At intervals the local information technology service provider Starr Computers invites groups of students to visit its showrooms, an exercise which the company’s General Manager Rehman Majeed says is designed help the young visitors to become more ‘intimate’ with contemporary information technology. The intimacy, he says, includes exchanges with the company’s technical personnel and sit down chats with its managers. Starr Computers has gone further, inviting groups of tertiary and even university students to benefit from what is perhaps described as its classroom facility where they are customarily addressed by either Majeed or the company’s owner and Chief Executive Officer Michael Mohan.
All of this is a part of a marketing initiative that acknowledges the nexus between information technology and education delivery and seeks to help infuse that understanding into the local education system. The company says that while it is not unmindful of the market opportunity afforded by what it does it is concerned that its efforts help the local education sector to become more familiar with the role of ICT in improving both the efficiency and effectiveness of education delivery.
Last week, following an in-house session with students of the Texila Medical University, Mohan disclosed that the company was preparing to intensify its engagements with officials in both the state and private education sector.
Smart Labs have already been made available to a number of local private schools and Starr says it is seeking to persuade state school officials that Smart Labs are an effective way of both packaging and presenting subjects on the curriculum.
Last week, Starr officials told Stabroek Business that it is prepared to “introduce and offer to the Guyana Government” a “low cost and efficient” network that will upgrade the ICT capacity of the local schools system. Starr says that apart from the energy efficiency and maintenance-free dimensions to the network it will also significantly enhance the capacity of schools in the area of curriculum delivery.
Starr, Mohan says, would ideally wish to engage “the relevant officials in the Ministry of Education” on the company’s “Green PC” as well as its portable solar station. Beyond that the company says that it is seeking to become involved in supporting small business empowerment through its Star X Finity Power Centre and accelerate the introduction of security surveillance equipment.
