I didn’t know what to expect when I traveled to Malaysia for the very first time.
I knew my mission: connect zero client technology — desktop solutions
composed of a screen, a keyboard and a mouse that function entirely by
remotely connecting to a central server — in rural and urban classrooms
that had never been equipped with computers. But I never could have
imagined just how life changing the process of executing that mission
would be.
My journey to a particular school in the jungle of Sabah,
the easternmost state of Malaysia located on the island of Borneo,
started with a five-hour car ride down a dirt road. We then loaded all
of our equipment onto long boats, on which we rode for another hour and a
half, before finally reaching our destination. Upon arriving at the
school I saw classrooms full of simple desks and chairs and dormitories
with beds stacked three high, all protected by window bars. Why, you may
be wondering? To keep away the orangutans.
All
Malaysian children must attend school by government mandate, no matter
where they live. So while my journey through the jungle seemed
extraordinary to me, I quickly learned that it was commonplace for the
children of Sabah. Each week, they make the sojourn to school and stay
overnight in dorms for a few days of instruction before returning home
to their families.
As unfamiliar as such a trek felt to me, the things I
experience as ordinary and familiar — access to desktop, mobile,
virtual, ubiquitous technology — were entirely foreign to many of the
children I met. Some had never seen a computer before, never moved a
mouse, never typed on a keyboard. But they knew something about
learning. They were so energetic and passionate about their studies,
making the experience of bringing technology to their classrooms all the
more meaningful.
As we began setting up zero clients, I knew we were doing
something that would help satisfy the children’s curiosity about the
world around them. It’s not that they weren’t already learning a lot.
They have amazing teachers who follow regimented curricula, and Malaysia
sets high standards of education for its people. In fact, investment in
education is a top priority for its government. Bringing this
technology into their classrooms would open more doors to information,
teaching tools, digital capacity and enrichment for an excited group of
kids, regardless of environmental and geographical conditions.
The
children watched with great interest and anticipation as we connected
their classrooms. We brought wiring and power resources with us to
supplement the solar panels and generator the school already used for
electricity. They had a satellite link that enabled an Internet
connection as well. The connection was strong enough to support a remote
server. The zero clients use only 15 to 20 watts of power each so we
can power a lot of them; traditional computers would have demanded 200
watts per unit. Despite our low power needs, we faced some wiring
challenges as we worked. The wires fried as we tested the system. We
heard a beep and lost all power. Luckily, I had extra wire with me, and
after this experience we made sure to bring it to all the other schools
where we installed the zero clients.
The
day the kids used the technology for the first time was the highlight
of my trip. The technology come to life in the bright-eyed enthusiasm of
the children. The prototype development, the testing and re-testing,
the rigorous steps required to beat out the competition in collaboration
with Bitara Induk (an information and communications technology systems
integrator) and VMware, all culminated in that instant. We had “passed
the test” with a high score from The Ministry of Education, Malaysia.
I was fortunate to repeat my experience in the Sabah
jungle at several other schools throughout Malaysia. By March 2014, our
partnership afforded 25,000 zero clients across 1,250 rural and inland
schools. It’s all part of the Malaysian government’s ambitious vision
for preschool through university education called the Malaysia Education
Blueprint, 2013-2025, which will ultimately have an impact on six
million children at 10,000 schools. Among the key tenets of the plan is
an investment in information and communications technology to improve
educational outcomes, advance Malaysia’s competitiveness in the global
market and bring about educational parity between urban and rural
schools.
The
success we’re seeing with the PCoIP-enabled zero clients across the
country has exceeded the Malaysian government’s expectations. With
minimal onsite IT setup or modification to the classroom environment,
high performance computing and educational resources are being delivered
across devices to enhance teaching and learning. Children from remote
village schools are accessing the same digital resources as kids in
urban areas, and they’re doing it through a centralized computing model
that simplifies IT management and reduces hardware costs while enhancing
data security.
No data live on the zero clients themselves, which is how
they consume so little power and why public education administrators
don’t have to worry about securing thousands of individual machines.
Data stays in the data center and encrypted pixels are sent to zero
clients via the PCoIP protocol, which decodes the pixels and create
displays that resemble traditional desktops.
Currently, Malaysia is evaluating the potential to adopt
the same model for digital classrooms on a national scale, which could
make it the first country in the world to use PCoIP to empower an entire
public school system with centrally managed desktops. Through this
program, Malaysia is demonstrating the potential for bridging the
digital divide between urban and rural schools in educational systems in
other regions of the world. In fact, it’s caught the interest of
neighboring countries in ASEAN — and beyond.
I’m profoundly honored and humbled to have had the
opportunity to travel throughout Malaysia, and especially to spend time
with school children and teachers in Sabah, alongside my newfound
colleagues and friends at Bitara Induk. I look forward to embarking on
similar missions throughout the world aimed at leveling the playing
field and reimagining education with virtual desktop technology.
info:http://innovationinsights.wired.com
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