Teens Work to End Digital Divide in Jamaican Schools

In the spring of 2001, Anders Jones — who was then a 14-year-old junior-high school student from Boston, Massachusetts — took a vacation to Jamaica with his father. On a drive across the island, Jones chatted with a local cab driver, whose two young children attended Mountain View Primary School in the island country's capital city of Kingston.

Jones was shocked when the cab driver mentioned that Mountain View Primary had just one computer for its 850 children, considering that Jones' own school in the United States had roughly 200 computers for 850 students. "It was my first time in the developing world," said Jones, "and I'd never really understood that there was such a disparity."

This disparity inspired Jones to form Teens For Technology, a nonprofit organization that distributes computers to Jamaican schools. What started as an idea to help one school has blossomed into an ambitious organization that has already provided computer labs for 150 Jamaican schools. By the end of 2007, the organization plans to equip every school on the island with a functional computer lab.

Jones, now a 19-year-old sophomore at Stanford University, believes that providing children in developing countries with computers plays a critical role in their future and in helping them to achieve their true potential.

"I strongly believe that in the next 10 years there won't be a job that doesn't require the use of a computer in some way," Jones said. "And anyone who doesn't have access to that technology now is going to fall behind. There is no reason that the next Bill Gates isn't in one of those [Jamaican] schools."

Teens For Technology founder Anders Jones assists students in the computer lab at Jamaica’s Mountain View Primary School.

The First Step: Helping One School

After he returned from his 2001 vacation, Jones considered donating one of his family's old computers to Mountain View Primary School. But after a phone conversation with the school's principal, he realized that a lack of hardware was only part of the problem; the school also needed software, space to house a computer lab, and a curriculum to teach the students. Jones promised that if the Mountain View school could find a space for the lab, he would take care of the rest.

Jones enlisted the assistance of a few of his friends to help raise funds — mostly from friends and family — to finance the equipment necessary for Mountain View Primary's computer lab. The group came across a large-scale Boston-area computer refurbisher, which allowed them to not only buy computers at fairly inexpensive prices but also to help prevent electronic waste.

"This [buying from a refurbisher] seemed to solve two problems at once," stated Jones, "which is that there are 35 million computers thrown away every year in the U.S., and at the same time, there are 4 billion people in the developing world that don't have access to computers."

Along the way, the teenagers also formed partnerships with corporations such as Air Jamaica, which flies the computers to the island free of cost, and Microsoft, which donates software. Jones recalled that the he and his friends initially made contact with companies simply by cold calling them or going through their parents' Rolodexes.

By 2002, the teenagers had raised enough money to purchase the equipment for Mountain View Primary's computer lab and had already flown several of the school's teachers to Boston for technology training. Once the school had finished building the structure that would house the lab, the teenagers traveled to Jamaica with 12 refurbished computers and 75 pieces of software.

To mark the opening of the lab, the community surrounding Mountain View Primary held a celebration. Jones was struck by the amount of people who attended and the impact that the computer lab had on them. "We were blown away," Jones said. "It obviously meant so much to them."

Refurbished computers, some headed to a school in Montego Bay, fill Teens For Technology's Kingston office.

The Next Step: One Hundred Schools

After witnessing the community's reaction to Mountain View's computer lab, Jones and his friends decided to replicate the program at other Jamaican schools, which made sense because they already had partners and a working business model.

"There are 752 schools in Jamaica, and almost all of them needed computers," Jones said. "We couldn't really stop there."

The teenagers set a goal to deliver equipment needed to set up computer labs — each with 10 computers and 70 pieces of software — to 100 Jamaican schools by 2006.

But as they expanded the program, they found themselves dealing with Jamaican government officials. Jones believes the fact that he and his friends were American worked to their benefit, as they had no allegiance to either of the two opposing political parties in Jamaica.

"To side with one side over the other is a recipe for disaster because you're only going to get to half of the population," Jones said. "I think part of the reason we were successful was because we were teenagers coming in from the U.S. with no axe to grind."

