Room to Read

From the Room to Read website:

"Room to Read partners with local communities throughout the developing world to establish schools, libraries, and other educational infrastructure. We seek to intervene early in the lives of children in the belief that education is a lifelong gift that empowers people to ultimately improve socioeconomic conditions for their families, communities, countries, and future generations. Through the opportunities that only an education can provide, we strive to break the cycle of poverty, one child at a time.
Results to Date

Since our inception in 2000, Room to Read has impacted the lives of over 1,134,000 children by:

* Constructing 221 schools
* Establishing over 3,374 libraries
* Publishing 99 new local language children's titles representing over 930,000 books
* Donating over 1.2 million English language children's books
* Funding 2,344 long-terms girls' scholarships
* Establishing 108 computer and language labs

Vision for the Future

Room to Read's vision is bold - to help 10 million children in the developing world gain the lifelong gift of education. Through our work, we will reach tens of thousands of communities in the developing world through Room to Read schools, scholarships, and libraries, and whole generations will have more opportunity and greater access to education than their parents. Through our work, many more children in the developing world will grow up to have jobs and be able to invest in the future of their own country. Through our work, Room to Read will be among the leaders in building, measuring, and evaluating education programs around the world. Our donors will be continually inspired because they be able to see a direct link between their investment and positive changes in the lives of children.

Strategic planning is core to the ongoing success and sustainability of Room to Read. In 2005 and 2006, the Management Team, Staff and Board of Directors of Room to Read worked diligently to create a plan that will direct our initiatives and energies for the next five years. Adopted in July 2006, the Strategic Plan provides a blueprint for a better world - a world in which millions of children throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America gain access to schools, libraries, books, teachers and computers; a world that is forever changed by the empowerment and self-sufficiency that only education can provide.

Our goals include:
Geographic Expansion

There are more than 770 million illiterate adults in the world - two-thirds of whom are women and girls. In addition, there are over 100 million children not currently enrolled in primary school and millions of others not currently in secondary school. The need for Room to Read's educational programs spans the globe. To respond to this worldwide demand for our programs, Room to Read is committed to expanding geographically. Our expansion plans include:

* Africa - In 2006, Room to Read is launching onto the continent of Africa by opening operations in South Africa. Our goal is to be in at least four countries in Africa by 2010.
* Latin America - Recognizing the need for educational infrastructure throughout the developing world, we plan to launch into Latin America in 2008. Although no countries have been selected yet, our goal is to be in a total of three Latin American countries by 2010.
* Continued Expansion within Asia - As we expand into Africa and Latin America, we will also maintain our commitment to expanding our reach within the countries we are currently operating in Asia. Additionally we will launch into two new countries in Asia by 2010.

Ensuring the Quality of Our Programs

Room to Read is dedicated to transparency, performance and innovation. As we expand into new geographies, it is critical that we ensure our programs are of the highest quality and are run effectively and efficiently. To this end, we will continue to develop and invest in systems to monitor and evaluate our work, while at the same time implement our programs in a flexible manner to best fit the local context. By using international tools that provide a standard monitoring system across the organization and hiring external evaluators to judge our results, Room to Read will continue to invest in the critical components needed to deliver excellent educational programs.

Building Our Capacity

A strong organizational foundation is critical to sustaining Room to Read's growth and impact. We are committed to creating well-codified business processes, ensuring we have the proper management structure and global staff in place to create world-class communications and technology infrastructure. In this way, we will be able to continue to offer quality programs to more children, in more countries, over many generations.

We hope you will join us in this bold new vision for the future of Room to Read!"

Simple software to help you get organized

37signals has created a new set of software designed to enhance your productivity while simplifying your life. Pretty cool.


“Basecamp and Backpack were awarded Best of the Web 2005 awards by the editors of BusinessWeek.”
-BusinessWeek

“37signals is the best little web company of 2005 (Yahoo was the best big web company of 2005)”
-Richard MacManus, Best Web Companies and Innovators of 2005

“37signals’ Basecamp and Backpack are the future of software on the web.”
-Farhad Manjoo, Salon.com Cover Story

“The best example [of online organizer tools] is a service called Backpack (which has been drawing attention among bloggers who focus on productivity tips).”
-Thomas Weber, Wall Street Journal story

Muammar el-Qaddafi buys into $100 laptops

The New York Times reports:

"The government of Libya reached an agreement on Tuesday with One Laptop Per Child, a nonprofit United States group developing an inexpensive, educational laptop computer, with the goal of supplying machines to all 1.2 million Libyan schoolchildren by June 2008."

I've been a fan of Nicholas Negroponte's since I started reading his column in Wired Magazine in the mid-1990s. Negroponte is the founder of the One Laptop Per Child Initiative. What I didn't realize is that United States Intelligence Director, John D. Negroponte, is his brother!

Maybe the Intelligence Director should solicit some of the advice of Nicholas' colleagues at the MIT Media Lab on how to streamline the cumbersome U.S. intelligence computer systems.

[Photo copyright Thomas A. Bass 1995]

the inner life of the cell

via information aesthetics

BumpTop ProtoType

"BumpTop aims to enrich the desktop metaphor with expressive, lightweight techniques found in the real world."

Strange Clouds

check them out

and The Cloud Appreciation Society

UNESCO and the Millennium Development Goals

"World leaders gathered at the Millennium summit agreed on these goals in 2000, and they were reaffirmed last year. They represent a major challenge for the nations of the world, and UNESCO is doing its part to help assure that they are met."

UNESCO In the Spotlight: Education and Culture

Check out the UNESCO website on its support for the MDGs.