A milestone for CHPC's graduates in basic computer hardware and software

Graduation day came on 30 May 2009 for the first group of 10 learners in the Western Cape who successfully completed the CHPC's basic computer hardware and software course. In partnership with Western Cape department of education and the South Africa Computer Olympiad, the CHPC hosted this course for 10 learners from schools in previously disadvantaged communities.

The 10 learners were the stars of the day at the awards event, which was attended by 38 people - proud parents, educators, representatives of the Western Cape department of education and the Computer Olympiad, as well as CHPC staff. All the learners received a certificate signed by CHPC head of research, Professor Colin Wright, and the computers they each built. The top learner, Kyle van Vuuren from Lvingstone High School, also received a Samsung cellphone donated by MTN.

The course commenced in February 2009; learners were required to attend about ten days of 'school on Saturdays'. They were taken through sessions on building a computer from scratch, installing Ubuntu Linux, working with Linux and OpenOffice, and an introduction to Python programming.

Explaining the rationale for this pilot project, CHPC researcher Dr Daniel Moeketsi notes, "It has been exciting to see how eagerly these learners have taken up the challenge of getting to know the power of computers and how they work. I believe that this knowledge will empower them for now and into the future." By stimulating interest and providing this training in how to use computers, it is hoped that learners will enter tertiary institutions with a sound background of computers and will consider in their future endeavours, a career in high performance computing-related fields.

Moeketsi concludes, "Together with our partner, CHPC is in the process of securing more computers to enable the course to run for the next three to five years." The CHPC education and outreach programme intends to train at least 20 learners a year in the next three years and plans to engage stakeholders such as the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement, and science centres across the country to roll-out the project at national level.