As they prepared to widely distribute computers across Jamaica, the teenagers set up an office in Kingston and hired a few locals to help them run the operation. In 2003, the teenagers' organization — which they named Teens For Technology — became an official U.S. 501(c)3 nonprofit.

To help cover the costs of each $10,000 lab, Teens For Technology asks that each school contribute $1,500. Jones relayed stories of grassroots fundraising events Jamaican communities have held to raise the money, including selling juice on the street and holding gospel concerts.

In addition to having to find a facility or classroom to house the lab, schools that wish to participate in the program must be willing to assist other local schools with their technology questions. Schools are also required to have a teacher on staff who is capable of teaching a technology curriculum. Jones said that many of the teachers in Jamaica are not only quite technically proficient, but are also excited about getting computer labs in their schools.

"I always liken it to a soccer team that's out on the field and ready to play and we're just putting the ball down for them," said Jones.

Schools that meet the program's criteria generally pick up their Pentium III computers and peripherals — including monitors, speakers, keyboards, and mice — at Teens for Technology's headquarters in Kingston. Schools also receive copies of the Windows XP operating system and the Office Suite, both of which are donated by Microsoft. Additional software, such as Knowledge Adventure Math Blaster and Encyclopedia Britannica, is provided by Teens For Technology, which buys the products in bulk at discounted rates.

Though Teens For Technology's employees in Kingston install all the software on the machines before the schools receive them, they do not physically set up the labs. However, the Jamaican staffers are available to help schools solve problems they might encounter, as well as to replace or fix computers that happen to expire.

In 2004, two years ahead of schedule, Teens For Technology completed its goal of putting computer labs in 100 Jamaican schools. "The fact that we could do it two years ahead of time was a big newsmaker down there," said Jones, "and gave us a lot of credibility and a lot of momentum."

Four Jamaican Students at the York Street Primary check out a computer in their school’s lab.

A Computer Lab in Every Jamaican School

After successfully equipping 100 Jamaican schools with computers, Teens For Technology took its concept to the next level: bringing 10,000 computers to the island, with the ultimate goal of providing every school in Jamaica with a lab. This current project — dubbed 10K for JA — will also provide an extra 3,000 computers so that schools can replace older machines in their labs.

Although the organization initially had to do public-relations work to convince some schools that the program was legitimate, the overall response has been overwhelmingly positive. Currently, Jones estimates that there about 160 Jamaican schools on a waiting list to receive equipment.

Looking Toward the Future

One problem Teens For Technology hopes to solve in the course of the 10K for JA program is how to bring Internet access to many of the schools that have already received computer labs. Because Internet service is much more expensive in Jamaica than it is in the United States, Teens For Technology cannot offer access as part of its computer-lab package. Although some schools have taken it upon themselves to purchase Internet service, Jones explained that he is currently working with several Jamaican Internet service providers to work out a deal where schools might receive free or discounted Internet access.

Teens For Technology has been purchasing equipment from the same computer refurbisher since 2002, but the organization is working to solicit donated computers from large corporations. By obtaining older corporate computers and having them refurbished, Jones estimates that the organization can save 50 percent on each computer, allowing it to double the amount of computers it can distribute.

Completing the 10K for JA program remains Teens For Technology's primary focus, but the organization has already begun looking into replicating the program in developing Asian nations such as Thailand and Pakistan. "It's a lot more difficult than I originally thought," said Jones. "[These are] totally different cultures, but it's still definitely doable."

Even though they are now scattered across the country attending various colleges, Teens For Technology's founders still find time to stay in touch and keep the organization running smoothly. Jones notes the importance of technology to the founders themselves, explaining that they frequently communicate via email and conference calls.

Having already placed almost 3,000 computers in Jamaican schools — with more on the way — Teens For Technology has provided 250,000 Jamaican children with an educational opportunity that they might not otherwise have received. In Jones's opinion, the founders' youthful idealism ended up playing a major role in the organization's success.

"I think the fact that we were 13 years old, and that we did think that we could do this, and that we were going to try before we said it wasn't going to work is part of the reason why it has worked so well," said Jones.