Friends of Young Minds

1

An Introduction to
What sculpture is to a block of marble,
education is to a human soul. - Addison

2
Motivation

• Learning should be fun
• Every bit of exposure helps
• Computer skills, an asset
• Hole-in-the-wall experiment

3
A Brief History

• Established in 1996, by Dipankar Sarkar
• Rice chapter
• Students
• Community Involvement Center (CIC)
• Mumbai chapter
• IIT, Bombay (Faculty, GRA, NSS)
• other members

4
Resources

• Donors all over Houston and elsewhere
• Inter-departmental auctions
• Community service grant from Rice
• Fundraising by volunteers

5
Organisation structure

• No power hierarchy
• President, Vice President, Treasurer
• Follows a constitution
• All decisions by discussion in meetings

6
How do we work ?

• Fortnightly meetings
• 1-1.5 hours
• Minutes maintained
• Collecting computers
• Testing of computers
• Packing of computers
• Driving a uhaul to the shipping agent !

7
Achievements

• 6 shipments, over 300 computers
• FOYM computer recipients
• SMILE, IIT Kharagpur, West Bengal
• Jawaharnagar school, Thane, Maharashtra
• St Joseph High School, Thane, Maharashtra
• Village High School, Kattabettu, Tamilnadu
• Phulenagar project, Mumbai, Maharashtra
• Nakwa High school, Thane, Maharashtra
• Asha projects in UP (Balia, Hardoi, Lucknow,
  Kanpur)

8
The Computers in India
Kapurbawdi, Thane
9
Specific projects
St. Josephs School, Kapurbawdi, Thane
10
Specific projects

• Slum,
• Phulenagar,Mumbai

11
Where we need help

• Test computers
• Pack computers
• Take down minutes
• Prepare poster and publicity material
• Prepare annual reports
• Handle funds of the organisation
• Manage database / web page
• Contacts in India / US
• Shipping
• Public relations

12
What is the fun involved ?

• Get to go to various functions
• Sometimes get to see shows for free
• Reassemble computers
• Learn computer skills (HTML, scripts)
• See how a small organisation works

IT IS SO EASY TO HELP
13
Questions Doubts ?
14
FOYM on the web

• foym_at_rice.edu
• http//www.ruf.rice.edu/foym
• http//www.foym.org

15
Collaboration

• Association for India Development (AID)
• ASHA
• FORCE
• Computers for India
• Bombay Municipal Corporation
• Thane Municipal Corporation
• Thane Zilla Parishad

16
Initial Hiccups

• Organizational network
• registering as NPO in India
• Bureaucratic hurdles in India
• import license
• customs, excise
• governmental order
• Collecting computers here
• finding sources

17
Feedback from India

• One PC was given to the village high school in
  Kattabettu village in the Nilgiris. This is the
  only high school in a distance of about 10kms.
  The high school strength is about 400 and the
  primary school has about 200 students.The
  students are from the neighboring villages. The
  headmaster, Mr. Natarajan, was very enthusiastic
  and made himself available on a Sunday. The
  headmaster has also on his own solicited donors
  to give the school cupboards, a small PA system,
  etc. He obtained a voltage stabilizer for the PC.
  One of the teachers' son has done a diploma in
  computers and has volunteered to help the
  children.
• Dr. Suresh Devasahayam, IIT (Bombay)

18
Feedback from India

• The computers you have donated are very much
  useful and helpful for our school students.The
  students who are borderline in intelligence but
  have speech problems are able to convey their
  desire for using the toilet, food, drink by
  typing on the computer.The teachers have put
  banners for every student by writing the name of
  each student, address etc. and the students are
  enjoying it when displayed.
• S. Nanda, IIT (Kharagpur)
• SMILE

19
Feedback from India

• Games obviously take care of initial phobia and
  generates a fair
• amount of enthusiasm. We have encouraged the use
  of New Deal
• SchoolSuite, a really good program that allows
  even the lower end
• 286 machines to come alive with Win98 like mouse
  driven GUI and
• it comes with its standard set of programs in
  word processing,
• spreadsheets, and drawing/painting. Some software
  such as
• typing tutors are made to appear as games to
  kids, and in the
• process they are able to pick up typing skills
  rather quickly.
• Dr. Dipankar Sarkar
• founder FOYM

20
Future Directions

• Fundraising activities
• Increase targets in India
• Find more interested groups
• Potential recipients

21
Modus Operandi

• Focus on specific projects
• underprivileged childrens education
• Collaborate with trusted groups
• Collect used computers
• Ship computers to trusted groups

22
THANK YOU

• Rice University
• Our donors in Houston and other cities
• Our shipping agent, SNR International
• Members of the Rice community
• Members of FOYM
• Madras Pavilion - refreshments
• and many more.