Report by Winifred Kula

Design Thinking
Todays event was a huge success with the completion of Introduction to Scratch.

3 teams were formed and each team presented a scratch “story board” and “game” to their parents.

It was a really proud moment to see the kids creativity and imagination come to life within their scratch projects. And the level of effort they put into building their games using scratch. Congratulations to Emily Kula-Lea and team for the committment as their tutors and instructor.

The team that took the prize, actually drew their own characters (sprite) and narated their story around protecting our marine life.

My favorite game was the “banana catch”. It was just too funny.

Now the next step for the Kids is to move into the next level. Which is the Hackathon.

For those interested in attending the Hackathon Show & Tell, save the date; July 11 @ Gateway. The kids will be presenting to parents and invited guests.

During the Hackathon Show & Tell, we will also showcase an Introduction to Sphero a STEM program for Kids.

As originally published on Post Courier Online (PNG)

The National Information and Communication Technology Authority will be reviewing the retail internet pricing to include all cable systems.
NICTA chief executive ocer Charles Punaha said this is to clear the misconception in the market about the dierent prices presently previously by NICTA and DataCo.

Mr Punaha said when NICTA initially undertook a public enquiry into the pricing of the Coral Sea cable its recommended price was K185 but have received request from DataCo for a review on price determination. He said this was because the price only covered was from Sydney to Port Moresby however there is also a cost element that DataCo has to negotiate with the retail customers to take the capacity from the landing station at Kila Barracks to their premises.

“That is the issue now we are looking at.

As part of the review process of the price we have determined we are now going to look at taking the capacity from here right through to the customer premises so it will be one price for the whole supply chain,” he said.
“There is an aspect that we have not addressed although it is covered under the we call the broadband specic pricing principles where we expect DataCo to utilise the pricing principle which provides for cost anti
discrimination and anti competitive.

They are supposed to use that but we are aware that this has now create a situation where retail customers are now coming back to DataCo and say that where is the pricing that you have promised us,” he added.
Punaha said to complete the process they are now going to review the price from Sydney to the landing station and onto customers in order to have one price for the whole supply chain.

PNG DataCo chief executive ocer Paul Komboi said the review will also take into account the Kumul Submarine Cable. “The pricing determination only looked at the Coral Sea cable and the PPC1 that’s two separate system. What we have proposed and discussed with NICTA is to look at it as a complete system together including the Kumul submarine cable, Coral Sea, PPC1 and the terrestrial cable we have going up to the highlands provinces,”Mr Komboi said.

“Our pricing now will be cost based on all the cost that we currently acquiring in operating the infrastructure so from there now we can be able to price accordingly meaning the price will uniformed across the country and then you can be able to see cost saving being passed down to the consumer or the end user.

Hopefully by July or August we can be able to come up with that pricing and NICTA will be making that announcement,” he said.

Click to listen to the interview as heard on Pacific Media Network

https://omny.fm/shows/pacificmedianetwork/edwin-liavaa-pacific-ict-and-gis-specialist-dismis

Mobile phone towers are being attacked in New Zealand and around the world and authorities believe it is linked to a hoax about how the 5G network is spreading COVID-9.

Edwin Liava’a has more than twenty years of experience in Information and Communication Technologies and Geographical Information Systems within the Pacific region.  He is a Technical Advisor on Submarine Cable Communications as well as Satellite Communications for Connectivity, Redundancy and National Security.

[PRESS RELEASE]

Amoa College is the first School in Savaii that has been registered to use SITAs ELearning platform on the 14^th May 2020. The Association was doing virtual meetings and trainings with some of the schools prior to visiting Savaii to provide further workshops for Teachers and year 13 students. Amoa College session was joined in by Mataevave College and the EFKS Vocational and Technical College. With the benefits of Technology we were able to have Leififi College and Avele College joining the same training from Apia.

Since we already have the technology available in Savaii, SITA believes we can utilize this by assisting the teachers and our children to continue quality education despite their locations. We have to acknowledge the main Telecommunications Companies role in supporting this program especially VodaFone who is providing free data for Teachers and students, internet routers for our technical support Team and most importantly is enabling our online trainings url or address elearning.sita.ws as zero data access. A student don’t need data to access the SITAs ELearning classrooms as long as the phone is on. Digicel has also shown interest in this project and will join us at a later stage because at the end of the day we want to reach out to everyone who uses our platform.

Today the 15^th May 2020, The Minister of Communication, Information Technology afioga Afamasaga Rico Tupai presented the keynote address for the second School Itu o Tane College in Savaii who is now register to use our platform. His Honorable points out the importance of the Governments vision to utilized technology and get ready for Digital transformation. We now have an equal playing field for all schools in Upolu and Savaii. Therefore, it is very unlikely for students to miss a class as they now able to access quality education and Technology makes things easier for Teachers and students. It is very important for students to use the opportunity wisely and spend more time in learning than social media. He concludes in thanking the principals of schools who joined in Savaii for making use of the opportunity and the President of SITA, Executive and members for developing this ELearning platform.

We now sees the importance of adapting to Digital transformation as Universities uses these online platforms and it is a good opportunity for year 13 students to educate and prepare now because it will be very beneficial for them in the future if they move to the other level in education at NUS or USP. Our Teachers will add another important skills and dimension to their teaching capabilities.

Our SITA Team is working during our free time and late hours to provide support for free and the platform is available to schools without any costs to them. SITA absorbs all the costs in regards to security and cloud hosting for this Community Project and it is why the association was established not only to develop our ICT profession but to give back to our people.

Vaiala Beach School in Upolu is the first primary school who now comes on Board and their senior classes will start soon.

To date we now have 7 schools registered and we have to thank all the Principals of the schools who now come on board to our ELearning platform for their vision and commitment to continue quality educations for their students.

Since the Government declared the State of Emergency due to the Covid19 pandemic, the Samoa Information Technology Association (SITA) has been exploring possible windows of opportunity to assist our Government and our people. To this end, SITA identified the Education sector as one of the key areas that is being heavily affected by the lockdown.

To assist the Education sector, a team of SITA members developed an E-learning platform intended for our children, to enable continued learning while staying at home. SITA is pleased to announce that Avele College through their principal Afioga Matafeo Reupena Matafeo, has agreed to pilot the platform. There are other schools already in the pipeline to come on board when other digital preparations from their end are completed.

Today the 24^th of April 2020 we have marked another milestone by SITA for the launching of its E-learning platform to start with Avele College. The Minister for the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture Honorable Loau Solomalemalo Keneti Sio presented the Keynote address while the Minister for Ministry of Communication and Information Technology Honorable Afamasaga Rico Tupai officially open the E-learning platform.

SITA’s work for the community is voluntary. We value team work and collaboration in sharing our ICT knowledge and skills to give back to our people. The SITA E-learning platform was developed by the Association with no cost to the school.  SITA is also offering cloud hosting for 1 year to schools that are coming onboard.

We do have a standard list of software and hardware requirements for each school to consider before joining as it would make sense to ensure that these are harmonized across the different schools to obtain best results.

There are always challenges for a new system development however, SITA will endeavor to monitor it closely to ensure the platform is reliable, fast and secure.

To conclude the President of SITA on behalf of the Executive and Members, Muliagatele Fainuulelei James Ah Wai, thank the Honorable Ministers and Avele College for accepting our invitation to be the first school to roll out this technology for the benefit of our Children.

For more information you can visit our website at www.sita.ws