Commerce I.T. helps School jump over Digital Divide

The children at a little primary school in Stilbaai on the Cape East Coast don’t have a sportsfield, so they do long jump in the sand on athletics day. It is good training for July, when thanks to the generosity of Commerce I.T. they will jump over the digital divide.

Dean of Commerce Professor Melvin Ayogu said: "We have supported the school technologically since 2004 as part of our corporate social responsibility programme and we are delighted that the intranet which we set up for them will soon be linked to the Internet, allowing these young children access for the first time to the world wide web."

The project has its roots during the tenure of the previous Dean, Professor Doug Pitt, who was approached by a retired Geochemistry lecturer, James Willis, a grandfather of one of the children at Bertie Barnard Primary School.

Kyle Roberts, head of the I.T. unit, takes up the story: "I drove out the 400kms to assess the situation and found the school was really dilapidated. They only had prefab classrooms and one brick building. I told the principal, Mias du Plessis that we did not wish to merely donate, but we would sponsor them , the difference being that we would look after the computers on a long-term basis. We also decided to build them a computer room.

"Initially we went four times a year. Now we go in January to replace PCs and in July for maintenance. This year we are doing a massive upgrade. The servers which were originally sponsored by Lightedge Technologies will now be sponsored by Pinnacle. We are also increasing the number of PCs to 44, which represents a sponsorship by UCT of about R120 000. Each staff member now has their own PC, as well as the principal.

"In July we will connect their ADSL line which will put them onto the Internet for the first time. Up until now only the secretary has had a line to the outside world, although the children have been able to use the intranet and send and receive emails to each other and their teachers.

"It sounds simple to put them onto the Net, but it is a helluva lot of work, because of the security involved. They need a firewall, because there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there who can hack into their systems . The danger is that without a firewall, hackers can create a kind of robot, called a Bot, which is made by joining computers together to steal processing power and storage space. Once hackers tried to do this on a UCT server, but we picked it up and nailed them."

For Kyle it is the fulfilment of a promise to the principal. It is quite a mission as it involves hiring two combis, loaded with computer equipment and repair kits. They will take out the back seats to put computers in and drive through to Stilbaai, go straight to the school and unpack. The school pays for their accommodation in a timeshare facility, but UCT and the team donate their time, including two weekends of their own time. Sometimes they work from 7am until 9pm, particularly if there is a problem.

Last winter they completely rewired the school’s network with approximately 2km of cabling.

"It’s not our job. We aren’t cabling guys, but we know cabling now. It is neater than UCT’s cabling could ever be," said Kyle.

The Faculty regularly upgrades the PCs at the school on a sustainable basis. The teachers are allowed to take home their PCs when the new ones arrive and their old computers are sold for school funds. The money is then used to continuously improve the experience that children have in the computer lab, for example air conditioning.

The disabled children at the school are also cared for and have a special programme to meet their needs. UCT has also found a unique mouse which will make it easier for them to operate than a conventional mouse, and this will be installed in July.

"The look on the kids’ faces when they see the computers makes it all worth it," says Kyle.

He ensures that everyone in his department has been involved, including Riethwaan Salie, Jason Abrahams, Darryl Brandreth, Gino Dourando, Nur Stoffels, Tracy Carney (who taught the teachers and pupils how to use email and Office 2003) and Luigi McLeod. It is also a great teambuilding exercise for the department.
"Our team really enjoys going there. It’s fun. We do get up to a bit of mischief," he smiled, hinting that the DVD presented to the Dean each year to show their progress was the "edited" version.

The certificate hanging in the IT department’s "Hall of Fame", given to them at one of the school prize-giving ceremonies, says it all. "Certificate of recognition to the University of Cape Town for ongoing support and positive attitude towards the staff and pupils of Bertie Barnard. Their contribution in maintaining the computer lab is of high value."

Posted 31/05/2009 by Carolyn McGibbon