Fintrade spends one billion on ICT

Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Finatrade Foundation has so far spent nearly ¢1 billion towards the training of students in Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
The expenditure forms part of the commitment of the foundation to making ICT the driving force of the country’s development agenda.
The Executive Director of the foundation, Mr John Awuni told the Daily Graphic in an interview that the foundation believed that the youth, through the ICT programmes, could begin to use ICT to solve complex business problems for the country and also link up with their colleagues in the rest of the world.
He said the foundation, which was undertaking the programme in conjunction with the Ghana-Indian Kofi Annan ICT Centre of Excellence, was seeking to promote ICT enthusiasm in the rural areas as well.
He said to sustain the programme, a trainer of trainers workshops had also been organised for teachers from the various second cycle institutions participating in the programmes.
Mr Awuni said the trained teachers were expected to effectively mentor students to develop their own programmes and participate in the I-2CAP competitions.
He said so far 333 teachers had been trained while 267 schools nation-wide had participated in the competition since it was instituted in 2005.
Mr Awuni said the encouraging aspect of the competition was the high female participation.
He said the foundation had also distributed more than 70 desktop computers, as well as mathematics and computer science textbooks, to the participating schools.
He said an I-2CAP web site had also been developed to serve as a forum for tutors, students and ICT instructors to hold online discussions, for students to download training materials and also post codes for review.
Mr Awuni said a national ICT competition would be organised in November this year, for past participants of I-2CAP competitions to enable the organisers to assess the impact of the training on the beneficiaries.
He commended the Director-General of the Ghana-India Kofi Annan ICT Centre of Excellence, Ms Dorothy Gordon, for her continued support for the project.