OLPC Rwanda

REPUBLIC OF RWANDA

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MINISTER IN PRESIDENT’S OFFICE
IN CHARGE OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY
AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Kigali, 3 January 2007

Rwanda commits to “one laptop per child” initiative

In recognition of children being Rwanda’s most precious natural resource, the government of Rwanda has committed to provide one laptop per child to all primary school children within five years.

This commitment was confirmed as H.E. President Paul Kagame met with Prof. Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairperson of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) at Urugwiro Village on Tuesday.

OLPC will provide test laptops plus support to fully test the concept at no cost in Rwanda, as well as coordinate knowledge exchange with other participating nations.

This initiative will strengthen the quality of already existing free and compulsory primary education, by adopting new tools for learning and engaging children more directly, both inside and outside school.

Furthermore, by moving to electronic format, a much wider body of knowledge will be made available to children than was previously possible or economically feasible with printed text books.

As part of its stated vision of transforming Rwanda into a knowledge-based economy by the year 2020, the government of Rwanda through the Ministry of Infrastructure, Ministry of Education, and the Minister of Science and Technology and Research in the President’s Office will collaborate with the One Laptop Per Child non-profit Association to realize the project.

About Rwanda

Rwanda, in central Africa, is best known as the site of a genocide, and is thus often thought of as a political and economic basket case. However, the current administration of President Paul Kagame has embraced ICT as the key to his country's future. In particular, there is a Rwandan distribution of Linux in development, in their local language, Kinyarwanda. The President has recently said that all Rwandan schools should be networked by 2013 and equipped with standard ICT tools and well trained facilitators. (Reported in The New Times of Kigali)