Build a School (Malawi)

Contact: Luke Dolby (Chairman of Build a School)

Build A School
Registered UK Charity No: 1118476
Website: www.buildaschool.org.uk
Email: luke@buildaschool.org.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1273 622174
Mob +44 (0)7976 07 07 17

Correspondence with Will Dowson (renewable energy specialist): https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/display/OLPCORPS/Will+Dowson

Most recent email:

Hi Janet, we should hear more from Zain (the mobile phone company) and the Ministry of Education once we know which regions are suitable. As I said, feel free to contact them directly as you have been formally introduced by Build A School.

I would just like to point out one small issue to ensure there are no overlaps or misinformation. Having dealt with large groups before, I have had incidences where one person emails me about one thing, and another from the group emails me contradicting it. It can get difficult. For example, one member from your group has emailed me about renewable energy, and another about moving it to an urban area with mains electricity.... I am happy to respond to any team member that needs help, but just to politely forewarn you that it can perhaps be clearer if I have just one channel of communication as the project develops to avoid overlaps or communication issues.

Many thanks.

Kind regards,

Luke Dolby
Chairman

5th email (we were CC'ed):

Subject: Laptop Programme with MIT University, USA

Hi Edith, Mrs Mussa in the Ministry of Education put your name forward and I am helping facilitate a wonderful project called "One Laptop Per Child"- a huge scheme endorsed by the UN to roll out laptops with internet connectivity into Africa. The website is www.laptop.org and is making huge progress across the continent.

A team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology have asked Build A School to help them send a team of 8 students to a rural area of Malawi to install up to 100 laptops in a school. Mrs Mussa is kindly assisting us with a location, but we need assistance with helping get the laptops online and your name was recommended.

This is a wonderful programme and I am sure your company would benefit with working with MIT and the One Laptop Per Child project. Build A School will assist in making their visit productive for the school chosen by the Ministry of Education, and developed further by assistance from Malawi University's IT department. We will also assist with providing renewable energy to power the server and laptops, all of which are designed to only produce low wattage.

If you can email either myself or Janet Li at MIT on janetli.mit@gmail.comwith possibilities and locations to develop this project we can hopefully work together to bring internet access to a rural school.

Kind regards,

Luke Dolby
Chairman

4th email:

Janet- unfortunately, after visiting the telecommunications people Grieve went to hospital with malaria- he should be ok with some treatment.

However, before going for medicine he managed to leave the name and contact information for Zain's main office person in Blantyre. Zain have taken over CelTel, and are the main mobile network in the country by some distance. I will speak with them today and see what the situation is, and also Mrs Mussa in the Ministry for Education is looking at things her end. I suspect getting this coordinated will just be a case of getting the right people on board to support you, and I think we are well on the way to it.

Kind regards,

Luke Dolby
Chairman

3rd email:

Hi, firstly the Chairman of Y-Gap in Australia, Elliot Costello, is happy to speak with you. He can offer you advice via elliot.costello@y-gap.org.

Secondly, my manager has met with the Ministry of Education this morning, and in particular a director overseeing I.T (a friend of mine) called Chikondano Mussa. Mrs Mussa is a great person to have in country to facilitate the details of this, and she has recommended the South Eastern Education area to work in, in particular the Machinga District- about two hours drive from the capital Lilongwe. She is looking into the right school, but as there is such as massive shortage, it will be that they put aside one age group or class for you, which will be done properly. There simply aren't schools anywhere with only 100 children, as I mentioned was what I expected. I would like to say that I am confident this project will work well with a clearly defined group or class working on the project with you, and in truth is the only solution. For your ifnformation, the classes are called standards and the age group 6-12 is standards 1-5. Mrs Mussa will get the right location for you and make sure all authorities needed both through government and locally are achieved in a single phone call- she has the right influence!!!! Beaurocracy can be an issue working in Malawi so having a senior person on side is invaluable, as Build A School has learnt. Something which may seem wonderful and simple to us can end up with 5 meetings and an exhange of goats before even meeting the right person!

Please feel free to now email Mrs Mussa at the government ministry of education on chikozacomussa@yahoo.com or call her on 00265 (0)8896067 (drop the zero and they are 7 hours ahead of you).

In the meantime, Grieve Massa, my manager, is meeting this morning with CelTel, the leading mobile phone network in Malawi, to get the infromation on internet access in the country, which as you may know is patchy. When Grieve has this info, he will meet again with Mrs Mussa to help pinpoint the best location for you. I will be speaking with Grieve after his meeting and get back to you.

Kind regards,

Luke Dolby
Chairman

2nd email:

Hi Janet, have been working through this and have a lot of feedback, but need some more from you to fully fit your requirements.

Firstly, I have spoken to the head if I.T at Malawi University (based at the Polytechnic in Blantyre) and he is happy for you to liaise with him and put together a student team to support you. His information is:

Ken Gondwe kcgondwe@poly.ac.mw 00265 (0)8311028 Malawi is seven hours ahead of you should you need to call- he is expecting you to email him presently.

Secondly, my Malawi manager is meeting the Department of Information Systems and Technology Management Services at 7.30am tomorrow morning- the Government's chief officer was away today. This meeting will ascertain which regions are accessible by mobile tower or if satellite is needed. I will phone Malawi at 9am for feedback.

