BASSETERRE St.Kitts, March 17th 2011 - On Wednesday morning the Principal of Beach Allen Primary School, Basseterre was able to take charge of a fully functioning computer lab. Local business The IT Facility donated a PC, some 40 man hours and their expertise to increase the number of seats from 5 to 1, using some of the schools old computers which were deemed too slow or simply not functional.
Russell Williams Lead Consultant at The IT Facility, explained that he learned of the school's plight at a PTA meeting. “After visiting the school I realised that the school had a number of old computers – many of which were older than most of the students – but were capable of booting across the network, this made them ideal for use as “thin-client” terminals.”
In his address to the gathering Minister of Education Hon. Nigel Carty, lauded Mr. Williams for his commitment to the Federation, the region and Beach Allen Primary specifically, "I would like to thank Mr. Williams for his support over the years and especially for seeing the need at the school and bringing his expertise and skills to addressing this problem." Minister Carty said.
"This is example of the private sector investing their time and resources, in this case estimated at approximately $17,000.00EC, to meet a need in the community" said Minister Carty. He urged the children to care the lab and make good use of the opportunity afforded them; to become competent in Information Technology, in Mathematics, Sciences and to become entrepreneurs especially in fields where technology could be utilised.
Mr. Williams set about identifying functional equipment and making Pentium II and III processor PC's dating from the late 1990's connect to a PC running Ubuntu Linux, a Free Operating System. In short, equipment which would most likely have been discarded has been given a new lease of life to allow the students the ability to use the Internet and type documents.
An additional benefit is that the server has also been configured with Edubuntu software, which as the name suggests includes a suite of educational software for children from pre-school right up to high school age.
“Additionally, we have saved money by not having to purchase new computers or pay for software licensing for Microsoft Windows or any other software, which in these tough economic times is an appealing benefit. If we were to buy 11 new desktops with the appropriate software licensing for the operating system only (i.e no application software for word processing or spreadsheets) this project would have cost over US$6000. As it is, we have not had to beg or borrow to equip the lab with a usable number of PCs or terminals” Williams said.
Mr. Williams pointed out that such a project has significant benefits not only for the school and its students but the country and the region as whole. Just one week after the Federation hosted a conference on protecting the environment, “ these computers were more than likely destined for the land fill, but with this solution we can still get more use from them, and avoid dumping harmful e-Waste in the landfill.” Williams explained.
