thirty years ago I was
and I wanted to join the Peace Corps so
I applied got the interview and then
life happened I thirty years went by and
but every year for those thirty years I
would think about this joining the Peace
Corps I’m grateful that thirty years
later in 2014 I accepted an offer to
come to Zambia and serve in the US Peace
Corps I came in February 2015 and I’ve
been serving in the northern little Pula
province in the Colombo district when I
got to Colombia it was this dusty town
with boardwalks and wood front posts and
things like that and I imagined I could
have turned to the left on that road and
seen a horse come in with some dude with
a 10-gallon hat cruising down that road
it would have fit right in that was my
first impression but then they placed me
out in the bush I lived in a small mud
hut out in the bush off the grid no
electricity no cellular network and I
was there as a rural aquaculture
promotion volunteer so I was helping
fish farming helping improve the
business of fish farming helping improve
food security through fish farming but
along the way I started to see some
things even when I provided some really
good information about fish farming
which in itself is very profitable can
be it’s not very hard you just have to
do your work day after day week after
week but I would notice that many people
would stand back and look and oh we’ll
wait and see I’ll wait and see how that
works out and I started thinking well
what’s the issue here and I know it
comes from an ages old practice of being
very careful about what you do because
what you do has a direct effect on your
survival well I kind of came to this
idea that
well some new things have been adopted
what’s the most one of the most
important foods in Zambia and shima
Valley right there isn’t a Zambian who
can think of a day without Wally toffee
tell you that Bob Wiley right and so
this is so important in Zambia and yet
these were new technologies that came
maize cassava they both came from South
America Central America they were
adopted here and so it’s that creative
way of thinking and adopting new things
that’s what I wanted to tap into
I particularly I’ve worked with youth my
entire life and and so I thought well
how can i connect with these youth in a
way that they would really love they
would really be interested in well if I
have my phone out anywhere I’ll have a
hundred kids standing around me right
looking at my phone to see what I’m
looking at so I know that technology is
is very interesting to many people but
youth especially and so I started I
started to think well how can i connect
with these kids in a way that really is
meaningful for them no I’ll tell you the
truth there’s lots of people that think
I’m pretty crazy I’m taking technology
to these youth who live off the grid no
electricity no cellular network nothing
like that and so but I just persisted
and I started putting together these
small computers and then working with
kids in Mayan soccer this is called the
Raspberry Pi it’s developed in the UK
Cambridge University it’s very cool
little computer you can get read at it
and look at the motherboard and and it
has 11 programming languages on it all
kinds of open-source desktop tools and
this is what I opened up many of them
don’t even speak English I speak a
little Bamba but we were programming
games they were actually making games
this is sitting in my in Saka or by the
side of a fish pond this is what we were
doing
well this kept this kept growing to a
bigger and bigger idea and I had to
build consensus and you know had these
people that would would be thinking
what’s this guy taking this technology
out to this rural area what are these
kids going to do with it and I just
persisted and gradually from one side of
the room to the other
I’m winning the hearts and minds of
these people so I would say that most
people now that have witnessed this
process now our champions even I started
developing consensus building a team
working on the equipment finding ways to
fund this project and we we assembled a
team of Peace Corps volunteers real and
technologically savvy young Zambians
from Lusaka that were really interested
in coding and we put together this camp
we call the girls can code technology
camp 2017 the kids came from these rural
areas very rural areas the youngest was
10 the oldest was 19 so we had a broad
spectrum but we brought them all
together teaching them skills and
leadership teamwork Ubuntu Ubuntu of
course is the principle of I am because
we are and and so and we also brought in
technology we had these really busy days
where we would start with 45 minute
sessions but of that 45 minute session
we would focus on 20 minutes of hands-on
and then we would break for some other
activity we had ropes leadership
activities these other kinds of teamwork
building things that were were powerful
for these young girls well we did this
for six days straight could you imagine
going to an intense camp for six days
straight and every minute of the day
from 7 in the morning to 19 at night is
is filled well
with the schedule that we had we
