Hewlett-Packard and the South African government have launched the first of six e-schools in the eastern region of the country – schools equipped with a HP computer lab with servers, PCs, printers, faxes, scanners and copiers as well as wireless connectivity.
The launch is part of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and HP is a leading partner in NEPAD’s e-schools project, which has brought together South Africa’s government, development agencies, civil society organisations and local and international companies. HP will also provide training in ICT skills and is sponsoring 21 schools in seven countries in the pilot phase of the project.
PricewaterhouseCoopers has launched a partnership with children’s charities ChildHope and EveryChild that involves employees of PwC spending a week working at the charities’ local partners around the world. The aim is for PwC workers to use their accountancy expertise to help small charities better handle their accounts and become more transparent.
The Institute for Philanthropy and the Institute for Family Business have teamed up to create a programme designed to train people from rich backgrounds to be philanthropists. The two-year long Next Generation Philanthropy programme for people aged 18-28 aims to “sensitise” new and future generations of donors to the important work charities do. The approach is to get groups of young, affluent people into the idea of philanthropy early on, so that they will have the knowledge, skills and inclination to redistribute their wealth later in life.
The Northern Rock Foundation, the independent grant-making arm of Northern Rock, the mortgage lender, has committed £750,000 to a seven year project that will research the scale and impact of the third sector in northern England. Through this the foundation hopes to improve the voluntary sector’s evidence base allowing comparison between regional and national programmes.
The foundation will commission the research and an invitation to tender is available on its website with the research team expected to be appointed in July. The money allocated by the foundation will cover the running costs of the research and the development of methodologies as well as data collection and analysis.
Microsoft will sell products for as little as $3 in developing countries in order to help close the digital divide and equip young people with the skills to benefit from technology.
Announced by Microsoft’s chairman, Bill Gates, in Beijing on April 19, the move is a bid to bring social and economic opportunity to 5bn people thereby facilitating education and job creation and, in turn, economic development. The company has partnered with governments, NGOs, and industry to run its Partners in Learning programme, which has enabled 722,000 teachers and students in developing countries to achieve certification in Microsoft technology.
It is through this initiative that Microsoft has now developed the Student Innovation Suite, which will be sold for $3 to governments that purchase and supply PCs directly to students. The suite will be offered in the second half of 2007 and will include Windows XP Starter Edition, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Microsoft Math 3.0, Learning Essentials 2.0 for Microsoft Office, and Windows Live Mail desktop.
The suite is an expansion of the company’s Unlimited Potential programme, which is a long-term initiative focussing on education to encourage sustainable social and economic growth.
Tesco has partnered with the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw) to combat abusive shoppers targeting Tesco staff. Posters will be placed in every Tesco storing warming customers that store employees have the right to work in a safe environment. This forms part of Usdaw’s Freedom From Fear campaign, which has reduced retail assaults and abuse over the last four years.
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