Children from St Vincent and the Grenadines to benefit from 12,500 free laptops

TECH NEWS – More than 12,500 children from the tiny Caribbean nation of St Vincent and the Grenadines will be given brand new laptops in an effort to encourage the island’s economy.

The scheme sees Acer, Microsoft and Trend Micro come together to give all secondary school children in the country laptops, in a deal brokered by Dennis Publishing. The computers will come from Acer with Microsoft providing a range of software. All the laptops will also have security software from Trend Micro preinstalled. The programme will see more than 12,500 computers delivered in the next ten weeks.

In summer 2013 the Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines approached Felix Dennis, the owner of Dennis Publishing, to discuss launching the scheme. A programme was conceived to “empower every secondary school child in the region”.

With a population of just 103,000, the island is one of the smallest nations in the world. The scheme will provide “desperately needed leading edge technology” in an attempt encourage a new generation of entrepreneurs. More