Thirdly, I have emailed the Australian group leader to see if he is happy to chat with you about their group stay recently- they should be waking up in the next few hours and I'm sure they will be happy to pass on some tips and ideas. As for planning accommodation/transport, we can easily arrange that for you through my Malawi manager.

Finally, I have had email and phone conversations with Will Dowson, a renewable energy specialist here in the UK. His thoughts are attached as a word document. We would need to know more on expected usage (hours per day per laptop) and really exactly how much power is needed per day. Having one small solar panel per laptop seems a very expensive and cumbersome (and creates more things to break/ be stolen) method of powering these units. He is happy to be accessed by email but phone contact may be difficult as he is off to the Philippines for 3 weeks to implement power units in rural villages there. His contact information:

Will Dowson willdowson@profitablegroup.com

There is no proper broadband in Malawi as far as I know, and there will be some time before cabling has been completed bringing it up from South Africa. However, this was was I was told a year ago and there may well have been developments. What I would like to know is how similar projects already underway by OCPL connect, and with what success, so we can try and replicate/ improve on this. Providing power can be achieved through a number of ways, but the real results of this rest on good connectivity. Will is suggesting a simple hand cranked generator as then the need to rely on solar or wind is removed, and is durable, reliable and cheap. He can design one very simply to power all laptops for very little money, and I am happy for you to speak with him directly- please provide him as much additional technical information as you can- I have forwarded and he has read all that you sent me.

Will has asked several questions that require feedback so please read the attachment enclosed.

The other sticking point is the limit of child numbers. There are no schools (excluding private schools, that are typically well off and urban) that have small numbers 100 or under. The reason is chronic school shortages, with some typical rural classroom sizes 150+. I can select a classroom of, say 70-80 students aged 6-12 for you out of a school of several hundred, otherwise you would have to let me contact the ministry of education to see if such a small school exists to fit your requirements. I would need 24 hours for this. I have a school in mind, Mbelekete, 2 hours north of Lilongwe by car, that would be able to facilitate a small project for just one age group for you to work with, but this would mean other age groups and classes missing out. I fear this may be inevitable or already happening with other OCPL projects? If you want to just find a small school population, this may not be as straight forward as just working with one class within a larger school set up. Again, I would like to know if other projects have faced this overcrowding issue when trying to limit numbers, and how they dealt with it?

To summarize:
We can facilitate this, and get university students in Malawi to help you, and get the right school and renewable energy for you. However, the issue of connectivity is crucial to figure out, and hopefully my manager's meeting tomorrow morning with the government with tie up those queries. I also need to know who typically funds the internet access once it is in place?

Please also expect answers to some questions you may pose to take a little longer coming from the South than from us here in the UK- reaching people in rural areas for example can take a wee while!!

Kind regards,

Luke Dolby
Chairman

First email:

You beat me to it- I would have been getting in touch with OLPC in the next three months anyway.
This fits perfectly with our objectives, and we are currently working on some other exciting renewable energy projects, including a kinetic energy seesaw that allows children to play and generate power for their classrooms at the same time.
We can assist in two ways:
- Providing schools with desperately needed access to laptops
- Providing a urban, accessible space at our new sustainable development education centre in Lilongwe, Malawi, to demonstrate and showcase the laptops (for free).

The benefit of point 2 is this helps promote the laptops in an environment that will receive thousands of visitors and in particular key decision makers who often don't have time to access rural areas when visiting a country such as Malawi.
It's strength is it is available to local people and foreign visitors for free in a central location.
With so many projects in Africa attempting to launch projects in rural or hard to reach places, this centre is already looking forward to showcasing great ideas that offer a sustainable benefit to children's lives and in particular education.
If we can discuss your proposal further, please call either of the numbers below or email your contact information and a suitable time to call. I could have visited MIT last month as I met with the Millennium Promise as our sustainable development education centre proposal was submitted to the Earth Institute.

Questions for Luke from Build A School, Malawi

Questions we've already asked and are waiting to be answered:

Our stay will most likely be for ten weeks over the summer. Will the children be in school from June-August? How many children do you think would be available or would want to attend a program for computer-learning over the summer?
What kind of power supply do the schools have that we could utilize for the laptops?
Is there anywhere for our team to stay? We have approximately 7 or 8 people on our team, and will only receive a $10,000 USD stipend if our proposal gets accepted, which basically covers only plane tickets. It would be great to have relatively cheap lodging, otherwise we would have to apply for more grants, etc.
Will the school be able to receive a 230 kg package of laptops and equipment? Is there a place to store this equipment during our stay?
What languages do the children at your schools speak? If it is not English, then are there ways for overcoming this barrier?
Will Build A School be capable of maintaining the deployment of laptops after we leave? Will there be people willing to oversee the project after August?
The center in Lilongwe to showcase the laptops sounds like a great idea. How exactly would this work, though? Would some of our team be in charge of running this center, while the other members worked at the actual schools? Where are the schools located relative to Lilongwe? OLPCorps is more focused on distributing laptops in rural areas.

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Build a School (Malawi)