By David Muwanga

MAENDELO Foundation, a Ugandan information technology (IT) company has won the Inspire Empower Challenge Award worth $100,000 (about sh220m) for operating a mobile solar computer classroom (MSCC).

Eric Morrow, the executive director, said the foundation won the award for introducing computers to local schools, many of which lack electricity.

“MSCC is a solar-powered, mobile computer classroom consisting of a modified sports utility vehicle, three 65 watt solar panels and a battery.”
“It is also composed of 15 Intel-powered classmate personal computers and a foldable tent with folding tables and chairs,” he said in a statement.

Morrow said the mobile classroom visits the same schools every week and trains more than 100 students to operate Windows-based computers and use the Internet.
“The goal of MSCC is to provide students new opportunities in information technology and open doors to better paying jobs.”

He said the solar-powered computer-lab-on-wheels had been operating in Uganda for the past year.

“We have taught about 1,300 and over 100 teachers,” Morrow said.

The competition, which was organised by the US-based Intel Corporation, also gave the same award to Kenya-based Great Lakes Cassava Initiative (GLCI).

It is a pilot project that uses laptops to help cassava farmers increase food availability and incomes.
Millions of families in east and central Africa rely on cassava as a primary food source but the cassava mosaic disease and cassava brown streak are wiping out fields across the region.

“This is a threat to food security and incomes of cassava-dependent farming families in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.”

The GLCI aims at helping 1.15 million farmers identify key cassava diseases, grow disease-resistant varieties, and ultimately, replant healthy fields.

The laptops facilitate information exchange among farmers, field agents and project managers and support remote distribution of training modules.

The laptops will also be used to improve disease monitoring through automatic data transfers when the computers are connected to the Internet.

“The winners of the four $100,000 prizes were evaluated primarily for impact sustainability and innovativeness.”

“The prize money will be used for implementation of solutions,” Intel’s chairman Craig Barret said.