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What do New York, Ethiopia, the Solomon Islands, Lesotho, Uganda and South Africa have in common? Each of these countries has one or more Digital Doorways™. The Digital Doorway™ is an innovative system developed by the CSIR Meraka Institute with funding from the Department of Science and Technology, which encourages self-learning of computer and information skills by both children and adults in areas where information and communications technology infrastructure is scarce.
In partnership with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the CSIR has embarked on a three-year plan to supply Digital Doorways™ to UNICEF and assist in developing a capability to produce them locally in Uganda.
The first phase of the project calls for five trips to Uganda by CSIR staff. The first visit took place in October 2009, during which two three-seater Digital Doorways™ were installed at the UNICEF offices in Kampala and the Ministry of Education and Sport respectively. Training was given to a technical team responsible for installing Digital Doorways™ as well as running demonstrations and maintenance.
Given the long-term goal of local manufacture envisaged by the partnership of UNICEF and the Ugandan Ministry of Education and Sport, the CSIR was tasked to evaluate the capability and equipment of potential manufacturers, as well as potential suppliers of computer hardware. A meeting was also held with Maureen Agena of Wougnet (Women of Uganda Network) who is responsible for a women's rural network tasked with local content creation. Learning about local content creation will help the CSIR to refine its own processes in this regard.
The CSIR's Grant Cambridge of the Digital Doorway™ team has undertaken his third trip to Uganda. UNICEF plans to deploy thirty Digital Doorways™ country-wide from Kampala up to the very northern regions of Uganda. The first Digital Doorway™ outside of Kampala was commissioned in Karamoja during the last weekend of January 2010.
An unexpected and welcome outcome of the installations has been the opportunity to use the packaging material for furniture in classrooms. Not only do children have access to a system that allows them to learn computer skills, but they are now able to sit on benches and write on desks during their school lessons.
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