Chairman of the Guyana Chronicle Mr. Keith Burrowes says the recently launched Mastermind Quiz Website can complement Government’s One Laptop Per Family initiative (OLPF), the latter of which could prepare children to learn through the information superhighway. It is perhaps serendipitous that Mr. Burrowes’s brilliant idea takes off even as Guyana is about to embark on one of the most significant journeys into the information age – making computers accessible to the most vulnerable groups in Guyana, with a view to preparing persons for the next wave of investment, education and job opportunities that the age of the internet and IT opens up.
Burrowes is of the view that the online game he initiated could also be used to gauge the usage of computers among children of the target age of 10 to 12 years. This is so because of the nature of the software and its capacity to record and store information about each of players of the game and how they performed.
Guyana’s OLPF is in keeping with the PPP/C administration’s efforts to ensure all Guyanese are equipped for the modern world with services that include call centres, regional hosting opportunities, data for disaster recovery facilities, subscriber bandwidth services, telemedicine and distance learning.
The initiative, to be pursued in 2011 and 2012, will commence with the larger villages. For this project, Government has allocated the sum of $1.8 billion, with the target demographic being mostly less fortunate families. The Government, in executing the initiative, will take several factors into consideration to determine less fortunate sections of society, including an income test and groups such as single parents. However, the President at the launch of the programme in January said that he is prepared to use a tax-credit system to allow less-vulnerable families to benefit from the programme.

Explaining the rationale behind the project that he birthed, the President at the launching of the programme at the Guyana International Conference Centre said, “First of all, it is cost consideration. However, we think that with this instrument placed in the family, with collective ownership of this instrument, that we can achieve a number of things. First, we can achieve greater connection between the classroom and the home. Secondly, we can get the parents much more involved in the work of the children in a very interactive way. Thirdly, it enhances educational access and information available to the entire family. They can access information and communicate with people across the world using this method,” he said.

At the launch, the President also spoke of parental involvement in children’s education, something that the Mastermind Quiz Game will definitely emphasize.

The President noted that through the OLPF, parents will become much more involved in their children’s education. He said the programme would promote a more self-directed kind of learning by the children and made the point that most successful people in the world are those who learn by themselves.
The Government says that the OLPF initiative is one that will positively impact the lives of Guyanese, bringing them together, making their differences illusive while solidifying economic activities and growth. In a similar vein, the game will enhance learning among the target population and as a supplementary tool to the formal school system, it will prepare the children for a future in not only IT, but also any field of academic or technical or vocational study.
With the OLPF, there will be the benefit of rapid economic development with ICT being seen as an enabler of government administration and service delivery.
Similarly, the online quiz will prepare students in a wide range of subject areas, notwithstanding the knowledge that children can gain from responsibly browsing the internet.
Looking to the future, Burrowes said that there is scope for the further development of the online game, making it more interactive for children from all over the world and adding the tools to make this interactive journey a fun-filled one. One such idea is the addition of webcam tools and applications so that children could compete with each other while seeing each other.
Some of the other benefits of the OLPF programme are:
1.    It will propel industrial development through innovation and creativity, which will see productivity gains being realized; while the agriculture sector will see farmers having better and faster access to information about the weather, pests and procurement, among other important issues.

2.    All of the foregoing would become possible through the links associated with the fibre-optic cable that will connect Guyana to the rest of the world.

3.    In a much wider context, this initiative will see collaborative efforts of the government, planners, health professionals, and other agencies to highlight reliable, timely, high quality health information wherever the netbooks can be used to access information.

4.    This would see the strengthening of public health research and prevention programmes, while promoting men’s and women’s health, speaking particularly to HIV/ AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. The Health Ministry would be better able to monitor and control the spread of communicable diseases through the improvement of common information systems

5.    As it relates to the creation of more jobs for the people of Guyana, the initiative has as its focus providing new ways of organizing work and business, with the aim of raising productivity, growth, and wellbeing through investment in ICTs and human resources; it promotes tele-working, which will see citizens living in their respective societies and working anywhere.

6.    It is expected that persons will be anxious to learn new skills, as the feeling of low self-esteem, inferiority, failure and fear would dissipate when Guyana’s national ICT strategy is a plan to facilitate and ensure the dramatic increase in the country’s social and economic wellbeing at all levels: individual, organizational and national.

7.    It is geared to leverage and enhance Guyana’s human resources, innovation, education, and infrastructure; and information technology, to accelerate economic and social development.

8.    It is also designed to play a critical role in achieving the national development goals and in facilitating and promoting prosperity and wellbeing.

President Bharrat Jagdeo has committed to supporting the game, given that it is in tandem with the objectives of the OLPF.