TURNING DIGITAL NATIVES INTO REALITY

“For every child a book”. A movement that has changed over the past decade to “one laptop per child” and now, with the COVID-19 pandemic even more so, “connectivity for every child.”

Education without connectivity is unthinkable for some of us; however “Two thirds of the world’s school-age children – or 1.3 billion children aged 3 to 17 years old – do not have internet connection in their homes” (UNICEF-ITU, 2020).

In Latin America, about 49% of school aged children do not have internet connectivity at home.

That is why it is even more important to ensure that schools have good internet connectivity especially now when these children will slowly start going back to school. Connecting the unconnected becomes a whole new level of importance when it is about children and youth. Without connectivity, they have much less opportunities for their futures.

One municipality where the impact of not being connected was an everyday reality is La Jagua de Ibirico, a municipality in the north east of Colombia.

The municipality was founded in 1979 with a small budget, and the new municipality was practically deprived of many elementary public services. The region is very rich in coal and has experienced some economic growth over the past decades, however some difficulties with public services remained, one of them being internet connectivity, particularly in schools.

Hence, DeFuTech was the perfect partner to turn “Nativos Digitales” into reality. Our WiBACK technology is a cost effective and easy-to-maintain technology to provide internet connectivity in such areas. Through joint efforts, we were able to turn the project into a success.

On that account, DeFuTech joined hands with Blazing Soft, Colombia to distribute, market, and assemble their WiBACK technology in Colombia. We provided technical support for Blazing Soft to implement our vision of inclusive innovation. Blazing soft connected us to the project “Nativos Digitales”- Digital Natives, a Colombian national development strategy that aims at closing the digital gap and improving the quality of education for Colombia’s youth and children.

The aim was to create 21 interactive classrooms in 12 institutions of la Jagua de Ibirico, distributed between urban and rural areas with the idea to support teachers to prepare their students for a digital future and to bridge the gap between “digital migrants” and “digital natives”. Perfectly matching with DeFuTechs vision and mission.

These digital classrooms follow an innovative educational approach: Learning by playing in a fully digital environment to awaken curiosity and stimulate the students to learn on their own. Changing the school environment an providing these kids with access to computers and the internet is expected to drastically decrease the number of school drop outs and lead to a significant increase in the quality of the education itself.

Connectivity for every child, a vision to which the municipality of la Jagua de Ibirico is now one step closer, thanks to the national development strategy “Nativos Digitales” and their collaboration with DeFuTech.

Let’s continue to connect the unconnected. Get in touch

Do you want to learn more about the project? Watch this video!