The humanitarian project of Laurent Bardin, an computer engineer in Sophia Antipolis and the president of Technologie Sans Frontières, has been rewarded a youth initiative prize of 40.000 francs.
An award for “South AfricaNet 2001” of Laurent Bardin, a computer engineer in Sophia Antipolis who has set up the “Technologie Sans Frontières” association in December 1999. The international scaled project that the association has developed in favour of Ulundi, the capital of Zoulouland in South Africa, has been rewarded the best youth initiative prize of a 40.000 franc amount by the Défi Jeune program. Financed by the Department of Youth and Sports, the Défi Jeune rewards initiatives of people under 28 years old in the creation of companies or the realization of projects.
“The jury has particularly appreciated the seriousness and the efficiency of the team as well as the social utility of the project which develops solidarity with youngsters with problems in this country hit by AIDS”, Martine Devillaz, the Défi Jeune correspondent at the head of Youth and Sport matters in the Alpes-Maritimes, says.
South AfricaNet 2001 aims at equipping high schools in Ulundi, in July 2001, at training pupils and teachers to Information and Communication Technologies during three months. A satellite agency which will be set in August 2001 will allow Sophia Antipolis formation to be continued and Zoulouland pupils to increase their knowledge thanks to accelerated lectures and targeted pieces of information such as AIDS prevention as soon as October 2001.
“South AfricaNet 2001 is innovative in terms of teaching information and communication technologies in high schools in South Africa and then by distance-teaching, it is written in a press release. This initiative lies within the scope of several other projects of Technologie Sans Frontière which will aim at equipping all of the high school in Zoulouland (almost 2.000 high schools involved), at putting French high schools in touch with South African ones thanks to a chat forum which is in progress, and at offering autonomy and required competences to pupils in order for them to take an active part in sociologic and economic evolution in their region”. A way to show that technology can be kind-hearted…