The Luye Digital Opportunity Center, located in Taidong County’s Luye Township, is a virtual paradise for children learning to use computers. These clever little children then turn around and teach their elders. Tzuyou Elementary School’s Shuangqi Digital Center, situated in Heping Township, Taichung County, recently got its first and only notebook. Little stories like these that are taking place in remote areas all over Taiwan are the result of a global philanthropic activity entitled “Love with the Wind” organized by MSI Notebook which is donating notebooks to remote areas in over 10 countries around the world, including Taiwan. You can check out the exciting results of this educational activity at http://msi-notebook-tw.blogspot.com/.

Despite recent typhoon-triggered landslides, students in Gukeng, Yunlin have been able to continue their studies free of interruption, because their MSI Wind Netbook. (Photo courtesy of MOE Digital Opportunity Center)

Closing the digital gap—starting at home
Unlike their counterparts living in urban areas who can switch on their computers as soon as they get home, children in many rural areas in Taiwan only have access to computers at Ministry of Education’s Digital Opportunity Centers (DOC), because in remote places like these, information technology resources, like computers, are still an uncommon luxury. Not only do the families living there not have the financial wherewithal to purchase expensive computer equipment, they lack the skills needed to make the most of them. This is what’s known as the digital gap.

This dearth of information technology resources not only makes it difficult for children living in remote areas to receive a fair shake at getting a digital education, it affects their future studies. Despite its key position in high-tech development and manufacturing, even Taiwan has had a difficult time closing its digital gap.

Starting in October of this year, therefore, MSI Notebook launched its global charity activity “Love with the Wind” in which it is donating 10-inch Wind Netbooks to communities in remote areas of some ten nations around the world. With areas in Taiwan slated to receive the first batch of Wind Netbooks, MSI Notebook is working in cooperation with the MOE to have them delivered to Digital Opportunity Centers in remote areas around Taiwan, thereby, giving kids that don’t live in urban areas the same learning opportunities as those that do.

With the assistance of MOE Digital Opportunity Centers, this activity has not only allowed students in remote areas opportunities to use them in their everyday computer studies, they came in handy when their Digital Opportunity Centers were hit by a natural disaster. When Typhoon Sinlaku struck in early September, the Caoling Digital Opportunity Center, situated in Yunlin County’s Gukeng Township, was listed as hazardous, because a huge mudslide affecting 30 hectares struck not far from it. Children in the Caolin Digital Opportunity Center and Caolin Elementary School were all evacuated to residences in Caolin where classes continued. Fortunately, they had the MSI Wind Netbook Love Edition which became the most important study and teaching tool in their makeshift classrooms, proving once again that good things do come in small packages. These children were also able to take advantage of their MSI Wind Netbook U100 to continue studies in their temporary classrooms. The uninterruptible noetbook was also a big help for teachers in their teaching and administrative work.

Stories like these continue to be acted out in other places all over Taiwan. After class, volunteers painstakingly instruct village children in the use of MSI Wind Netbook U100 at the Shuangqi Digital Opportunity Center. This is the first and only notebook at the Shuangqi Digital Center. It has brought the Center more convenient and modern computer technology applications. The Luye Digital Opportunity Center, located in Taidong County’s Luye Township, is a fun place for kids and senior citizens alike to study computers. After learning how to use the U100, children become tutors for their grandmothers and grandfathers.

MSI Notebook hopes that this activity will serve to infect other potential donors, so that together we can help youngsters in remote areas in Taiwan and around the world, so that they can grow up equipped with the technological knowledge and skills needed in today’s world.

MSI Chinese philanthropic blog website: http://msi-notebook-tw.blogspot.com/; English blog website: http://msi-notebook.blogspot.com/.

Caolin Elementary School students continue to study despite the recent typhoon. (Photo courtesy of MOE Digital Opportunity Center)

A volunteer teaches a village student to use the MSI Wind Netbook U100 in the Shuangqi Digital Opportunity Center after school. (Photo courtesy of MOE Digital Opportunity Center)

The Luye Digital Opportunity Center, located in Taidong County’s Luye Township, is a computer learning paradise for young and old alike. (Photo courtesy of MOE Digital Opportunity Center)

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