alternated the activities of technical
activities with the non-technical
activities and these kids can handle it
this was a powerful experience for the
for the girls that attended I they came
and they have changed I have six girls
their mentors here today you might have
seen them walking around and their lives
what the vision is it’s like I’m I’m
like it’s like a and like I got a alien
brain implant I can’t stop thinking
about this thing I can’t stop working on
it and I can’t stop winning people over
to this vision I didn’t even know that I
was gonna do this when I mean I was
coming as a fish-farming volunteer and I
didn’t even know I would be captivated
by this thing myself my imagination is
is lit up and I think if you talk with
some of the other people that have been
involved with this you’ll see the same
thing holds for them in fact I met with
my the adult mentors that came from
Columbia today and they’re taking it to
a level that I hadn’t even imagined so
I’m really excited to see this thing
keep growing what happens is that during
the camp the the teams that come as
teams a female mentor with two girls and
they come as a team with the mission to
go back to their communities and share
their knowledge so they develop an
action plan and they use that action
plan to to carry them back to their
village and so this is one of the teams
in I think it’s Motiti and they are on
fire for sharing the skills that they’ve
learned so you could see this little
book she has that’s one of the main
programming languages but she’s teaching
the classes now and they share with each
other they use these little these these
small computers that have they run on
solar lamps low power five watts one amp
and they they make games they play them
they share them and they’re it’s
powerful where are we going we proven
so with my technical collaborators in
Lusaka we are expanding this to every
province there seven provinces the Peace
Corps serves and we’re going to expand
it over over time where our next camps
are rolling out in in August they’ll be
in December and April and we have a
vision for for building that out to
include more advanced camps these kids
will work through technical skills
eventually leading to what I call a
pipeline of Zambia’s hidden talent to
opportunities through various
higher-level trainings that they can get
in in urban centers but as my mentors
from caramba have illustrated today
they’re not going to wait for something
to happen in Lusaka they’re going to
bring it to coiombo
thank you
[Applause] [Music]
and I wanted to join the Peace Corps so
I applied got the interview and then
life happened I thirty years went by and
but every year for those thirty years I
would think about this joining the Peace
Corps I’m grateful that thirty years
later in 2014 I accepted an offer to
come to Zambia and serve in the US Peace
Corps I came in February 2015 and I’ve
been serving in the northern little Pula
province in the Colombo district when I
got to Colombia it was this dusty town
with boardwalks and wood front posts and
things like that and I imagined I could
have turned to the left on that road and
seen a horse come in with some dude with
a 10-gallon hat cruising down that road
it would have fit right in that was my
first impression but then they placed me
out in the bush I lived in a small mud
hut out in the bush off the grid no
electricity no cellular network and I
was there as a rural aquaculture
promotion volunteer so I was helping
fish farming helping improve the
business of fish farming helping improve
food security through fish farming but
along the way I started to see some
things even when I provided some really
good information about fish farming
which in itself is very profitable can
be it’s not very hard you just have to
do your work day after day week after
week but I would notice that many people
would stand back and look and oh we’ll
wait and see I’ll wait and see how that
works out and I started thinking well
what’s the issue here and I know it
comes from an ages old practice of being
very careful about what you do because
what you do has a direct effect on your
survival well I kind of came to this
idea that
well some new things have been adopted
what’s the most one of the most
important foods in Zambia and shima
Valley right there isn’t a Zambian who
can think of a day without Wally toffee
tell you that Bob Wiley right and so
this is so important in Zambia and yet
these were new technologies that came
maize cassava they both came from South
America Central America they were
adopted here and so it’s that creative
way of thinking and adopting new things
that’s what I wanted to tap into
I particularly I’ve worked with youth my
entire life and and so I thought well
how can i connect with these youth in a
way that they would really love they
would really be interested in well if I
have my phone out anywhere I’ll have a
hundred kids standing around me right
looking at my phone to see what I’m
looking at so I know that technology is
is very interesting to many people but
youth especially and so I started I
started to think well how can i connect
