Gaaki Kigambo, Dean Karemera & Agencies
13 October 2006
Kigali — Rwanda could soon benefit from the political ambitions of Libyan leader Col Muammar Qaddafi who has entered an agreement with a United States non-profit group to supply laptop computers to all school children in Libya.
According to an article in The New York Times, one of the leading newspapers in the United States, the government of Libya, on Tuesday, October 10, reached an agreement with One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit United States group developing an inexpensive, educational laptop computer, to supply the machines to all 1.2 million Libyan schoolchildren by June 2008.
The paper quotes Nicholas Negroponte, the brainchild behind the non-profit project, as saying the Libyan leader strongly weighed in on the project because it fit into his political agenda of creating a more open Libya and becoming an African leader.
He, Negroponte, added that he also discussed with Col Qaddafi the possibility of Libya financing the purchase of laptops for a group of poorer African nations like Chad, Niger and Rwanda.
However, Eng. Albert Butare, the minister of state in charge of Energy and Communication in the Ministry of Infrastructure, clarified to The New Times that Rwanda will neither be getting the computers free of charge nor receiving any subsidisation from Libya.
Rather, the country will be buying the computers through Libya or any other country which
has a direct agreement with the non-profit group. "[One of] their [the group] condition was that it could not start manufacturing unless they have an order of [over] one million computers so [for us] we will buy through Libya or any other country which has a direct deal with him [Negroponte]," said Eng. Butare.
This deal comes in the wake of President Paul Kagame's call to have all schools in Rwanda networked by 2013 and equipped with standard Information Communication Technology (ICT) tools and well trained facilitators in order to make good on the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) E-schools project.
He made the call while launching the NEPAD project on October 4, at Groupe Scolaire de Muhura in Gatsibo district in the Eastern Province.
The project is intended to equip students with computer skills and help boost the quality of education in schools by linking
them together and establishing a network through which they can share ideas, knowledge and experiences.
The cheap durable laptop computer, which can be used as a conventional computer or an electronic book, comes with wireless internet connection, a built-in video camera, an eight-hour battery and a power cable for recharging batteries, which will also act as a carrying strap.
The computers will be covered in rubber to make them extra-tough and will initially be priced below $150 (about Frw84,000). The price is expected to decline when they are manufactured in large numbers.
According to the newspaper, the non-profit project, which is intended to supply computers broadly to children in developing nations, was conceived in 2005 by Nicholas Negroponte, a computer researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Negroponte says the idea of a laptop for every schoolchild grew out of his experience in giving children in rural Cambodia Internet-connected laptops.
The paper says the project will cost Libya $250 million to buy 1.2 million computers, one server per school, a satellite internet service as well as other infrastructure and an accompanying team to help set up the system.
According to Negroponte, it is possible this venture will make Libya the first nation in the world where all school-going children are connected to the internet through educational computers. He is quoted as having said that the U.S. and Singapore are not even close to this.
Negroponte says the first models will be distributed to five participating countries including Nigeria at the end of November this year while mass production is scheduled for between June-July 2007.
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