The worldwide impact of the WannaCry Ransomware attack is a stark reminder of the need to ensure all systems are updated regularly.

How does this threat effect me?

What else do I need to do to minimise the threat?

• The attack spreads through email. So think carefully before opening unsolicited emails or attachments is the best form of prevention.
• Maintain regular backups.
• Ensure that all security software products are kept up to date and actively scanning your systems.

Microsoft’s advisory guidance on this issue can be found here and contains more technical information.

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/msrc/2017/05/12/customer-guidance-for-wannacrypt-attacks/

Contact us: +353 1 652 2671 or mark@camara.org

In the second of a series of blogs written by journalist Jamie Ball on a recent trip to Africa on behalf of Camara Education read on for a synopsis of his time in Kenya.

After almost a week in Kenya with Camara Education, which is the more memorable image to emerge from some of the largest slums in Africa?

Was it the sight and sound of animated school kids outside each computer lab, almost expiring with excitement while waiting to access the Camara computers? Or was it the still, serene image of a sea of shoes – handed-down, worn out and patched together – resting peacefully outside the lab once said students disappeared within?

However abstract, both go some way in reflecting the results Camara is achieving in Africa.

The students egging to get in the door, much like the dozens of students within the lab who do not want to leave, are not looking to play Pokémon or surf YouTube. They simply want to begin their ICT-based maths, science, English or composition, among other subjects: to be allowed on to a level playing field in which hard work, application and concentration will pay off.
Self-improvement, self-empowerment, Camara style.

And not even power cuts to the school will stop the students, when they will still line-up in the hope the electricity happens to be restored during the their one, 30-minute chance of the week to access ICT.

But what of the shoes outside the door, when there are none outside any other classrooms in any of the multiple schools I visited? Such is the respect for the Camara computers, and the gift of advancement they present, no kid wants to be the one who might bring in clay or dust into the lab, and therefore potentially hamstring the computers’ functionality or longevity.  

The tranquillity is a far cry from the mad matatu (privately owned minibuses) beyond the school gates, jostling about the suburban streets of Nairobi and Mombasa, bejewelled in the most dazzling of paintwork and emblazoned with names like “Smash,” “Damage” and “Psycho.”

Although the country of 46 million has been the traditional powerhouse of East Africa, and with an appreciable middle-class in the major cities, the lack of educational and professional opportunities for millions have kept them locked in the poverty cycle.

Access to ICT – backed-up by extensive teacher training, offline digital learning programmes and IT support – is one long-term measure to help lift those millions out of poverty and Camara is to the forefront in the country’s educational advancement.   

Since 2011, it has dispatched over 9,800 computers to 768 schools across Kenya, while training more than 11,000 teachers.

And Camara Education Kenya’s 2017-2020 plan is similarly ambitious, aiming to dispatch 10,000 computers to 560 schools, while training 5,600 teachers in ICT.

“We are working all over Kenya to ensure that schools, be they public, private, primary or high schools, or different tertiary institutions, including universities, improve their learning outcomes through the use of ICT,” says Camara Education Kenya CEO Masoud Ali, who joined the Irish-based social enterprise in 2014.

 

“Camara goes out to partner with the different learning institutions to provide hardware, train their different teachers and staff, provide technical support and collect e-waste once the computer, or any electronics, have reached their end of life.

 

“We also have a youth programme where we work with volunteers who come to Camara. These are out of school youth who have no career path, who come to Camara to volunteer,” says Ali.

 

“We train them how to repair computers and networks, so they get a basic maintenance skill. They work with us from a period of three to six months, depending on their availability. Later on, some of them open-up their own businesses, while some of them get employed.”

Crucially, Camara supplies and installs ICT equipment to facilitate the e-learning programme, iMlango, which delivers digital access, smartcard-based attendance monitoring and online learning tools to primary schools across Kenya.

This project aims to improve the learning outcomes for 150,000 children, including 68,000 marginalised girls, across 195 computer labs installed to date, capturing the attention of children, teachers, government and aid agencies as it pioneers the creating of a digital education profile for children.

This blog is one of a series of four,  written by Jamie Ball, a freelance journalist who travelled to Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania on behalf of Camara Education. 

Being of a generation that chiefly, but misleadingly, associates Ethiopia with famine, it being referred to as “utopia” took me a little by surprise upon my arrival. But the mistake was all mine; “utopia” being how Ethiopians tend to pronounce their country’s name, typically twinned with a warm-hearted, winning smile, and after the words “welcome to.”

The most populous landlocked country in the world, and second-most populous nation in Africa, Ethiopia’s population has rocketed more than 25% in the last decade to about 100 million, powering the largest economy (by GDP) in either East or Central Africa.

