Venezuela’s Canaima Computer Project Progresses to Next Stage

One of the most successful projects of the government of Hugo Chavez took another leap forward last week, with the announcement that Venezuela is expected to produce 1,200,000 Canaima computers this year.

One of the most successful projects of the government of Hugo Chavez took another leap forward last week, with the announcement that Venezuela is expected to produce 1,200,000 Canaima computers this year, after the installation of a new production and assembly plant in the state of Miranda.

On an inspection of the assembly plant ‘La Carlota’, Minister for Education, Maryann Hanson, Minister for Science and Technology, Jorge Arreaza, and Vice President, Nicolas Maduro, divulged plans the government has for the program which gives free laptops of high quality and durability to school-aged children with the aim of eradicating technological illiteracy.

Minister Arreaza explained that the initial goal of the Canaima computers was to facilitate laptops to children in primary education: “we are talking about more than 2,700,000 children studying primary education in the public and free education system”.

Of this amount, he explained, already 2,350,000 children have their Canaimas in their hands, helping them with their homework, and training them in technological skills needed in the 21st century.

The plant, which has found its employees mostly from the public employment mission Work and Knowledge, which educates, trains, and places into employment thousands of people, is due to produce 1.2 million more Canaimas this year, more than enough to cover the goals of the project for the near future.

Canaima computers first appeared in Venezuelan schools in 2008, following an agreement with Portugal who produced them and sold them to the Venezuelan government. The Chavez administration then provided the computers to children at no cost to the family, in what rapidly became a flagship program that encapsulated the morals, goals, humanism, and aims of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro explained to workers at the plant how the project connects the economic progress of the country to the technological future of the children, and how they both tie into the historic vision of socialism: “the determination of President Hugo Chavez, since he identified 2this project, has been based in very precise goals which have been achieved”.

Here we see various factors combined: the education of our children, who learn from a young age to manage new technologies, the economic advancement of the country, with the development of an industrial and technological pole in Venezuela, and finally the important backing up of labor stability, with the creation of quality jobs”.