Cyber protection company brings computer literacy classes to more than 300 students at the Terrat Secondary School
The Acronis Cyber Foundation recently completed construction of a computer classroom in the Terrat Secondary School, about 80km from the city of Arusha, Tanzania. This new classroom will enable computer literacy and STEM classes for students in the region, and marks the beginning of Phase 2 in the Acronis Cyber Foundation’s Schools Initiative, empowering children in underserved communities and building the skills they’ll need to excel in the modern world.
The Acronis Cyber Foundation first opened a school in Loongung, Tanzania in October 2018, a remote village of about 3,000 residents where the educational situation was dire. Before the foundation’s arrival, the village had only a small facility that was initially built for preschoolers and later began serving children up through third grade; overcrowding had forced some students to study outdoors. For many children in Loongung, the Acronis Cyber Foundation’s new school allowed access to educational
opportunities that had never existed before.
With the Schools Initiative, the Acronis Cyber Foundation aims to develop computer classrooms in each school that it builds. But as Loongung has no electricity, the foundation looked for an alternate solution — the village of Terrat, 35km away, was deemed suitable for the construction of a computer classroom that could also serve the population of Loongung. Students who complete their studies in Loongung may be sent to secondary schools in nearby villages, including Terrat, to continue their education. The Terrat Secondary School boasts a capacity of 325 children and an infrastructure that can better support
computer classes.
With support from the local community, construction of the new classroom began in December 2020.
Once the overall structure was assembled, TANESCO — Tanzania’s state energy agency — helped connect the school to the public power grid. Walls were cleaned and freshly painted, new tables and chairs were brought in, and 15 desktop computers were installed.
Like many villages in Tanzania, there is not yet Internet access in Terrat. Still, these computers will help students to gain a solid footing in STEM, acquire basic computing skills, and learn to use most common applications — setting them up for success and preparing them for continuous learning in the digital space. Given the rapidly evolving cyberthreat landscape, the school will have access to top-notch cyber protection with free premium licenses for Acronis True Image 2021. Later this year, Acronis will be donating additional educational resources on topics including computer literacy and cybersecurity.
“[This classroom is] a dream come true,” said Julius R. Maplan, Headmaster at the Terrat Secondary School. “We expect a lot of changes from the students, from the administration, even the society that surrounds us, because we expect to learn very new things with the help of computers.”
The Acronis Cyber Foundation has completed construction on 11 schools, with two more in-progress and five planned for the near future. The foundation continues to seek partners for collaboration on future projects. Interested parties are encouraged to contact [email protected] for more information.
About the Acronis Cyber Foundation
The Acronis Cyber Foundation was established by Acronis in 2018 in honor of Acronis’ 15-year anniversary and the company’s founding principle that all evils are caused by insufficient knowledge. The foundation supports multiple initiatives around the world designed to stimulate education in order to gain and protect knowledge. The Acronis Cyber Foundation has been creating and sharing knowledge by funding schools and computer classrooms in underserved communities, publishing educational children’s books, and developing IT training programs for groups including military veterans, ex- offenders, and immigrants.
About Acronis
Acronis unifies data protection and cybersecurity to deliver integrated, automated cyber protection that solves the safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity, and security (SAPAS) challenges of the modern digital world. With flexible deployment models that fit the demands of service providers and IT professionals, Acronis provides superior cyber protection for data, applications, and systems with innovative next-generation antivirus, backup, disaster recovery, and endpoint protection management
solutions. With award-winning AI-based anti-malware and blockchain-based data authentication technologies, Acronis protects any environment — from cloud to hybrid to on-premises — at a low and predictable cost.
Founded in Singapore in 2003 and incorporated in Switzerland in 2008, Acronis now has more than 1,500 employees in 33 locations in 18 countries. Its solutions are trusted by more than 5.5 million home users and 500,000 companies, including 100% of the Fortune 1000, and top-tier professional sports teams. Acronis products are available through 50,000 partners and service providers in over 150 countries in more than 40 languages.