It's big news

We had a fascinating morning at the Computers for Schools Kenya headquarters. It feels like we are on a Royal visit. Everyone who is anyone in Nairobi has turned up to greet us, including press and radio. Maybe it didn't seem such a big deal to us, well, not yet as we have not started the painful bit, but the local charity partners are so grateful. There is more demand than they can supply with PCs so every donation makes a difference. Only person who didn't turn up to greet us, who was supposed to, was the British High Commissioner; typical Brits abroad.

We've seen the whole process from computers arriving, through refurbishment to delivery and then back again for recycling. It's a very sophisticated operation. The setup is designed to ensure a thorough understanding of IT rather than just putting computers in rural schools that aren't used. Specific criteria ensure one computer for every two students, allowing students to really learn.

Recycling was very impressive and shows the ingenuity in Kenya. Every aspect of a 'dead' computer goes to use. Hard plastic is ground down and sent to Asia to be added back to new plastic. Motherboards are stripped for copper and gold. Heat sinks often have a new role as heat sinks in the Nissan taxis that travel around with music systems that could power a rock concert at Wembley. Most impressively, the monitors are turned in to TVs, which can be purchased for about a quarter the price of a real TV.

the most surprising fact was the lack of, and expense of, internet connection in Kenya. Almost no schools have it. There are no fibre optic cables in to Kenya so schools are trying to work with local networks to share information, rather than using the web.

Out of the 16 people on the trip, we've already met two who signed up for this challenge directly from the adverts in Computing, and also met another two who are readers. It's great to see we're playing our part in this great initiative. It's been very rewarding to see the commitment, passion and satisfaction of all involved. The PCs alone from this challenge will provide an IT education for nearly 3000 children.

Now the hard stuff starts and we go up and down the Rift Valley, stopping at some schools where PCs have been donated, on the way.

Robin, Dave, Toby