“Information communication technologies have become the great enablers of modern society, helping people communicate across distances and cultural divides, facilitating trade and commerce, and providing access to critical resources such as health care and EDUCATION”
Ban Ki-moon (UN Secretary-General)
With the technology available today, geographic limitations should not mean educational limitations for children. Computers and the internet are a vehicle for allowing children to learn, explore and create in ways previously not possible. We want children to be able to participate in a global community of online learning.
When women are empowered to lead full and productive lives, children and families prosper. We have been committed to promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women and we provide computers and training programs to women’s community groups.
The state of rural schools in Nepal are often poor with a lack of physical facilities and teacher resources. With the local community and in-country team, we deliver high quality computer centres and training programs that are aimed at improving the state of education.
Text books are often out of date within a few years and old books tend to be passed down to younger school children.
Computers and the internet offers an up-to-date interactive learning environment with rich dynamic content that printed books cannot provide.
The global village needs a new technological culture in which literacy and numeracy are no longer enough. Without digital skills, the existing inequalities between rural and urban, and the developing and developed world will deepen.
We set goals to help with providing transformative educational programs for children and their families. We also understand that education is not just about exam results, but also about stimulating the curiosity of children where learning can happen through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge.
Providing technology goes together with nurturing a local knowledge base that is required for sustainability. We are creating opportunities through capacity building programs.
We want to empower teachers and learners, help build communities, promote change, and foster the development of ’21st century skills’.
We want to bridge the digital divide by providing the necessary technology and resources for developing computer literacy for communications, life-long learning, entrepreneurial opportunities, and for access to important information relating to health, education, well-being and economic prosperity.
Allen Tulhadar, Director of the Microsoft Innovation Centre Nepal, talks to Logged On about the Astam project and the opportunities ICTs offer for Nepal.
TEDX Presentation: Aleph Molinari on bridging the digital divide.
Examples of computers and the internet used by other organisations for development.