29 February 2008 Hewlett-Packard and World ORT partnership in Russia The partnership between World ORT and the worlds largest consumer IT company, Hewlett-Packard (HP), has seen the opening of two new computer facilities in Russia. Melding the educational and technological expertise of the two organisations has resulted in the opening of a computer centre at the Tula Vocational Boarding School for Deaf Students and a mobile computer laboratory at the ORT Samara School. The computer centre for deaf students marks World ORTs first venture to help deaf students in Tula. It is one of five new business skills training centres that HP and World ORT are collaborating on in Russia under the Graduate Entrepreneurship Training through IT (GET-IT) scheme. GET-IT focuses on the need to encourage job creation and entrepreneurship among young people by providing training courses dealing with practical IT solutions for daily business challenges faced in areas such as finance, human resources, marketing, communication and technology management. The new set of notebooks and T-Tools courseware developed with the support of HP expands the possibility of the centre giving students with special needs an opportunity to obtain skills and knowledge for finding jobs in small businesses, said Sergey Gorinskiy, the Deputy Director of ORT Russia. The school is the only educational institution in Russia focused on children with special needs from low income families. Traditionally it has taught pupils skills in metal working, shoemaking and tailoring. Now they will have the chance to become ICT specialists. Kids who hear only silence deserve to communicate with their peers around the world, added Principal Alexander Ustinov (pictured with Sergey Gorinskiy and Owen Kemp) at the official opening, which was attended by, among others, Owen Kemp, Vice-President of Hewlett-Packard and Director General of HP in Russia. Mr Kemp also attended the opening of the new computer laboratory at the ORT Samara School. The laboratory boasts 11 laptop computers, a multimedia projector, wireless Internet connectivity and a digital camera. It can be set up in any of the schools classrooms within 10 minutes and so provides a universally accessible, cost-effective, high-tech asset, said the Director of ORT Samara, Alexander Fradkov. Avi Ganon, World ORTs Representative in Russia, Belarus and Central Asia, added: This will increase the level of technology teaching at the school, not only because of the new equipment but also by providing a new educational programme for the students. After the opening, Mr Kemp saw the laptops being used to process experimental data in a physics lesson. Later, students presented him with a wooden model of an HP computer that they had made using computer aided design (CAD) and manufacturing technologies. This is the first HP computer built in Russia, an appreciative Mr Kemp joked. HP and World ORT have a long standing and productive relationship, including the setting up of Digital Community Centres in Slavutych (Ukraine), Tula, and Dikhatole (South Africa) as well as Micro-enterprise Acceleration Programme (MAP) centres in Ekaterinburg and Samara.