Zanzibits Support

Official homepage: http://zanzicode.com
Parties Involved:

- ICT4D.at

- MeWe Open Source South Africa/UK

- Zanzibits

Status Quo:

Zanzibits is a multimedia school located in Zanzibar Town, Tanzania, that educates young adults who come from a poor background in the use of computer based multimedia techniques. This education is limited to the use of predefined tools like photoshop and dreamweaver and does not provide the theoretical and practical internals of programming from scratch. Some students already have a little experience in the programming world and are glad to have a proper education that Zanzibits can't provide.

Project Vision:

We are complementing the students given education by providing a "master class" for selected students, so that they can get a deeper understanding of the field of software systems and learn how to design and program real world applications. The course follows an exclusively designed curriculum which contains hand selected material and patterns from academic resources. The course will be held in summer 2009 from July to September (3 months) and will be 3 hours a day from Monday to Friday each week. At the end, a participating student will have a basic toolbox containing software systems which can be customized and utilized further in his/her future work life so the student does not have to start from scratch. Participating students are well connected to the academic community and to user groups of the thought systems, so they can easily go further in learning. We have a strong focus on Open Source and open standards.

The Curriculum:

Linux installation (Ubuntu), administration, networking, WWW standards, basic programming, object oriented programming: PHP with wordpress, mediawiki, TYPO3; python with django and Google App Engine; Java with Google Web Toolkit GWT, tomcat, JPA and JME; Document management with Google Docs and wikis

Teachers 2009:

Daniel Hamm - Basic and OO programming, PHP - from the beginning of July to the mid of August

Fritz Grabo - second iteration from October to end of December

Funding:

ICT4D.at covers all costs to bring the teachers to Zanzibar, permits, accommodation, food, and laptops of the teachers. We have an agent who is taking care and organizing accommodations in Zanzibar.

Zanzibits Contribution:

Zanzibits is providing the classroom and one computer per student, (on which we can install Linux and the development tools). Zanzibits will also provide the students who have had some interaction with computers and who are willing to learn. Zanzibits will not apply for working permits for the teachers, so nobody does. (If then costs for permit come up, it will be covered by ICT4D.at).

Preparations:

The teachers currently take a Swahili course in Vienna with 15 lessons each 1.5 hours held by an experienced lecturer. The teachers will be brought to Zanzibar by Martin Konzett, who has been there several times, and will help introduce them to the local habits and culture.

Contracting:

At the moment we do not need a formal contract, but if you are interested in setting something up, we will be happy to sign up and contribute.