While its government of late has invested hugely in education, including the construction of over 30 universities in the last 10 years, Camara is helping to fill some of the country’s significant ICT shortages. Thanks to the Irish-based social enterprise, student access to computers has risen rapidly since Camara began operating in Ethiopia in early 2011.

During its five-year project agreement with Ethiopia’s Federal Ministry of Education, which ended in late 2015, Camara delivered over 16,300 computers to 567 schools across seven regions, while training over 4,700 teachers in ICT.

Chief Executive Officer of Camara Education Ethiopia, Yared Ayele, says one of the reasons he joined Camara in 2014 was because educational improvements need to be from the bottom up.

“Camara works in primary and secondary schools, so I’m deeply interested in kids having early-age exposure to technology and technical and educational resources through technology.

“That’s why I really enjoy working with Camara in Ethiopia, where we work with schools in rural areas that may otherwise not have exposure to computers, or access to digital resources, without our support,” says Yared, a former technical consultant with Accenture in the US.

Yared says that in Ethiopia there are about 34,000 primary and secondary schools, 80% of which are in rural areas that suffer from a lack of infrastructure, educational resources and trained and capable ICT teachers.

In early 2016, Camara Education Ethiopia announced a three-year plan with the Ministry of Education, aiming to improve student learning outcomes through ICT integration in 1,265 primary and secondary schools in remote, rural and disadvantaged communities across all regions of the country.

Before the end of 2018, over 31,000 high-quality, refurbished computers (preloaded with off-line digital libraries, virtual laboratories and text books for all grade levels) will be delivered to those schools.

And then there’s the 6,300-plus teachers expected to complete Camara Education teacher training during that time; in all, reaching over 1.2 million Ethiopian students over the three years. When you consider that in the 12 years since its foundation in 2005, Camara has impacted about two million students across Africa, 1.2 million students in three years in Ethiopia alone is ambitious, but certainly doable.

Yared says in the 10 months to February 2017, Camara has been able to deliver about 5000 computers across 200 schools, equating to about 192,000 students introduced to and learning by computer each month.

“We are not able to achieve this without the support of our donors and our supporters that support our mission through the supply of computers and financial contributions to help our operations: we really appreciate the support.”

Pictured are students from Silti Secondary School, Ethiopia.

We are delighted to say that Phase 2 of iKnowledge in Tanzania is well underway. iKnowledge is a collaborative technology-enhanced learning project which aims to increase the capacity of district education officers, head teachers and teachers across 25 regions of Tanzania (including Zanzibar archipelagos) to integrate ICT in teaching and learning activities. The focus during this phase of the project will be to firstly provide refresher training and support to Phase 1 Academy and Training schools. Secondly, an additional 50 remote secondary schools will be given internet and hardware.This intends to support the sustainability and longevity of the first phase and to have a positive impact on the teaching and learning process.

For phase two the project will undertake the following:

• Addition of 50 remote secondary schools (Administration school) which will each be provided with 1 laptop, 1 projector and VSAT equipment
• In-school Refresher Training for project primary schools, regular educational and maintenance support visits throughout the year to support integration of iKnowledge resources into teaching and learning activities.
• Additional hardware, all primary schools to be upgraded with a UPS each & the 73 teaching lab schools to receive two more laptops each and an installation of a cooling system in the storage unit

Pictured are students from an iKnowledge school in Tanzania –
Mwambao Primary School in Bagamoyo.

Today Camara Education together with Lord Puttnam, Ireland’s Digital Champion and John Lonergan Former Governor of Mountjoy, launched its Strategy for 2017-2020.
We here at Camara Education believe that quality education and youth empowerment are the greatest tools to alleviate poverty. As such we improve educational outcomes for young people. In the last 11 years we have achieved the following:

• Built an organisation with a sustainable model and strong track record.
• Demonstrated the measurable impact of technology on education.
• Improved the education of two million students; better skills and better grades.
• Delivered systematic change in education systems.

As such, we are on the cusp of scaling up our impact and harnessing an increasing appetite for ICT in education.

In the four years from 2017-2020, Camara will improve the quality of education for an additional three million students. Key to achieving this is being rigorous in the measurement of our impact. More importantly, we need to relentlessly act upon those measurements to ensure we are meeting the needs of our educators and young people. By effecting continued systemic change in the education systems we work in we will broad our impact to a far larger population. In addition our efforts will be contributing, to, amongst others, the Sustainable Development Goal 4; quality education.

In order to achieve this, we in Camara are focused on delivering five goals:

1. Be the leading ICT Education organisation in the countries we operate.
2. Improve Educational Outcomes by designing and implementing all of our
   education programmes to meet needs of all they serve.
3. Measure and act upon our educational impact.
4. Have the best possible people working with us.
5. Generate the resources required to deliver the strategy.

