OLPCorps: Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) Ethiopia

Section 1: Introduction

1.1. Background Information This project proposal discusses the general approach of Royal Institute of Technology (KTH, Sweden) student-led teams to expand learning in Africa specifically in Ethiopia for children age 6-12. Every effort will be made to perform the project implementation and follow-up within the guideline principles of professional ethics and code of conduct. In Parallel, in order the project implementation and follow-up be a success, OLPCorps is expected to furnish the teams with all the necessary resources.

1.2. The Project Objective

The overall objective of this project is to be agents of change to expand learning in Africa (in our case, Ethiopia) for children aged 6-12.

1.3. The Project area

In order to implement these project two elementary schools namely Tesfa and Kendile Public school in Addis Ababa City, Nifas Silk Lafto Sub City Kebele 07 and 08 are selected. The area is characterized by poor infrastructure, dissected by many rivers that carry solid and liquid wastes from the city center and its obnoxious odder makes the area uninhabitable. Families and children’s who are living in those areas are subjected to multitudes of socio-economic and health problems that are related with poverty and degraded natural environment. With the implementation and continuous follow up of this project the beneficiary children will get access to information and knowledge. We believe this will make them agents of change for their community.

1.4. Project Expert team composition

This project is initiated by a group of four Ethiopian students attending MSc programs at KTH, Royal Institute of Technology, in diverse field of science and has wide range of professional experience and strong academic background Brief CV’s attached [[1]]. Since all of the team members are from Ethiopia it will be easy for them to facilitate communication with the beneficiaries as well as the stakeholders

1.5. Main project support office and collaborators

SYNERGY ETHIOPIA will be the main support [[2]] of the project by sharing our accommodation cost in Addis Ababa, providing support after we leave and providing store for the equipments during deployment. On the other hand Ethiopian ICT Development Agency and Capacity Building Bureau will collaborate in the project activities by providing technical support after we leave. Two of the team members have been working in Ethiopian ICT Development Agency and this will make the collaboration more efficient.

1.6. Collaborators and stakeholders integration

This project is assumed to be integrated with the existing community based project which is implemented with tripartite agreement of the government, NGO (SYNERGY ETHIOPIA) and community based organizations. It is designed to link and feet with the existing project and contributes to changing knowledge, attitude, and practice of urban natural environment and build knowledge and information based society that promotes sustainable use of urban environment through the use of information technology. The distribution of laptops motivates the families and the children to work together to the realization of bringing the required knowledge, attitude, practice and change. It also enhances the information flow in the community, demonstrates best practice in preservation protection and sustainable use of natural resources in the urban environment. So long as the children are properly provided standard education, they are the fertile ground to bring the required change, in this kind of underserved and marginalized community with urban infrastructures and services.

Section 2: Project understanding and proposed work break down structure

2.1. Project Analytical Framework

The student’s team with its local partner Synergy Ethiopia proposed logically organized approach thus core activities divided into five major components as shown on the following figure

• Http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Image:New Picture (6).png

  Figure 1

Refereeing to the above core activities diagram:

The first component set the stirring committee form the concerned government office, community based organizations, community, our partner NGO (SYNERGY ETHIOPIA) and the team members of students that are going from Stockholm. The steering committee will be responsible for smooth project implementation, mobilize the community and concerned stakeholders, setting the selection criteria of the beneficiary students with in the framework of the project and ultimately ensures the project sustainability. The second component will be designing a precise short and long term plan. The third and fourth components, which are linked to the second and fifth components, will be the major activity of the project. The fifth component will focus on reviewing the project and noting best practices.

The brief project description are annexed below