SMART supports Africa’s NEPAD e-Schools Initiative
Donation of 120 SMART Board interactive whiteboards facilitates 21st-century learning across Africa
CALGARY, ALBERTA --- December 11, 2006 --- SMART Technologies Inc. announces its support of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) e-Schools Initiative through the donation of up to 120 SMART Board™ interactive whiteboards. The SMART Board interactive whiteboard will play a key role in African classrooms by providing an interactive learning environment for students and teachers, and facilitating distance collaboration across the continent. The project is led by the NEPAD e-Africa Commission, participating country governments and schools, and the ISPAD-led Consortia made up of a number of private companies, including SAP, ORACLE, Corporation SA, AMD, Intelsat, HP, Microsoft, Sentech, MTN Foundation, Grintek Telecom and Cisco Systems Africa. Its goal is to transform all African secondary schools within five years and all primary schools within ten years of the project’s inception to NEPAD e-Schools.
The first phase of the initiative aims to transform six schools in 20 African countries into NEPAD e-Schools. The countries include Algeria, Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda. The initiative will lay the foundation for creating an end-to-end education solution using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to connect 600,000 schools across Africa to the NEPAD e-School Satellite network and the Internet.
"By working with NEPAD in support of the e-Schools Initiative, we are creating a partnership to provide tools and technology that bridge the digital divide and open up economic opportunities,” explains Richard Kiplagat, Microsoft’s Global Strategic Accounts Manager in West, East and Central Africa. “The broader availability of technology in education is a means to opening doors to economic and social prosperity. This access has been identified as a prerequisite for achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. As such, it needs to be a shared public/private effort. As a proud partner in the NEPAD e-Schools Initiative, we hope to bring our resources, solutions, know-how and personal dedication to bear on helping government and partners serve local needs and address local challenges.”
"This initiative is committed to helping African school children develop the skills needed to engage successfully in the world’s knowledge economy," says Nancy Knowlton, SMART's president and co-CEO. "The introduction of SMART Board interactive whiteboards will give students and teachers across the continent connection to experts, even in remote or impoverished areas, and access to 21st-century collaborative learning materials.”
About NEPAD
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is a vision and strategic framework for Africa’s renewal. The NEPAD strategic framework document was developed from a mandate given to the five initiating Heads of State – Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa – by the African Union (AU) to develop an integrated socio-economic development framework that addresses the challenges facing Africa. Its pledge is to eradicate poverty and to put African countries on a path of sustainable growth and development. More information about NEPAD is available at www.nepad.org.
About NEPAD e-Schools
The first workshop of the NEPAD e-Schools Coordinating Body agreed on the following four objectives for NEPAD e-Schools:
• To provide ICT skills and knowledge to primary and secondary school students that will enable them to function in the emerging Information Society and Knowledge Economy
• To make every learner health literate
• To provide teachers with ICT skills to enable them to use ICT as tools to enhance teaching and learning
• To provide school managers with ICT skills to facilitate efficient management and administration in the schools. For more information see www.eafricacommission.org
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