with these kids in a way that really is
meaningful for them no I’ll tell you the
truth there’s lots of people that think
I’m pretty crazy I’m taking technology
to these youth who live off the grid no
electricity no cellular network nothing
like that and so but I just persisted
and I started putting together these
small computers and then working with
kids in Mayan soccer this is called the
Raspberry Pi it’s developed in the UK
Cambridge University it’s very cool
little computer you can get read at it
and look at the motherboard and and it
has 11 programming languages on it all
kinds of open-source desktop tools and
this is what I opened up many of them
don’t even speak English I speak a
little Bamba but we were programming
games they were actually making games
this is sitting in my in Saka or by the
side of a fish pond this is what we were
doing
well this kept this kept growing to a
bigger and bigger idea and I had to
build consensus and you know had these
people that would would be thinking
what’s this guy taking this technology
out to this rural area what are these
kids going to do with it and I just
persisted and gradually from one side of
the room to the other
I’m winning the hearts and minds of
these people so I would say that most
people now that have witnessed this
process now our champions even I started
developing consensus building a team
working on the equipment finding ways to
fund this project and we we assembled a
team of Peace Corps volunteers real and
technologically savvy young Zambians
from Lusaka that were really interested
in coding and we put together this camp
we call the girls can code technology
camp 2017 the kids came from these rural
areas very rural areas the youngest was
10 the oldest was 19 so we had a broad
spectrum but we brought them all
together teaching them skills and
leadership teamwork Ubuntu Ubuntu of
course is the principle of I am because
we are and and so and we also brought in
technology we had these really busy days
where we would start with 45 minute
sessions but of that 45 minute session
we would focus on 20 minutes of hands-on
and then we would break for some other
activity we had ropes leadership
activities these other kinds of teamwork
building things that were were powerful
for these young girls well we did this
for six days straight could you imagine
going to an intense camp for six days
straight and every minute of the day
from 7 in the morning to 19 at night is
is filled well
with the schedule that we had we
alternated the activities of technical
activities with the non-technical
activities and these kids can handle it
this was a powerful experience for the
for the girls that attended I they came
and they have changed I have six girls
their mentors here today you might have
seen them walking around and their lives
what the vision is it’s like I’m I’m
like it’s like a and like I got a alien
brain implant I can’t stop thinking
about this thing I can’t stop working on
it and I can’t stop winning people over
to this vision I didn’t even know that I
was gonna do this when I mean I was
coming as a fish-farming volunteer and I
didn’t even know I would be captivated
by this thing myself my imagination is
is lit up and I think if you talk with
some of the other people that have been
involved with this you’ll see the same
thing holds for them in fact I met with
my the adult mentors that came from
Columbia today and they’re taking it to
a level that I hadn’t even imagined so
I’m really excited to see this thing
keep growing what happens is that during
the camp the the teams that come as
teams a female mentor with two girls and
they come as a team with the mission to
go back to their communities and share
their knowledge so they develop an
action plan and they use that action
plan to to carry them back to their
village and so this is one of the teams
in I think it’s Motiti and they are on
fire for sharing the skills that they’ve
learned so you could see this little
book she has that’s one of the main
programming languages but she’s teaching
the classes now and they share with each
other they use these little these these
small computers that have they run on
solar lamps low power five watts one amp
and they they make games they play them
they share them and they’re it’s
powerful where are we going we proven
so with my technical collaborators in
Lusaka we are expanding this to every
province there seven provinces the Peace
Corps serves and we’re going to expand
it over over time where our next camps
are rolling out in in August they’ll be
in December and April and we have a
vision for for building that out to
include more advanced camps these kids
will work through technical skills
eventually leading to what I call a
pipeline of Zambia’s hidden talent to
opportunities through various
higher-level trainings that they can get
in in urban centers but as my mentors
from caramba have illustrated today
they’re not going to wait for something
to happen in Lusaka they’re going to
bring it to coiombo
thank you
[Applause] [Music]
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