OLPC Rwanda

2007 status: green
green

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.

Repubulika y'u Rwanda République Rwandaise Republic of Rwanda
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/LocationRwanda.png
Capital	Kigali
Official languages	Kinyarwanda French English
Area	26,338 km²
Population
- 2005 estimate	9,378,226
- 2002 census	8,128,553
- Density	320/km²
Education
- Literacy (%)	70.4
- Compulsory Years
- Compulsory Age
- Pop. in School Age
- Pop. in School
GDP (PPP) 2005 est.	USD 13 billion
- Per capita	USD 1,500
GDP (nominal) 2005 est.	USD 2 billion
- Per capita
HDI  (2004)	0.450 (low)
Gini Index  (1985)	28.9
Time zone	CAT (UTC+2)
Internet TLD	.rw
Calling code	+250
More statistics...

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)

Rawanda 2007

The latest news about Rawanda and the OLPC program can be found here:

[1]

GO Rawanda! --Bakersdz 19:11, 14 February 2007 (EST)