JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-Mobile network operator Vodacom announced it will assist students in schools throughout South Africa and the region to become computer literate following the opening of the E-Learning Resource Center in Soweto.
The center was opened by Vodacom Foundation Chairman Mthobi Tyamzashe and is said to be part of an international collaboration, known as the Digital Partnership, of which South Africa is the site of the first pilot program. The partnership is an initiative established to bring redundant PCs from first-world countries for refurbishment and installation in selected schools around the country. The foundation has donated 1.682 million rand (US$170,000) toward the project.
The Digital Partnership, involving private, public and not-for-profit sectors across an international spectrum, has been established to facilitate and deliver computer literacy and Internet access for learning, enterprise and social development in developing countries. South Africa is the site of the first pilot program, set up with the support of business, content partners, government, foundations and the World Bank.
Tyamzashe said Vodacom is pleased that South Africa was selected as the pilot site to develop the centers.
“This creates tremendous confidence in South Africa not unlike the confidence displayed by our shareholders when they decided to invest in a company wanting to bring mobile communications to some of the world’s poorest people,” he said, referring to the network’s rollout of subsidized public access telephones in South Africa’s disadvantaged areas.
The result of that particular partnership between Vodacom and the government is the more than 90 million cellular calls a month being made by people in South Africa’s previously underserviced areas.
