PENN TEAM AWARDED $1 MILLION FOR EFFORTS TO BRIDGE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE WITH COMPUTING INFRASTRUCTURE IN GHANA

PHILADELPHIA - Engineering faculty and students at the University of Pennsylvania and an African university have received a grant of Hewlett-Packard equipment and services totaling $1.12 million to lay the foundation for a high-speed information and communication infrastructure in the West African nation of Ghana.

The award represents a breakthrough in the grassroots efforts of Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science to bridge the global digital divide, efforts believed to be the most extensive and concrete undertaken by an American institution of higher education involving undergraduates in the field. In three years, Penn Engineering students and their professors have created computer laboratories in four developing nations as well as impoverished areas of the university's home city, Philadelphia.

"Few events have a more positive effect on a community than the arrival of digital technology and the web; they are the loudest heralds of progress and global inclusion," said Penn Engineering Dean Eduardo D. Glandt. "This program will empower individuals and change their lives. We are extremely fortunate to be able to participate in it."

Much has been said and written about the "digital divide" that separates the world's wealthier people, who have come to rely upon the Internet for information critical to their business and personal lives, and poorer citizens without access to these revolutionary technologies. Beyond bringing its resources to bear in tackling this worldwide problem, Penn Engineering is providing undergraduates an opportunity to learn hands-on about both information technology and the cross-cultural dynamics increasingly important to the global workforce.

"Many of the students who have traveled overseas to work on these computer centers have told me that it has forever changed their lives," said electrical engineering professor Sohrab Rabii, faculty leader of Penn Engineering's digital divide initiatives in Ghana and other African nations. "At the age of 20 or 22, being involved in an effort like this can have a profound impact on one's outlook and direction in life."

The Hewlett-Packard award, to be administered jointly by Penn and Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), will develop a computing infrastructure at KNUST and community technology centers (CTC's) in Kumasi, Ghana's second-largest city, and in the country's Eastern Region. Hewlett-Packard and their local business representative CIS (Computer Information Systems) will work with KNUST and Ghana Telecom in the coming months to put in place high-speed fiber optic lines. The CTC's will be supervised and monitored by Community Services Foundation (CSF), a non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Ghana.

Next summer, a team of Penn Engineering undergraduates will travel to Ghana to offer a train-the-trainer program on basic computer usage. Additionally, they will offer a training program in systems administration, including computer repair and maintenance, at each CTC location. Through these training initiatives, over 100 local citizens will be directly impacted, enabling them to impact thousands of others through the CTC's for years to come.

In addition to Penn Engineering, the International Literacy Institute (ILI) at Penn has joined in the effort and will collaborate in developing the train-the-trainer curricula.

Next summer's efforts will build upon a 30-station computer lab created at KNUST last summer by Penn Engineering and KNUST students using technology donated to Penn by national and local businesses. It's hoped that Ghana, where annual per capita income hovers around $400, will eventually boast 50 such centers. E. Kwame Obeng, an alumnus of KNUST who is a parent of a Penn Engineering undergraduate and a key leader in this initiative, adds that "this HP Digital Villages grant will make a deep and significant impact in Ghana in education, community health, the growth of the business sector, and will greatly accelerate the pace of social and economic development in general."

Since the first computer center was built three years ago in Ecuador, some 60 Penn undergraduates have traveled overseas to help set up facilities there and in India, Mali and Ghana. Another 150 have worked from Philadelphia to implement local projects and in support of the global programs, which routinely fields four times as many technology-savvy applicants as there are slots available on trips to developing nations.

"In addition to enabling our undergraduates to gain a priceless educational experience, we regard this as a small way for Penn Engineering to serve the global community," said Joseph Sun, the school's director of academic affairs and the person who has spearheaded the school's technology-based service learning initiatives. "This is our version of being a good citizen of the world."

To date, the initiative has been cobbled together with used computer equipment, university support, and students willing to foot part of the bill to spend a summer installing computers in faraway parts of the world. Donations of surplus computer equipment have come from Philadelphia's business community, including Keystone Mercy Health Plan and Cozen and O'Connor, and from computer giants such as 3Com, Microsoft, and of course HP to cover the hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of computers, servers, modems and other materials needed for each facility. Additionally, funds have been raised from local and national sources to cover the costs of each of service programs overseas.

Rabii and Sun hope that the Hewlett-Packard support portends a new, more potent phase of Penn Engineering's efforts to narrow the digital divide. Rabii and Sun are communicating with officials in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and South Africa who would like to replicate last summer's efforts in nearby Mali and Ghana.

"When we set up computer facilities overseas, we consult with local scientists, community leaders, and officials to determine what people in these countries want and need," Rabii said. "We don't want to go in and impose a setup that we think will work, because those facilities will quickly fall into disuse."

Sun said that with the growth of globalization in virtually every industry, increasing numbers of engineering undergraduates and companies view cross-cultural experiences as an asset. Additionally, experiences of this kind expand the students' awareness of the social, economic, and educational impact technology can make in civil society.

Hewlett-Packard's support comes via the company's Digital Villages program, which aims to help communities in developing nations and in the U.S. harness technology in collaboration with schools, universities, governments, community services, nonprofit organizations and small businesses.