Turing Trust - Andrew Clark
Wed, Apr 24th 2019 at 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Another load of PCs about to set off for Malawi
Members of the club were very fortunate to receive an informative and entertaining talk on the history of the Turing Trust and it’s relationship with the Rotary Club of Currie and Balerno from club member Andrew Clark.
Andrew gave an overview of the founding of the Turing Trust by James Turing, great nephew of Alan Turing who is best known for breaking the code in the Enigma Machine. The Trust was founded following a gap year in Ghana where he felt he could improve on the experiences that he had encountered. Andrew’s involvement came when he and his wife, Pearl, attended one of the annual Turing Lectures. It was fascinating to hear the ubiquitous CAPTCHA system for verifying human interaction with a computer has it’s foundation in the Turing Test.
The Club was involved as early as 2012 when the Turing Trust used premises that the Club had use of at the Gyle shopping centre. Computers were collected there, wiped then restored back to their original and had educational software added before around 500 of them were sent off to Malawi in a container. After the Gyle, the Turing Trust moved to premises at High School Yards at the University of Edinburgh.
The container was converted to a SolarBerry and is now operational with enough power being generated for it to work all day and night as well as power phones and solar lights.
The Lighting Up Young Lives Project has raised £800 to provide solar lighting for the school in Choma, Malawi. This has made a significant enhancement to the educational opportunities there.
The Trust received a real boost in Autumn of last year through a presentation to the Scottish Parliament. Gordon McDonald has been a great help in facilitating this and visited the latest Turing Trust premises in Newbridge recently.
Significant achievements have been made by the Turing Trust as well as by the Club. These include:
Ghana - delivering and installing 2000PCs in, Providing training courses for teachers, redirecting 5 laptops from Visoi to an orthopaedic training centre as well as the club supporting the education of 12 students.
Malawi – installing 40 computers in schools as well as a SolarBerry. More computers are currently on route.
Liberia – 11 computer labs have been installed with YMCA and 25 laptops were delivered to the Mineke Foundation.
Kenya – computer lab installed with Ubuntu Power along with 9 laptops and a projector. 14 other labs are also supported.
The success of the Turing Trust has just been rewarded with £60,000 from the small government grant scheme which will have a significant benefit to the work it does.
Finally, Theresa Douglas thanked Andrew for an excellent and interesting presentation which provided a real insight into the value of the work that the Turing Trust does and the huge contribution made by the Club and Andrew in particular..
Andrew gave an overview of the founding of the Turing Trust by James Turing, great nephew of Alan Turing who is best known for breaking the code in the Enigma Machine. The Trust was founded following a gap year in Ghana where he felt he could improve on the experiences that he had encountered. Andrew’s involvement came when he and his wife, Pearl, attended one of the annual Turing Lectures. It was fascinating to hear the ubiquitous CAPTCHA system for verifying human interaction with a computer has it’s foundation in the Turing Test.
The Club was involved as early as 2012 when the Turing Trust used premises that the Club had use of at the Gyle shopping centre. Computers were collected there, wiped then restored back to their original and had educational software added before around 500 of them were sent off to Malawi in a container. After the Gyle, the Turing Trust moved to premises at High School Yards at the University of Edinburgh.
The container was converted to a SolarBerry and is now operational with enough power being generated for it to work all day and night as well as power phones and solar lights.
The Lighting Up Young Lives Project has raised £800 to provide solar lighting for the school in Choma, Malawi. This has made a significant enhancement to the educational opportunities there.
The Trust received a real boost in Autumn of last year through a presentation to the Scottish Parliament. Gordon McDonald has been a great help in facilitating this and visited the latest Turing Trust premises in Newbridge recently.
Significant achievements have been made by the Turing Trust as well as by the Club. These include:
Ghana - delivering and installing 2000PCs in, Providing training courses for teachers, redirecting 5 laptops from Visoi to an orthopaedic training centre as well as the club supporting the education of 12 students.
Malawi – installing 40 computers in schools as well as a SolarBerry. More computers are currently on route.
Liberia – 11 computer labs have been installed with YMCA and 25 laptops were delivered to the Mineke Foundation.
Kenya – computer lab installed with Ubuntu Power along with 9 laptops and a projector. 14 other labs are also supported.
The success of the Turing Trust has just been rewarded with £60,000 from the small government grant scheme which will have a significant benefit to the work it does.
Finally, Theresa Douglas thanked Andrew for an excellent and interesting presentation which provided a real insight into the value of the work that the Turing Trust does and the huge contribution made by the Club and Andrew in particular..
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