"Other" Negroponte Honored on International Children's Day: Recognized for Work on Behalf of Cambodian Children

Business Wire, July 9, 2007

REAKSMY, Cambodia -- When this remote Cambodian village in the Preah Vihear province honored a member of the Negroponte family for International Children's day on June 1, it was not-as might be expected-Nicholas Negroponte, the internationally known chairman of One Laptop per Child (OLPC). Instead, it was Elaine Negroponte honored by the commune chief, government representatives, parents, and students, receiving kudos for her efforts on behalf of the children in Reaksmy and surrounding villages.

A woman who shuns the limelight, Negroponte is stepping into the public eye to bring attention to the efforts she and dedicated colleagues are making to bring new educational approaches to one of the poorest and most remote areas of Cambodia. Since 2005, this work has been supported by Cambodia P.R.I.D.E. (Providing Rural Innovative Digital Education), a small, grassroots foundation she founded.

Elaine and husband Nicholas Negroponte came to Reaksmy in 1999 when they donated their first government primary school in Reaksmy. The village is so remote that it can only be reached by a four-hour drive over bone-jarring dirt roads from the nearest town. While the villages lack running water, electricity, or any of life's modern necessities, the Negropontes brought in a satellite dish and generator for connectivity, and provided the children with laptops-an initiative so successful that Nicholas Negroponte credits this as the inspiration for his current "$100 laptop" initiative.

"With as many as 80 percent of rural Cambodian children not going beyond primary school," says Elaine Negroponte, "we have an educational model that shows students how much fun learning can be in a classroom setting-possibly for their last time-building confidence and the thrill of learning for themselves."

Featured on 60 Minutes (May 20, 2007), the Reaksmy School is promoting the "constructionist" theory of learning advanced by MIT Media Lab professors Seymour Papert and Mitchel Resnick. Its programs are taught as a "school within a school," complementing the standard government curricula.

Through this enriched program, the children have access to the newest digital learning tools from the MIT Media Laboratory. Most recently, the children have been working with Scratch, a new software program developed by Resnick and his students that allows children to build interactive stories, games, music, and animation for the Web as easily as they would build physical structures using LEGO building blocks, by simply "snapping together" graphical blocks.

"This week, we set the kids loose to measure-their arms, legs, noses, teachers, anything," explains Negroponte. "Last week, the higher grades were working with Liddy Nevile, a visiting professor from LaTrobe University in Australia, to understand how gears work. Now they will combine their measurements and knowledge of gears to animate robots built with kits donated by LEGO."

What especially pleases Negroponte is that these children have no idea they are experiencing anything special. "It shows acceptance of what we offer. Lately, with our classes overflowing, we have worried that many students prefer our extracurricular activities to their government classes."

Apparently, those worries were unfounded. On International Children's Day, Commune Chief Sok Loy spoke about how the new programs have helped the students' concentration in the government schools, and have increased overall attendance. "In other words, it seems that the students have turned on their 'learning switch," says Negroponte.

Negroponte confesses to one regret: that she had not started sooner. At age 64, she is literally finding the unpaved road a hard one to travel.

To learn more about how you can help Cambodia~P.R.I.D.E., visit the foundation's Website: www.cambodiapride.org.