Willow I.T. in the D.R. – Day 3

Today we met with Henry Pimentel, a consultant for Esperanza International. Henry is yet another amazing man with a passion for Christ, Technology and Education. I was able to capture much of what he said on video so I won’t go into details about his strategy and vision here. I must admit that I was extremely moved to here that they have touched the lives of thousands of people through the effort of their computer labs. It is such a gift to partner with people like Henry.

For our part, our action steps are to follow up and investigate thin computing options that will allow for more computer labs with lower maintenance costs, power consumption and overhead. Even if someone donated 1000s of computers the cost to support 100s or even thousands of computer labs around the world would be extremely high.

Henry has also found that it takes between 20 and 30 computers to make a lab self supporting. in this case, self supporting means that local community centers charge a small fee for people to access computer based education and resources. All funds go directly to the local community centers who, in turn, use those funds to pay bills.

We are looking at a company call Ncomputing who has some innovative low power options.  http://www.ncomputing.com

This evening we also attended a midweek church service at ICC. Robert thanked us for installing the new phone system from upfront.

On the tech front…Brett and Arman are working really hard they are really an amazing duo. Tomorrow we have one last big push to finish everything. I will be excited to see it all come together.