To read the full report please see here.

On Friday 4th November, over 200 young people from youth clubs and schools across Ireland gathered in anticipation at the Google Foundry for the celebration of the Annual Creative Tech Festival. The event is organised by Camara Ireland as part of the TechSpace Programme, the national education movement that aims to inspire and encourage young people to become digital creators by providing access to software, hardware, trained youth workers and creative mentors.

The Creative Tech Fest is the perfect opportunity for young digital creators to take part in interactive workshops, to witness inspirational speakers and hear live performances. Young people also celebrate their own creative media pieces, computer science creations and inventive Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths (STEAM) projects that they have been busy working on throughout the year.

Exhibitions from The 3D Design Expo were particularly popular and allowed young people to make their own prints including badges, hearts and horses. Google Expedition took the students on virtual field trips to space and to the Great Barrier Reef. The TechSpace as Gaeilge network gave the opportunity for young people to showcase their work alongside industry partners in the field of creative bilingual media and makers.

The afternoon workshops allowed young people gain experience on a variety of innovative technology projects, including mobile app development, robotics, prop design, animation, computer science, documentary making, virtual reality expeditions and music technology. Dean, aged 12 from Athenry said, “It was a brilliant experience, my favourite part was making my robot”.

After the afternoon workshops had ended, attendees were treated to a live performance by Irish Beatboxing Champion, Amaron. Inspirational speeches and great advice came  from Tanya Rosen, Assistant Director on Game of Thrones, and Harry McCann, entrepreneur and one of The Journal’s 20 of Ireland’s most inspirational rising stars under 20 years old.

Young people won awards for many creations, from the most creative use of video to the most outstanding maker and electronics projects. “The day was awesome because we won awards,” said Ameerah, aged 11 from Athenry.

According to Jen Hesnan, national coordinator, “TechSpace channels young people’s native interests in technology into something that they can both engage and share with others. By training educators in creative facilitation, any young person who comes through the door can find a purpose, becoming a creator and not just a consumer of technology”.

To find out all the latest news on Creative Tech Fest, check out creativetechfest.com

On this, International Volunteer Day 2016, Camara Education would like to pay tribute to the dedication of our volunteers who enable us to deliver such value to our beneficiaries. Over 2,000 people have volunteered with Camara since 2005 which is phenomenal.

The theme for International Volunteer Day 2016 is  #GlobalApplause – to give volunteers a hand, and recognise the work that they do worldwide. Here at Camara Education, this provides us with an opportunity to thank our volunteers at home in Ireland and worldwide for the inspiring work that they do and to highlight the value and impact they have had on hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged students around the world.

Volunteers play a vital role at every stage in the Camara operation. From accepting donations of computers at the door in Dublin, to repairing a technical fault in rural Ethiopia, an army of volunteers make Camara’s vision a reality.

In our resource centres, our volunteers have fascinating stories to tell. A paramedic, a retired teacher, an experienced development worker and an ex-aviation technician are just some of the members of our hard-working team, who dedicate their time to the preparation of computers for schools.

In our offices, a team of interns consisting of graduates from a variety of disciplines, from International Development, Political Science and Sociology to Graphic Design and Media, help to develop and improve Camara as an organisation. This allows us to provide the best quality education to as many communities as possible.

“While working in Camara, I felt like I was a part of a big family. We helped each other and we worked as a team. The most satisfying aspect about my role was arranging collections and then receiving the equipment.” Sally Wu, Business Development Intern.

As well as our regular volunteers, we welcome companies to come to our resource hubs and help out for a day under our corporate volunteering programme. These companies include employees of Salesforce, Citrix, PwC, LexisNexis and Symantec to name but a few.

In a number of our East African hubs Camara, in partnership with Cisco Networking Academy,  trains volunteers to maintain ICT infrastructure in schools under the ‘Cisco-IT Essentials’ course. This course is taught as part of a three month volunteer programme, designed to engage with communities and build skillsets for graduates and young people seeking to gain professional experience. Volunteers are not only responsible for technical maintenance, they are involved in supporting all aspects of the provision of a better quality of education. This includes providing in-demand information and communication technology skills to disadvantaged students, preparing them for a prosperous future in the 21st century.

Camara values its volunteers and strives to ensure that everyone who gives their time to us is rewarded with the experience and skills they need to go further.

“Volunteers were the rock that Camara was built on and are still a critical component today. With so much negativity around, the selfless work of volunteers over thousands of hours in Camara is inspiring”. John Fitzsimons, CEO, Camara Education.

Find out more about volunteering with Camara on our website or contact Stephanie in Dublin. Alternatively, find out about international volunteering opportunities through our local hubs, contact details for which can be found at camara.org.