IBM SA focuses its corporate social responsibility funds and energy on, in the main, changing the way children learn.
Says IBM SA corporate social responsibility manager, Alfred Mandewo: "We don`t want to change the kids themselves - only the way they learn.
"It`s not just a question of exposing children to technology as a means of bridging the digital divide.
"Computers and the Internet are changing the whole nature of teaching. Children no longer need rely only on books and a teacher standing in front of a class. Through technology they can access information by themselves, at their own pace and in a format that is more like playing than learning.
"So, educators have to become guides rather than lecturers and adapt their measurement processes accordingly."
IBM`s e-learning division has studied the impact of thousands of technology-driven learning experiences and has designed tools that will accelerate the reinvention of education.
SA has already had a positive experience of two of those tools - the IBM KidSmart early learning programme and the Hermitage programme.
The KidSmart programme, which includes teacher training, is designed around a colourful, child-sized plastic console that incorporates a powerful computer loaded with customised software. Education specialists designed the software to develop creativity and problem-solving skills and engage young children in the learning process with maximum fun.
IBM has installed over 100 such units in disadvantaged pre-school centres across the country, working closely with the Centre for Early Childhood Development (CECD) - a national non-government organisation focused on improving education for children up to age nine.
IBM`s Hermitage and Pieta programmes enable visitors to art galleries and museums to access some of the world`s greatest art treasures.
Earlier this year, IBM SA made a donation of the Hermitage programme to the South African National Gallery, where access is free.
IBM SA assists disadvantaged South Africans at other levels, too.
Since 1986, IBM SA has spent almost $87 million on upliftment programmes that range from providing Hippo water rollers for easier carrying and storage of water and providing computers to the Hospice organisation to funding HIV/Aids community care initiatives.
"Globally, however, we have found that social problems are rooted in a lack of education," says IBM SA country general manager, Mark Harris.
"Technology is the best means of making education universally accessible quickly and thereby speeding up the processes of creating skills and building capacity.
"Two examples would be our TryScience and TryMaths programmes, which get children interested very quickly and at an early age in school subjects that are normally shunned.
"Also, KidSmart doesn`t need children to be able to read in order to learn. So a greater depth of education can be achieved at an earlier age."
Harris also points out that wireless technology has superseded conventional computer laboratories. Mobile computers can be taken into individual classrooms and adapted on ad hoc basis for specific classroom needs.
"So children are seeing technology as an extension of themselves rather than as a special tool only remotely relevant to the process of learning."
Harris believes that, ultimately, communities will have technology-driven learning centres that will enable people to participate in a life-long process of learning.
"The challenge in SA, though, is one of infrastructure. The high cost and lack of the bandwidth needed to carry vast quantities of data over the telecommunications network as well as the lack of such a network in rural areas are huge inhibitors of e-learning.
"But government is addressing the issue."
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