Bridging the Digital Divide

—NTHU Volunteer Teams in Africa

Esther Tseng　/　photos courtesy of NTHU Volunteer Teams in Africa　/　tr. by Phil Newell

May 2025

中文日本語

These Kenyan students are diligently learning to use computers for word processing.

This is a common reaction of African high-school students in computer classes taught by one of the international volunteer teams from National Tsing Hua University: “When they first see a computer, they look perplexed and surprised. When they touch a real computer, their delight is hard to put into words. And when they turn on the computer and see the screen light up, they are super happy!”

“It was only when we got to the venue that we learned that the first class really had to start with how to turn the computer on, which was not at all what we had imagined,” says Megan Tseng, a third-year undergraduate in the Department of Education and Learning Technology at National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), who in the summer of 2024 spent 45 days as a volunteer in Kenya and Eswatini. Because local schools lack the resources to purchase equipment like desktop computers, for Kenyan high-school students, “a computer is something that only exists in books.”

A bridge between Taiwan and Africa

In 2008 Fr. Jean-Pascal Lombart, French pastor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Zhubei, Hsinchu County, went to Tanzania, where he had previously worked as an international volunteer. Drawing on Taiwan’s strengths in information and communications technology, he established a computer classroom there, and arranged for students from NTHU to offer free computer instruction. This marked the beginning of the NTHU International Volunteer Tanzania Team, which was active for ten years.

In 2015 Eddy Owaga, deputy vice chancellor of Kenya’s Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, who had studied in Taiwan, invited an NTHU volunteer team to Kenya. Because local schools lacked computer equipment, many high-school students attending computer classes could only learn from books, without the chance to operate an actual device. The NTHU volunteer team applied to the Asus Foundation for secondhand computers, and raised money from various sources for transportation of the equipment by sea freight, and traveling expenses for the team. Over the last decade, they have installed more than 1,800 computers in countries including Tanzania and Kenya, and set up 39 computer classrooms; more than 19,400 students have taken computer classes.

Brady Liao, a student in NTHU’s Department of Computer Science who served as team leader on a visit to Kenya and Eswatini in the summer of 2024 and will do so again on a trip to Kenya and Zambia in the summer of 2025, says that Deputy Vice Chancellor Owaga treated the Kenya Team with the same warmth and kindness that he himself had received in Taiwan. Not only did he allow some of the team to stay in his house, he transported them to the schools where they served. Also, his wife made a special trip to nearby Lake Victoria to buy tilapia and prepared Taiwanese-style scallion pancakes for them.

Volunteer teams from National Tsing Hua University are introducing Taiwan’s prowess in information and communications technology to Africa. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

The reality of the digital divide

Let’s look in particular at the work of the Kenya Team in the summer of 2024. The Asus Foundation provided 150 desktop and 20 laptop computers, which team members first inspected, repaired, and prepared for use. These were dispatched to Kenya by sea in May. In July, the team members divided into two groups and visited five high schools in Kenya’s Nyeri, Kisumu, and Busia areas to offer computer instruction, including Scratch programming and the use of AI tools. Instruction had to begin with the basics: using a mouse. When the students learned how to use the mouse and mastered the “drag” and “select” functions, the volunteer teachers felt a strong sense of accomplishment.

Li Ruishan, a second-year undergraduate at NTHU, came away with the conviction that the Kenyan students were very bright and had a strong desire to learn, but were held back by the limited resources available to them. “I had just finished teaching Excel when a class prefect immediately employed their free time after school to use it for a practical application—creating an attendance register for all the students in the class. I realized that if we simply give the students the key, they can open a door that lets them see far into the distance.” This is the door of digital inclusion.

NTHU’s Africa volunteer teams give Kenyan high-school students the chance to learn about computers through hands-on use of devices.

Kenyan students learn about Taiwan through cultural exchange.

Using waste paper rather than plastic materials to package computers for shipment to Africa can reduce environmental harm from the burning of plastic trash. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

My African summer vacation

The members of the NTHU volunteer team in Kenya used after-school hours to engage in cultural exchange. They taught calligraphy and made small sky lanterns as well as shared Taiwanese snacks including Kuai Kuai, Prince Noodles, flavored cream puffs, and hawthorn candy, with the most popular among local students proving to be pineapple cakes. Despite obstacles to their work, for the student volunteers the novel cross-cultural experiences far outweigh any inconveniences. In Kenya in 2024 they would often go three days without showering because of a lack of water. Every day they ate stir-fried cabbage and stewed beans, and the Wei Lih fried soybean paste they had brought with them from Taiwan, spread on white bread, became a delicacy. They bravely ate food from roadside vendors, such as Kenyan-style roasted corn rolled in a spicy blend of chili, fresh lime juice, and salt, as well as deep-fried banana chips, which they wrongly assumed would be like Taiwanese tempura (fried fishcake). Rheta Chong, who was on the track and field team in middle school and is currently a third-year student in NTHU’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and Environmental Sciences, played soccer with local primary-school students. She says with a smile and a shake of her head: “There I was wearing sneakers, but I still couldn’t keep up with these kids wearing flip-flops or going barefoot. To buck up my spirits, they deliberately kicked the ball to me.”

Members of the NTHU International Volunteer Eswatini Team experience local culture.

The NTHU International Volunteer Eswatini Team.

Students in Eswatini have proven to be both friendly hosts and diligent learners.

Continuing friendship

The 2024 NTHU International Volunteer Eswatini Team not only provided services to local primary schools in Eswatini, they also visited the Yuan Tong Schools for Vulnerable Children, a multilingual primary school and high school run by the Amitofo Care Centre (ACC), to offer computer classes to 400 students including children from the ACC’s orphanage. Megan Tseng and Doris Lee, a fourth-year undergraduate in NTHU’s College of Technology Management, share their experience: “The people of Eswatini are very friendly, which is perhaps related to their traditional culture, while the students are sincere and adorable.” Li Ruishan and Rheta Chong, who were tasked with shipping computers to Africa for the summer of 2025, did a lot of running around at customs before successfully sending computers to Kenya and Tanzania. They say with both pride and laughter: “After we graduate, we can open a marine freight forwarding company, or work in one, because now we know how to handle everything.”

Megan Tseng, recalling a touching interaction with a primary-school child in Africa, avers: “I feel that the emotional connection of that moment is the reason why I decided to go to Africa again this year.” It is not so much that Tseng, who will lead the Eswatini team in the summer of 2025, wants to bring the identical sense of connection to more people, as that she hopes all the volunteers will have the chance to experience their own personal emotional connections. It is such interactions that have prompted volunteer teams from NTHU to continue the work of their predecessors and to spread Taiwan’s “warm power” around the globe.