that can be used in the whole school directly.

Immigration, citizenship and education for global responsibility
Global responsibility presupposes equal participation of citizens. This being said, the workshop focuses on research on citizenship education contents and performance. If educated in citizenship, individuals are capable of contributing to sustainable development, which, in turn, emanates in democratic working methods and attitudes. Thereby citizenship education is an ideological project – not only aiming at providing young people (and teachers) in Europe with necessary competences for a life in a multicultural and global world. It is also a means to lay the ground for a sense of community and collective identity within the European Union.

Citizenship education is not merely about transferring values and attitudes via the national school system, but about transforming them so that they harmonize with supranational ideological goals. Still, schools in different countries operate under institutional logics, some with contradictory or conflicting demands for educational continuity and change, national pride and global responsibility or how ‘to think globally and act locally’. In short: how does one move from political rhetoric to pedagogical practice?

Here is description about workshop where Eva likes to speak

ITNews Africa are reporting that Microsoft will start implementing programs that will enable all schools in Kenya to be online together with the Ministry of Education.

“Students will in future able to study online by using this new curriculum that we will have installed in their respective schools. Government will also save on costs of buying text books and also avoid scams like the recent one of money being misused at the Ministry of Education” said Matunga.

He also said the government was making efforts to ensure that all teachers were ICT compliant by ensuring all the Teachers Training Colleges were equipped with the latest technology and online.

There seems to be two different tracks going on in Africa, companies investing and governments get tied up using industry standards or what should perhaps be a better alternative, open source development for everyone to develop and share. And what about Teacher Training?

What do you think?

In a summary of the Red Cross study, the ReadWriteWeb blog reports that many internet users have used or would use social media to seek help for themselves or others in the event of disaster. According to the study, Facebook is the most widely used channel for sharing eywitness information on an emergency and among the respondents, almost half would use social media during an emergency to let family and friends know that they’re safe. 69% of respondents argued that they believe the Red Cross and other relief agencies should monitor online social media in order to be able to send the right kind of help quickly and efficiently.

The entire report can be found here.

Written by Fanny Johansson