Contributing to Development in Haiti

22/09/2016

During the last week of August, the third edition of Ayitic (http://www.ayitic.net/en/#2016) was launched in Haiti with a training program on IPv6 deployment especially designed for local instructors and a 3D Printing Workshop inspired by the MakersLab model.

For this edition of the project, LACNIC was supported by Canado Technique and Ecole Superieure d’infotronique d’Haiti (ESIH), two organizations that played a major role in selecting participants, coordinating activities, and teaching the workshops in Port au Prince.

“Ayitic 2016 has brought together key Haitian and LAC technology partners, in order to sustainably empower Haitian IT managers and professionals to deploy as well as train others on strategic technologies such as IPv6 and 3D printing,” noted Patrick Attie of Ecole Superieure d’infotronique d’Haiti (ESIH).

Two workshops were organized during 2016. First, a forty-hour intensive workshop on IPv6 deployment with Alejandro Acosta (LACNIC) as Instructor and the support of Patrick Marcellus of Transversal as Assistant Instructor. Twenty-nine local instructors representing twelve technical institutes completed this course. “Alejandro’s workshop was excellent. It’s the type of training for which I would travel to another country,” commented student Ruth J.B. Edouard of Universite Publique Des Nippes (UPNip).

The other workshop was an eight-hour activity on 3D printing, inspired by the MakersLab model. Giovanni Michelle Toglia of ESIH was in charge of the activity and had the support of Jean Michel Bonjour, Biomedical Engineer and Project Manager at the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), who has worked on printing 3D objects for hospitals in Haiti. Bonjour provided practical examples of 3D printing applications. Ten representatives from seven local technical institutes participated in this activity.

Carolina Caeiro, Coordinator of Development Projects at LACNIC, highlighted the fact that the new Ayitic format focuses on training instructors and seeks to strengthen the project’s sustainability, impact and scope in the hope that each instructor who receives training will replicate these contents among his or her students. “The first step has been taken. We should now see the domino effect, monitoring how far the instructors trained through the program manage to share the contents they’ve learned among their own students,” Caeiro added.

In the words of Caeiro, local partners “played a major role in the execution of the project and validated a new working methodology for Ayitic, thanks to which certain key responsibilities having to do with the local context are now strictly in the hands of these partners.”

She noted that, for its 2017 edition, the program is considering not only training instructors but also digitizing the courses and offering them via an e-learning platform.

The event was broadly covered by Haitian media, including Alterpresse, Radio telé ginen, Radio vision 2000, Haïti Libre, Ici Haïti, Radio télé Soleil and Radio Tele Caraibes.

The the Ayitic 2016 Opening Ceremony was attended by Jean Marie Altema, Director of CONATEL, the Regulatory Authority; Kevon Swift of LACNIC); and the Directors of the program’s three partner organizations: Patrick Attie of Ecole Superieure d’infotronique d’Haiti, Max Larson Henry of Transversal, and Lucien Durand of Canado Technique.

Ayitic is a LACNIC initiative that seeks to expand knowledge and strengthen the skills of information and communication technology experts and professionals in Haiti.