ICT Awareness, Capacity Building and Digital Literacy

The Fund will support expanded capacity and awareness building, particularly in connection with other Fund projects. The Fund administration intends to establish ongoing relationships with Ministry of High Education; Ministry of ICT and Postal Services; and Samuel Yunis ICT Institute and other qualified ICT training organizations, including private sector and university-based groups, to deliver customized public capacity building projects in communities where broadband networks and services are introduced for the first time. Projects may include hands-on training classes, public awareness raising events, assistance to local entrepreneurs, and both user and management training at public institutions.

The goal will always be to ensure that new users in these communities have the best opportunity to benefit from the technologies as they become available.

The aim of this programme is to encourage and facilitate the building of an e-society in South Sudan and promote digital life style among the citizenry. 

The goal will facilitate connectivity for key e-services to institutions such as schools, hospitals, centres for the PWD etc. It will also encourage the use of ICT for government and governance and collaborate on alternative energy sources to power ICT connectivity

Project No. 1: Teachers’ Retooling

The Fund shall consult the National and State Ministries of Education to identify teachers from Secondary Schools who shall be equipped with ICT knowledge and they shall deliver ICT lessons to the School ICT Centre beneficiary Secondary schools.

Project No. 2: School ICT Centres (S-ICTC)

The Fund in consultation with the National/ State Ministries of Information; and General Education; Samuel Yunis ICT Institute and other development partners will implement the S-ICTC project to provide a platform for accessing online/ offline educational resources and the adoption of ICT as a learning platform in public secondary schools and tertiary institutions, in order to create 21st century skills. The S-ICTC shall offer an opportunity for the training of students to acquire ICT skills and bridge the digital divide.

The S-ICTC will have the following objectives:

 promote digital literacy;

 encourage seamless access to online/offline remote educational resources;

 adoption of smart education thereby increasing ICT literacy among teachers and students;

 provide students with ICT skills acquisition and encourage innovation;

 training and mentoring technology startups to develop technology solutions;

 encourage independent and active learning by students;

 provide ICT innovation centre; and

 ensure ICT sustainability by the host institution/ community.

Project No. 3: Community Information Centres (CIC)

The Fund, in partnership with Internet Service Providers, local entrepreneurs and community-based organizations will facilitate the establishment of community information centres (CIC). The aim is to extend internet and ICT training and other e-services to un-served communities on shared basis and bridge the digital divide in the communities.

The CICs will also serve as support centres for the following projects in order to ensure inclusion of un-served and underserved target communities:

 ICT / digital literacy centre;

 e-access centre;

 e- government centre; and

 e-commerce centre.

Project No. 4: PWD ICT Centre (PWD-ICTC)

The Fund in partnership with Internet Service Providers, and other development partners will deploy ICT training facility to centres taking care of persons with disabilities (PLD). The PWD-ICTC project is expected to be executed in consultation with the relevant stakeholders including the National Ministries of ICT and Postal Services, Gender, Samuel Yunis Institute and development partners. The objective of the project is to provide ICT needs of persons living with disabilities in South Sudan and access to required ICT services through institutions/organizations set up to cater for this group. In this regard, the Fund shall make provisions within its budget to support all-inclusive ICT access to people living with disabilities. The objectives of the PWD-ICTC is to make the PWDs enjoy the ICT services.

Project No. 5: Information Resource Centre (e-Library)

The Information Resource Centre (IRC) also known as e-Library project is an intervention by the Fund to create ICT-driven knowledge management that will adequately respond to the changing demands of users. Through the project, the Ministries of ICT and Postal Services, Samuel Yunis ICI Institute, Ministry of Higher Education, Public Universities and the Fund shall establish digital libraries in the existing public universities to enable sharing of information and other resources as well as connect and share resources with universities outside the country. The objective of the project is to create a platform for online fully cross searchable portal for displaying library documents and educational database to provide users with unlimited access to knowledge, resources and educational materials on a wide range of subjects in order to facilitate the building of an e-society in South Sudan and promote digital life-style amongst the citizenry.