1. OLPC LEARNING
TEAM
IN RWANDA
REPORT
March to mid-April
2010

2. Our Goals
• Create strong exemplars of what children can accomplish with one
laptop per child
• Provide guidance to government on strategy and implementation
• Develop technical and educational capacity at all levels
• Support new countries in the region

3. OLPC Learning Team in
David Cavallo, Vice President of Learning
Dusengiyumva Samuel, Regional Country Director
Intwali Parfait Jimmy, Learning Development Officer
One Laptop Per
Joy Ventura Riach, Manager, Africa Regional Center Child Association
- Rwanda, KIST 1
Julia Reynolds, Learning Field and Development Building, 1st Floor,
Coordinator
Room M 102
Juliano Bittencourt, Learning Development Program Kigali, Rwanda
Manager
Melissa Henriquez, Learning Development Officer
Rwagaju Desire, Learning Development Officer
Silvia Kist, Learning Development Specialist

4. Ongoing Work and
March to mid-April 2010
Teacher training and work with children at the showcase schools: Nonko,
Kagugu and ESCAF on Wednesdays and Fridays.
Working on Awareness Program for OLPC in Rwanda.
Develop strategy, policy, and implementation plans with Mr. Nkubito
Bakuramutsa, Rwandan OLPC Coordinator and Mr. Richard Niyonkura, M&E
Advisor for ICT Projects, Ministry of Education.

5. March Activities
March 13 - Rwanda: Finance Requests for Additional Rwf60 Billion
(to support OLPC in Rwanda)
March 14 - Created Center for Laptops and Learning Blog.
** We are working on organizing our social networking environments
into one flow of communication (per April 22 OLPC Learning Chat) and
outreach.
Sergio Romero’s visit March 16-23.

6. Meeting with Minister Charles Murigande and Mr. Peter Beaumont,
Foreign Affairs Editor at the Observer/Guardian.
March 18 - Created olpcrwanda.
March 19 – Attended the SOS Primary School ceremony of receiving 150
XO laptops.
State Minister in charge of Primary and Secondary
Education,
Dr. Mathias Harebamungu
Dr. Mathias Harebamungu introduces David

7. Meeting with State Minister in charge of Primary and Secondary
Education,
Dr. Mathias Harebamungu.
March 20 – In addition to OLPC Learning Team meetings, we began the
OLPC Learning Seminar weekly meetings – discussion of articles
recommended by David.
Articles:
Richard Feynman: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
Seymour Papert: The Gears of my Childhood
During the weekly meetings for the OLPC Learning Team, I work directly
with Julia, Desire, Jimmy and Melissa on their weekly reporting. Desire
and Jimmy graduated in March from the Kigali Institute of Science and
Technology. I am leading the junior members of our team to develop
their capacity to run OLPC initiatives.
March 22 – Meeting with Mr. Jon Rosen, reporter for Global Post:
Rwanda’s schoolyard tech.
Local Internship Program: building capacity for students in terms of the
use of the XO laptops in learning and teaching in schools having
laptops.

8. March 24 – UN Delegation (UNDP, Unicef, World Food Program,
World Bank) visited Kagugu Primary School. The OLPC Learning team
attended this meeting where the children demonstrated their work.
Rwandan government requested additional funds from UN agencies
to support OLPC in Rwanda.

9. March 27 – 28 - Meeting with Jean Claude Bimpa, ASDIS –
Universelle Goma – DRC (Congo). Mr. Bimba and his colleagues
came to Kigali.
March 28 – Peter Beaumont’s article published in Sunday Observer
(London): Rwanda’s laptop revolution.
Before March 31 – OLPC INGO registration materials submitted.
OLPC Learning Team is preparing work on Malaria and research for
Teacher Training and working with children in the following schools:
Rwamagana, Nonko, Kagugu on April 5-16. ** Please note that the
training is scheduled during the Genocide Memorial Remembrance
Week and schools are closed during these two weeks.
Weekly OLPC Learning chats on Thursdays – Among the Learning
experts, we decided to have both English and Spanish chats. David
also started preparing papers for discussion topics. It is our plan to
summarize the chat transcripts and post to our blog.

10. March 29 – Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) visited Kagugu
Primary School. The OLPC Learning team attended this meeting. The
children demonstrated their work. PAC is influential with President
Kagame for policy and practice. PAC extremely impressed with work
at showcase schools.

11. April Activities
Student Interns from Carnegie Mellon University: working with CMU
student interns to coordinate their visit and service work to help with
the XO initiative - Project Rwanda Summit (May 13 - May 23). The ten
students are coming from CMU at Pittsburgh, PA and CMU in Qatar,
Education City, and Doha, Qatar.
April 2-4 – David, Sam and Joy met with Mr. Jean Claude Bimpa, ASDIS –
Universelle, Goma –DRC and his colleagues in Goma. We also met with
the Regional Minister of Education.

12. Samuel Dusengiyumva’s blog
Genocide Remembrance Week