MIT Students and Alumnus Teach in Africa

The following is a post from the MIT Slice of Life website.

If you think MIT students do interesting work during the school year, wait until you hear about their summer plans.

Founded in 1993, the Africa Information Technology Initiative (AITI) is a student-run organization that sends a handful of MIT students to Africa each summer to teach students about information technology and communications, as well as entrepreneurship. Previous groups have worked in Gambia, Ethiopia, and Zambia, however this year’s teams are teaching at Strathmore University in Kenya and (for a two-week pilot program) Kigali Institute of Science and Technology in Rwanda. Coursework will focus on designing and developing mobile phone applications—products that are considered valuable to many African consumers and whose projected and real growth is large and potentially lucrative.

Four students make up the 2009 Kenyra/Rwanda team:

• Michael Gordon SM ‘02, CSAIL PhD candidate and president of AITI
• Zachary Stauber, an undergrad who recently attended the Global Startup Workshop in Cape Town, South Africa
• Cory Smith, an undergrad economics major interested in international development
• Julian Yuen, a computer science undergrad with a passion for mobile application programming

You can follow the group’s adventures in and out of the classroom on their blog: http://aiti.mit.edu/blog/

AITI also accepts donations and notes that “100% of donations will be used for program initiatives.”

Brining the Internet to Africa

From a recent NY Times article on bringing the internet to Africa:

In recent years the mobile phone has emerged as the main modern communications link for rural areas of Africa. From 2002 to 2007, the number of Kenyans using cellphones grew almost tenfold to reach about a third of the population, many of whom did not have land lines, according to the International Telecommunication Union.

But many of the phones were simple models made more for talking than Web browsing, and wireless data networks are slow, with sporadic coverage.

Satellite connections are faster and more stable, which is why they are attracting interest from the likes of Google, as a way to provide Internet connections to the estimated 95 percent of Africans who, according to the telecommunications union, have no access.

Higher Education in Africa

While working in Africa I had numerous conversations with young people who were passionate about improving themselves but had no way to continue their education. By U.S. standards higher education costs in Ghana are modest, around $1,000. However, this is a truly unattainable number for somebody who makes $50 per month and has no access to loans. For this reason, there is a lack of university educated role models which is evident in the career aspirations of the primary school students. Most of the girls wanted to grow up to be a hairdresser or cook while the boys wanted to learn construction. They had little to no understanding of careers requiring education (as opposed to vocation).

This video is a great commentary on the situation of higher education in Africa.

Bringing Communications to Rural Africa

One of the things that struck me on our trip to Africa was the lack of access to quality sources of information. In the United States we take it for granted that we can buy a book, access a library, or get on the internet. When these things are missing or too expensive, it becomes very difficult to learn and make informed decisions. For example, in Ghana the average salary was about $50 - $100 per month. A newspaper cost $0.50 - $1.00 and to get on the internet to check email was easily $2.00 or more. Consider the choice you would make if a newspaper or the internet cost roughly one day's salary.

Inveneo is trying to solve this problem by bringing low cost communication technology to rural parts of Africa. Check out this CNN video on their efforts and follow the link to their website to donate.