Some blog readers may have already heard that Reneal co-founder Neal Bierbaum died unexpectedly on December 19th. Neal was happy, healthy, and busy developing new software capabilities for the Reneal system at the time of his death. He spent the last 19 years of his life working tirelessly for students and teachers in the Philippines and Tanzania to bring them computers and technology. The loss is irreplaceable and unfathomable, yet Reneal will carry on his legacy.
Very quickly after our return from Tanzania, we began preparation for the 2024 Phase 2 projects. In Phase 2, Reneal is planning to install computer labs at 11 additional government secondary schools plus 22 Teacher-in-a-Box educational material hot spots. Our generous partner, Apto Solutions (www.aptosolutions.com), delivered a large fraction of the laptops in mid-October. While the quality of the donated hardware is always high, this is an exceptionally pristine batch of laptops! There are about 10 different models of Dell laptops, which historically have been very robust. Reneal Country Director David Nyangaka is guiding the recipient schools, located in Mbeya, Iringa, Dodoma, Arusha, and Kilimanjaro Regions.
It’s hard to believe, but our 2024 trip to Tanzania is already in the rear-view mirror. As usual, it was a busy time and plans shifted as we encountered unexpected opportunities and challenges. Overall, we were pleased with how things unfolded, and it was great to be with Reneal Team Tanzania for a few short weeks. We also got to meet up with old and new partners. Now we’re back home with some exciting tasks ahead of us.
It has been a busy time since my last post. The 2024 Phase 1 boxes had a smooth trip to Tanzania, and Reneal Team Tanzania has completed installation of all 12 of the new computer labs! The Team is now in the process of doing the computer lab training for teachers at these schools. Reneal, with the invaluable assistance of our Country Director David Nyangaka, has now installed over 100 computer labs in Tanzania! And of course, we couldn’t have done this without the support of our generous donor, Apto Solutions!
It’s been a busy time here at Reneal Headquarters. In my last blog post, we were just starting installations for 2023 Phase 2. I’m happy to report that all ten of those new computer labs are up and running. We are on the brink of shipping the equipment for 2024 Phase 1, which will add 12 more schools to the Reneal family. A huge THANK YOU goes to Apto Solutions for making this work possible!
A belated Happy New Year from Reneal! A lot has happened since the last blog post. With a big assist from Kennedy Masatu from Bureau Veritas, Reneal was able to meet the requirements for Tanzania’s new ecolevy policy and ship the Phase 2 equipment. Reneal Country Directory David Nyangaka did his usual magic to coordinate for receiving the boxes upon arrival at Kilimanjaro International Airport in the first few days of 2024. Already four new Reneal computer labs have been installed! Hats off to Reneal Team Tanzania’s Juma Mshihiri for his quality installation work.
The last couple of weeks have found us deep in the midst of preparing the equipment for Reneal’s 2023 Phase 2. We are so grateful to Apto Solutions (www.aptosoutions.com) for their incredible support of Reneal’s project benefitting the students in Tanzania! We will be installing new computer labs in ten additional public secondary schools, thanks to their latest generous donation. In addition, Apto Solutions donated desktop computers that will be deployed as Teacher-in-a-Box servers in another twenty Tanzania public secondary schools.
Hard to believe that the 2023 Tanzania trip is already in the rear-view mirror. The time always goes so fast! We are so grateful to Reneal Team Tanzania for helping us achieve our goals for the time in Arusha. Neal got the updates finished at the three schools with MacBook labs and got an exciting new capability deployed at Mlangarini Secondary School. Country Director David Nyangaka delivered Teacher-in-a-Box servers to schools in Babati District. Together with our Team we did a lot of laptop repairs. We met with our partners at Arusha Node Marie, Terrawatu, and A is for Africa, as well as with many local government officials who support Reneal’s work. Neal taught a seminar at a local IT college on using AI in programming. Overall it was a busy and productive trip!
It’s great to be back in Arusha with Reneal Team Tanzania! We arrived late on September 5th and were met at the airport by Reneal Country Director David Nyangaka. We finally got to meet James and Juma, the newest members of Reneal Team Tanzania, in person. One of our main goals for this trip is spending time with the Team to identify major challenges and to share Neal’s detailed knowledge of the system with them. Another key goal is doing some updates on the thee Reneal MacBook labs, since last year we were focused on updating the regular thin-client systems. All in all, it’s a big chunk of work but we are optimistic that we can get it done together with the Team.
This news is a bit delayed, but Reneal Team Tanzania has finished installations of all of the new 2023 Phase 1 computer labs! A million thanks to Apto Solutions (www.aptosolutions.com) for the generous donation of laptops to make these ten new computer labs possible! Almost 9000 additional public high school students in Tanzania now have computers at their school. We are grateful to the school and local officials for their cooperation, and for the leadership of Reneal Country Director David Nyangaka to help the schools prepare.
