MIT Students Bring IT Education to BeeHive

A team of engineering students from MIT is currently working to expand Beehive's core curriculum with a sustained IT class. Justin Cannon, Christina Kang, Leanne Veldhuis, and Paul Yang have worked intimately with the Beehive community over the last several months to come up with a plan that will bring quality IT education to the school. Angela Mjojo, senior economist at the Reserve Bank of Malawi and current MIT fellow, is advising the team in hopes of creating lasting links between future MIT students and Malawi. The work comes as part of MIT's new Information and Communication Technology for Development class that has led eight teams in creating ICT solutions for tough problems in the developing world.

Niall Dorey, the school's founder and director, is very excited to work with the MIT team. He envisions an IT class that is as fundamental to Beehive's curriculum as math or history. "Computers are the way forward," he says. "If we want to compete on an international scale, if we want these children to be able to cope within any environment, then they need to have experience with computers at this age."

Justin recently returned from Mzuzu, where he spent his Spring Break getting to know the school and interviewing the local community. He returned to Boston eager to implement the project this summer. "It's clear to me after having visited that there is real opportunity to make a profound impact. In speaking with Beehive teachers, parents, students and even some outside of the Beehive community, I found a uniform enthusiasm for providing IT education at the primary level."

The Beehive team, in addition to working tirelessly to secure funding and computer equipment so that they can implement their project over the summer, have focused their attention on building a faux Internet system that will allow students to browse web content over a local network. Internet access is prohibitively expensive in Malawi; the technology will allow students to familiarize themselves with the Internet while the country's infrastructure develops. Niall thinks these skills will be a huge asset for his students in Malawi's meager job market.

Currently, the Beehive team is looking for computer donations or funding to expand the scant Beehive computer lab to host an entire class of students at one time. They will be returning in June to implement their project. Equipped with the necessary equipment and the expertise of MIT students, Niall is hoping to cement the project's impact by hiring a full-time, Malawian IT teacher.

To learn more about the project, you can get in touch with the MIT team at beehive@mit.edu.

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