Irish social enterprise Camara Education aims to bring digital literacy to 2m children worldwide by the end of 2016 via a new three-year strategy, ‘Prove, Improve, Scale’.
Camara Education is attempting to prove the impact technology in the classroom will have on educational outcomes.
According to Camara Education’s documentation on the strategy, it plans to ramp up the dispatch of refurbished computers to disadvantaged communities and to increase the use of existing technology.
This will be achieved by improving training, support, and educational content to ensure both the uptime and lifespan of the average computer is improved significantly.
In terms of financial costs, the organisation expects it will need to raise about €2m to fund the ‘prove’ element of the project. In addition, about €5m over the three years will be needed to deliver its digital literacy targets.
“Many ICT in education interventions have been unsuccessful and none have proven impact,” said John Fitzsimons, CEO of Camara Education. “Camara will be pioneers in the field, which is why this new strategy is so exciting.”
Most of the refurbished computers received their overhaul in Camara’s Dublin base.
Since 2005, Camara has dispatched 50,000 computers to 2,500 schools and trained 12,000 educators in 10 countries.
