A herd of cattle blocks the road toward the rural village of Corinto.
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News.com)CORINTO, Colombia--It was easy for the kids at the rural school to see I had arrived.
Even if they didn't see the van carrying myself and Microsoft executive Orlando Ayala, it was hard to miss the 20 or so soldiers that accompanied us in a convoy.
Click here to read all of the stories in The Borders of Computing series.
The military escort was not just a sign of the esteem that Ayala is held in--though the Colombian native is something of a favorite son here--but rather an indicator of the danger that remains in the area in an around Corinto. Though its just 30-some miles from Cali, the area is not far from rebel strongholds.
At one point on our way there, the road was blocked by a herd of rather skinny cattle. Though on its face amusing (and definitely a Kodak moment), their presence was unsettling to even some of the Colombians in the van. Such incidents can be a diversion to initiate a kidnapping. Thankfully the cows were just cows.
Though the trip into the countryside had some risk, it feels important to write about people that are trying to move forward, even as the conflict remains close to their homes. The visit was particularly powerful for me, having known someone in high school, Terry Freitas, who was later kidnapped and killed near the Colombian-Venezuelan border.
In Corinto, I saw students thrilled by the opportunity to use decade-old technology and a mayor and principal pleading for the more modern computers that could make an even greater impact. I was also struck by the teacher who helped the students with the computers--a zoologist who moved back to Corinto to help improve the education in the town where she grew up.
I also had a chance to tour the factory where workers painstakingly refurbish the computers that end up in places like Corinto. The program, Computadores para Educar (Computers for Education) refurbishes more than 20,000 computers a year. Although the machines are typically a few years old (the minimum specs are machines with Pentium II processors and 128MB of memory), a government study found that the computers the program refurbishes have roughly the same time before failing as new PCs, in part because of its rigorous process of cleaning and testing.
However, that painstaking process is costly, and the program often has to supplement donated computers with new parts. As a result, some say the $160 it costs to refurbish a computer may not be the best use of funds, when new machines, capable of running the latest software, can be had for around $280. It's a fascinating debate, and I plan to describe the program and its challenges more in a post that will go up in the next day or so.
I also doubt I will forget the torrential rain that came out of nowhere as we visited the peace park in Medellin, started by well-known Latin singer Juanes, who is also from Colombia. The rain was probably the hardest I have seen in my life, but lasted just five minutes or so. A few minutes later, the kids taking tennis lessons at the park were back outside playing around.
A Colombian boy plays in a heavy rain at Juanes de la Paz park in Medellin. The downpour lasted just five minutes.
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News.com)CORINTO, Colombia--The small rural town of Corinto is trying to stake out a new role for itself, but the challenges are significant.
At the crossroads of guerrilla-held territory and with a budget a quarter of the size of what it needs, the town is still known best for the quality of its marijuana. It is a place that the armed groups see as sympathetic to the army and government, and that mainstream Colombia thinks of as in the hands of the armed groups. But by investing in its local school, the city hopes to change both reality and perception.
Click here to read all of the stories in The Borders of Computing series.
The school works hand in hand with a program called Vallenpaz that aims to offer those in rural communities enough hope and opportunity that they don't see the need to either move to a city or join with a rebel group.
During the 10th and 11th grades, students at Instituto Educativa Nucleo Escolar Rural-Corinto work on a specific project aimed at demonstrating the power of growing the right crops in the right way. Students use computers to research crops like red beans and tomatoes, to learn about organic fertilizers, and to study ways to combat insects. They plan a schedule for their crops and make reports on their progress.
And they do this all on a handful of HP and IBM computers that, in some cases, are only a few years younger than they are. The school gets its limited Internet access through a program sponsored by the national ministry of education. The government has been gradually cutting the amount of Internet access it gives to the school, first from 24 hours a day to eight hours a day. At this point, the school gets just two hours a day--and even that is scheduled to go away in October.
Instituto Educativa Nucleo Escolar Rural-Corinto students work in the computer lab.
"The model of sustainability has not been established," said Orlando Ayala, senior vice president of Microsoft's Unlimited Potential program, which provides software and training to various efforts around the globe, including the computer lab here.
To compound the technical challenges, the lone server at the school is broken, meaning that the majority of the computers in the lab--and the only ones from this decade--lack Word and the rest of the Office suite that Microsoft has donated. Instead, students using those computers write their documents in WordPad.
Nor is it the case that this school is at the bottom of the pyramid when it comes to technology.
"You can go a few kilometers and find one with even less infrastructure," Ayala said. Indeed, the principal of another school in the region said his school lacks Internet access entirely, with kids forced to walk two hours to get to the nearest Internet cafe that charges $2 an hour and then walk two hours back.
The need for technology here is huge. In this rural agricultural community, technology can make the difference between barely making a living and improving one's life. More importantly, for those youths that don't see a future, there are two bad options: move to a city or join with the guerrillas.
Students outside their school, the Instituto Educativa Nucleo Escolar Rural-Corinto.
The local education secretary noted that just 10 percent to 20 percent of students graduate, leaving a whole lot to turn to illicit actions.
Leaders in this community say more resources are badly needed. The cornerstone of their education is the project for the 10th and 11th graders in which they study their particular crop and its challenges and then grow and market it. But because they don't have enough land, the exercise is just a demonstration. If the school could acquire a nearby farm it could turn its effort into a profitable operation that could improve the lives of many of the area's families.
The effort to have the students research and grow crops is tied to a broader program by Vallenpaz to a help those in Corinto make their crops more profitable. By greater planning and working in collectives, farmers can see a return several times than what they might otherwise get. The students at the school are seeing firsthand the role computers and the Internet can play in aiding that.
On the computer front, school officials dream of a one-to-one computing project, or at least more computers in the lab to give students more access to the PCs. When Ayala went to talk with one of the students, she was less than eager to chat. She gets only one hour a week in the lab and had a handwritten report she needed to finish typing. "She was like, 'Go away'," Ayala said.
And of course, better Internet access is also needed. Although Corinto is just 50 kilometers from Cali, the school's limited Internet access is pokey even by dial-up standards. It can take 10 or 20 minutes to load a single page.
But to many of the students that attend this school, even a modest chance to use computers is a great opportunity.
Diana, an 11th grader, noted that her two brothers were not able to finish school, while she has had the opportunity to learn much about growing crops. "It was a dream to study in this (school)," she said. "The school has taught me how to grow a crop and to handle a computer."
While one brother cares for a family of his own and another carries sacks of coffee on his back, Diana feels she has an opportunity to bring a better life to her family. "My family, they are giving me all the support to develop myself. I want to show them they have not lost their investment and they can count on me. "
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