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Back home [2023-10-19]

Hard to believe that the 2023 Tanzania trip is already in the rear-view mirror.  The time always goes so fast!  We are so grateful to Reneal Team Tanzania for helping us achieve our goals for the time in Arusha.  Neal got the updates finished at the three schools with MacBook labs and got an exciting new capability deployed at Mlangarini Secondary School.  Country Director David Nyangaka delivered Teacher-in-a-Box servers to schools in Babati District.  Together with our Team we did a lot of laptop repairs.  We met with our partners at Arusha Node Marie, Terrawatu, and A is for Africa, as well as with many local government officials who support Reneal’s work.  Neal taught a seminar at a local IT college on using AI in programming.  Overall it was a busy and productive trip!

One highlight was weekly Team meetings.  New Team members James Ngahemelwa and Juma Mshihiri have been with Reneal since January, but this was our first chance to meet them in person.  We also welcomed Jastin Msechu to the Reneal Team.  Along with Robert Nyangaka, Erick Mneney, and Ashura Hamis, each member has assigned roles according to their particular skills: logistics, installation, troubleshooting, training, training design, and media.  It is a very strong Team and we are thrilled to have such talented, energetic people working together with David!  We are especially excited to see what the Training Design Team of James and Jastin develop.  We are hopeful that through their work, students and teachers will be able to achieve more learning from the system.

Neal and Erick got a small computer installed at our partner Habari Node’s office.  This gives better connectivity between Neal’s office in California and the servers in Tanzania.  Habari Node and Arusha Node Marie also provide space for Reneal’s Warehouse, which is managed by Ashura.  It’s a big help to have local spares to keep things running.  I also met with the Tanzania leaders of Terrawatu.  Reneal is excited to be partnering with Terrawatu on some computer projects in the Arusha area.  We already have a joint computer lab project installed at Moshono Secondary School and have a second one planned for later this year at Mkonoo Secondary School.

David traveled to Babati to turn over the Teacher-in-a-Box servers to schools.  These servers are loaded with educational content that is accessible through a wireless router to teachers’ phones and tablets.  These systems were very well-received, and we are so grateful to our donor Apto Solutions for supplying the hardware to make these deployments possible!  We look forward to preparing more of these systems for shipment later this year.

Neal did a three-part seminar on using AI in programming for the students at JR Institute of Information Technology in Arusha.  He wasn’t sure what to expect, but there were about 15 keenly interested students who participated. 
 
Neal, Robert, and Erick visited the MacBook labs to check out everything and test the updates.  Neal’s software development work for Mlangarini Secondary School took a lot of his time while we were in Arusha, but it was time well spent.  The students at Mlangarini are learning about webpage design, so Neal set up a separate database and webserver in their system for easier development and file management.  He is hoping to generalize this and push it to all of the other Reneal servers in 2024.  While Neal was working on software, Juma and I were troubleshooting laptops brought in by schools for repairs.

As usual, we had a Team celebration at the end of our time in Arusha.  In a stroke of luck, we were joined by Rick Smith from A is for Africa as well as AIFA’s local partner Mr. Lang’o, head of school at Matim Primary.

Now we are excitedly awaiting the 2023 Phase 2 work, thanks to another generous donation of computer equipment from Apto Solutions.  Reneal’s Team expects to install new computer labs at nine new government secondary schools, thanks to this donation!  THANKS APTO SOLUTIONS!

[Photos: Reneal Team Tanzania, meeting with our partners Angella, Boris, and Boniface at Terrawatu]