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Grant Awarded to Illinois Students Helps Bring Laptops to São Tomé, Africa

July 17, 2009

Four undergraduate students at the University of Illinois have received a grant under the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program to provide XO laptops and teach computer literacy skills to children in São Tomé, Africa. Each of the four students is pursuing a campus-wide minor in informatics offered by the Illinois Informatics Institute.

Corey Jackson (International Studies major, Informatics minor, BS 2010) serves as project lead; Danielle Ross (Urban Planning major, Informatics minor, BS 2010) serves as GIS lead; Michael Stein (Urban Planning major, Informatics minor, BS 2010) serves as infrastructure lead; and Chika Umeadi (Political Science major, Informatics minor, BS 2010) serves as the technical lead.

They are joined in this project by Ashley Adams who has traveled twice before to São Tomé and who will begin Truman State University in Missouri in the fall.

The team will spend ten weeks distributing the laptops and providing computer literacy skills to São Toméan girls aged 10-12. Their project was one of thirty chosen to participate in a new student-based, grassroots OLPC initiative called OLPCorps Africa. OLPC received more than 220 project proposals from five continents for the program.

The undergraduate student project is part of a larger Illinois presence in São Tomé, one that began in 2006 when Paul Adams, director of community networking at Illinois' Graduate School of Library and Information Science, accepted an invitation to collaborate with São Toméan resident Jorge Coelho. Coelho received his master's degree from GSLIS in 2002 and after graduating spent two years in East St. Louis, Illinois as a technical consultant for the East St. Louis Action Research Project (ESLARP). After returning to São Tomé, he believed the ESLARP model as applied in East St. Louis would be of considerable benefit in helping his native country achieve their community development goals.

Another project being conducted on the island this summer includes research into ways GIS technology can be used in São Tomé. While on island, the GIS team will be meeting with key stakeholders in order to assess their needs and create a strategic plan for building GIS infrastructure. This project is being overseen by GSLIS Associate Professor Jon Gant with an on-island team composed of GSLIS master's students Jeanie Austin, Sarah Jackman, and OLPCorps team member Ross.

Also this summer, GSLIS Senior Research Scientist and Instructor Martin Wolske is teaching his course, Introduction to Network Systems, on the island. Each semester students in Wolske's class participate in a service-learning final project in which they collaborate with community organizations serving economically disadvantaged communities to recycle computers and develop community technology centers that will serve as a tool to meet the organization's goals for community development. During their stay, GSLIS master's students Austin and Damon McGhee will travel with Wolske to meet their partner organization, the Teacher's College. They will not only work to setup a computer lab for the college, but will also work with administrators and college students to consider ways in which multimedia technology and computers, including the XO laptops being delivered at the same time, can be used to facilitate educational and youth empowerment goals through digital storytelling, citizen journalism, and citizen science.

More information and detail on the São Tomé project, including updates from the participants, can be found on their website.

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