Leading African NGO widens access to e-learning for nomadic herdspeople in Kenya with NComputing desktop virtualization

Windhoek, Namibia UK – May 29, 2013 – At this year’s eLearning Africa conference, NComputing, the leader in accelerating the adoption of desktop virtualisation, today reported on the latest customer successes using its desktop virtualisation solutions to increase access to high quality Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and e-learning in Africa.

NComputing’s desktop virtualisation technology helps African schools, colleges and universities overcome the key challenges related to building and sustaining high quality ICT infrastructure, including limited access to electricity, financial resources and shortage of IT skills.

Among the latest customers is Dupoto-e-Maa, an African non-governmental organisation (NGO) specialising in the promotion of education and economic development for pastoralist communities of traditional herdspeople raising livestock on a large scale in Kenya. The organisation focuses on the role of ICT in education, using NComputing vSpace end-to-end desktop virtualisation solutions to support a range of key projects aimed at improving access to e-learning in remote rural areas.

Dupoto chose NComputing because its desktop virtualisation technology provided an affordable, flexible solution for equipping classrooms, computer laboratories and staff rooms. In addition to being a more cost-effective alternative to large scale PC implementations, the solution enables Dupoto to provide students and teachers with a high quality e-learning experience without the requirement for on-site technical support, while the technology’s low power consumption is ideal for locations where power supplies aren’t reliable.

So far Dupoto has implemented NComputing thin client solutions at five schools and this is set to double by the end of the year. Keith Kosdine, Project Officer ICT at Dupoto states that, “hopefully by the end of this year we will have installed six more NComputing implementations and next year we’ll set up a lab. We’re almost halfway down the line since we implemented the solutions in these schools and so far so good.”

Among the Dupoto projects using NComputing solutions are:

AIC Boarding School
AIC boarding school, based in Kenya, has seen a wealth of improvement to their teachers’ working lives with the introduction of NComputing solutions. With classes sometimes surpassing 120 students and tasks having to be manually completed, teachers struggled with managing the education process effectively. Now AIC has taken the first step in improving access to ICT for its 700 pupils thanks to a donation of laptops and vSpace virtual desktop solutions from Dupoto.

Teachers are now ICT literate and tasks that had previously taken three to four days now take less than an hour, allowing them to give greater focus to improving the pupils’ learning experience. Helen Inoti, ICT teacher at AIC, also commented that this technology makes lessons “much easier, it is enjoyable, all the teachers are using it and it’s fun.” The new technology means teachers can easily compile lesson plans and exam results, as well as download information for the pupils and use video clips to enhance their lessons.