President Bharrat Jagdeo has promised that this year will see “a very aggressive roll-out of the US$30 million One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) initiative, which has been perceived by government as necessary to ensure that all Guyanese are equipped “for the modern world”.
The president made this announcement at the launching of the GT&T-sponsored Ten/10 countrywide Softball Cricket Tournament at the Guyana International Conference Centre on Saturday.
“We have had extensive discussions with the company (GT&T) and the government, (which) will lead to this becoming the most computer literate country in the world. It’s not beyond our means, and it’s manageable. We have 780,000 people. We can do it in five years’ time – get every person, from the grandmother to the infant, computer literate. It’s not rocket science, and this year you are going to see a very, very aggressive roll-out of the one-laptop-per-family initiative that we have pledged.”
GT&T is expected to play a major role in the success of the OLPF project with its ability to provide high-speed Internet service, among other information communications technology (ICT) services. “Within two years — this year and next year — we are going to have 90,000 new instruments in the hands of families, particularly poor families, in this country. That becomes a huge market for those service providers, like GT&T, who are selling bandwidth, and thereby making your investments more feasible and more profitable.”
Project managers of the OLPF initiative announced last week that the laptops have already started arriving in the country. They met to discuss the execution of the project and how the laptops would be programmed. The project would ensure that families get the resources and training in basic computer skills that are essential for job-preparedness in the modern economy.
Meanwhile, President Jagdeo said he was of the belief that the country was going to need more bandwidth than what GT&T and government could offer. “I know GT&T may feel differently, but the country needs as many fibre optic cables (as) we can get. The one from Brazil is going to make a huge difference, and I promise that, within three or four years’ time, every single bit of bandwidth on both cables would be utilized, and there would be need for new cables coming into Guyana. I see an aggressive growth and the demand for those services in this country, which is in line with what we are trying to do.”
President Jagdeo had disclosed last year a plan to establish a computer centre in each Amerindian community, where a bank of computers with Internet access would be available. This initiative, he said, would be pursued over the next two years, starting with the larger villages.
Access to high-quality ICTs is considered critical to Guyana’s revolutionary Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), which states that such services will catalyse private sector investment, facilitate Guyana’s rapidly-growing business, double the number of people employed by 2013, and provide the necessary infrastructure to connect remote communities to government and other essential services.
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