TEENs for Technology (TFT) is a non-profit organisation, founded by TEENs to help children in various countries acquire necessary technological skills and training. TFT works with community schools here in Jamaica, donating complete computer labs, including hardware, peripherals and educational software that will get this job done.

TEENs for Technology pairs with corporations, local communities, educational institutions and committed individuals to obtain the technical and financial support they need to carry out their efforts. It is strictly voluntary, and 100 per cent of the funds raised goes toward its cause.

Since 2002, TFT has donated labs and computers to more than 400 schools in Jamaica. Each of their partner schools receives a complete package, including hardware, software, a maintenance programme and comprehensive training.

Each part of the package is designed to accomplish one of three goals: increase technology proficiency and prepare students for future employment, push computers as valuable teaching tools and expose children to worlds that would otherwise be closed to them through the free internet usually provided by their contributors.

Though the donation activity will continue, with four schools already under their belt, TFT plans on focussing this upcoming year on creating about 75-100 clubs throughout high schools in Jamaica.

The TEENs for Technology unit in Jamaica had their first conference meeting on December 21, 2009 at the Girl Guides headquarters on Waterloo Road in Kingston. It was attended by over 180 TFT high school members hailing from Excelsior, St Hugh’s, Gaynestead and Camperdown.

The though the conference had some keynote speakers such as Parris Lyew-Ayee, Director, Mona Infomatics Institute and the man responsible for the GPS set-up in Jamaica, and Anders Jones, the co-founder of TFT, it was focused mainly on fellowship of the schools’ TFT teams with each school encouraged to do a performance piece. Both St Hugh’s and Gaynestead chose to do skits, while Camperdown did an a capella piece and Excelsior wowed the crowd with their drums.

The two main events of the conference were a quiz competition and a computer building competition. Though Camperdown took the gold in the buzzer round, it was Excelsior who outshone all the other teams, building a computer system from scratch and then booting it up in eight minutes and 26 seconds.

The two-man team received no help in putting their system together, and even had to fix a bug that was placed in the Operating System by officials to make the challenge even more difficult.

The conference brought together the students of different high schools in the name of technological advancement, and with Mona High and Meadowbrook High already joining the technology train, the conference can only be bigger and better next year.

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The winners of the computer building competition, the Excelsior two-man team, collecting their trophie. From left to right: Tommy Gooden, the executive director of TEENs for Technology, Mark Jones and Julie Jones and Curtis Lewis.

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Excelsior students making good use of the computers provided for them by one of TFT’s main sponsors, Amazing PC.

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All four computer building teams get ready to show what they are made of.

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Excelsior team members put together their computer at lightening speed, eventually winning the competition with a record time of 8 minutes and 26 seconds.