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Technology set to revolutionize education in Afghanistan |
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Written by Ebtihaj
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Saturday, 20 June 2009 06:53 |
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 On June 21st 2009, 4 selected schools in Kabul will be equipped with XO laptops where each child in grade 4, 5 and 6 receiving specially customized XO (One Laptop Per Child) Laptops, wireless school networks, digital libraries and visual programming languages to provide teachers, children and parents with more opportunities for learning, economic information and health information. Kabul deployment aims to distribute 2000 laptops. Already 400 laptops are in active use by children, teachers and parents in Istiqlal high school in Jalalabad.
The specially customized software is completely localized in Dari, Pashto languages. The laptops and school server that creates a digital library is loaded with locally prepared content. The XO laptop has proved in other countries notably Peru and Uruguay to be an extremely cost effective option to radically improve the quality of education. These computers will be integrated into teaching curricula, providing students with a vast educational resource, access to word processing, and many other educational programs, email, and internet browser software. More than 500,000 such laptops have been distributed globally.
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Last Updated on Monday, 06 July 2009 11:32 |
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Nicolas Negroponte: Afghanis Desperately want to Learn and aren't Afraid to Do So: Washington can't be Afraid to Help Them |
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Written by Administrator
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Friday, 03 April 2009 00:00 |
This is a guest post from my colleague Matt Keller, Director of Europe, Middle East and Africa for One Laptop per Child. He recently returned from a visit to Afghanistan.
I was saddened to learn on Wednesday that Mohammad Anwar Khan, the Director of Education for Kandahar, was killed in a suicide attack. Mr. Anwar Khan, was one of the faces of Afghanistan that you likely haven't met. A member of a growing group of brave Afghanis, fighting to give education a chance, in the "land of the unruly." I recently returned from a visit to Afghanistan (some photos here), where I was taken aback by the members of this group, and their overwhelming desire to make education a top priority for their war-torn country [OLPC AF note: Matt Keller visited Kabul at the end of January 2009] . |
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Last Updated on Thursday, 23 April 2009 11:47 |
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Laptops bring lessons, maybe even peace |
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Written by Administrator
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Thursday, 05 March 2009 00:00 |
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By Jessica Ravitz
CNN (CNN) -- Earlier this year, Matt Keller sat down with officials in Afghanistan -- not to discuss troop deployments, suicide bombings or opium traffickers. He was there to talk about getting laptop computers into the hands of little girls. 
Girls in India take a seat on the floor and get to work on their new laptops. |
As Taliban insurgents continue to crack down on girls who go to school and women who dare to teach them, Keller was awestruck by the Afghan government's determination to educate all children, even if it means finding tools that allow them to intellectually grow in the privacy of their own homes. "For them to propose this was astounding," said Keller, who works for One Laptop per Child, Cambridge, Massachusetts, nonprofit committed to creating and distributing affordable, durable and solar-powered laptops to the world's poorest children. "That hunger for knowledge, that desire to learn, is pretty profound." From Uruguay, Haiti and Mexico to Mongolia, Ghana and the small Polynesian island of Niue, at least 750,000 kids -- a number that will double by June, Chairman Nicholas Negroponte said -- are tapping away on One Laptop per Child-produced XO laptop keyboards. |
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Last Updated on Thursday, 23 April 2009 12:14 |
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Written by Administrator
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Tuesday, 03 February 2009 06:55 |
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One Laptop Per Child program launched in Afghanistan
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN, Jan 31, 2009 - On February 10, 2009, the first deployment of 500 laptop computers will be handed over by the Afghan Ministry of Education (MoE) to the Estiqlal High School in Jalalabad, marking the launch of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program. These computers will be integrated into public schools’ teaching curricula, providing students with a vast educational resource, access to word processing, database, email, and internet browser software. They will also be used by families to access business training, e-learning, job and agricultural information, and for small and medium enterprise (SME) creation and development. |
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 21 April 2009 12:36 |
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OLPC Seeks ITU's Help to Promote Laptops |
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Written by Administrator
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Wednesday, 24 September 2008 17:42 |
The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) association is changing strategy: It has joined forces with the United Nations' lead agency for information technology to further spread its green low-cost laptops to school kids in developing nations around the world. The partnership shows OLPC is diverging from its original strategy of working directly with governments in order to push its mission forward. OLPC started out as a non-profit focused on creating a US$100 laptop PC to distribute to kids in developing nations to keep them from falling behind the information technology revolution. The original idea was for governments to order OLPC's XO laptops by the millions, thereby driving down the cost per unit through volume discounts on parts and assembly. It hasn't worked out quite as hoped. |
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Last Updated on Friday, 24 April 2009 17:44 |
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How the OLPC can help beat Taliban in Afghanistan |
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Written by Administrator
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Tuesday, 09 September 2008 10:05 |
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By: Dan Nystedt (IDG News Service) Technology is playing a growing part in rebuilding Afghanistan, says the Minister of Communications and Information Technology. In one of the final scenes of the movie, "Charlie Wilson's War," the story of America's part in Afghanistan's victory over the Soviet Union, Congressman Wilson is shown asking for more funding to rebuild Afghanistan, a request that is denied. The message was clear: extremists gained a foothold in Afghanistan after the war because nobody else was willing to step in and rebuild the government, schools and other institutions. Instead, civil war broke out, and fighting continues today despite rebuilding efforts. Still, technology is playing a growing part in rebuilding Afghanistan, said Amirzai Sangin, [CQ] Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Afghanistan. Mobile phones, for one, have become popular in the nation. Now, people can call for help in medical emergencies or to report suspicious activity. Mobile phone base stations have been targeted by the Taliban over such calls. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) association also wants to help reshape Afghanistan. The group is working with the Afghan government, US Department of Defense and others, including Afghan mobile phone operator Roshan, to start distributing its green low-cost XO laptops to school kids in the country. Such measures are small today and difficult to carry out for a variety of reasons, but kids in Afghanistan are excited about the Internet and want to know more, says Sangin. The laptops, and other technologies, could be instrumental in keeping kids in school, and away from extremist groups. The following is an edited transcript of an interview with Sangin at the ITU Telecom Asia show in Thailand. |
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