Providing quality education to Nepal’s nearly seven million school-age children is an enormous logistical, financial, and cultural challenge. Most of the 34,000+ schools are remote, lack reliable electric power and have inadequate (if any) Internet. Nepal has $175 per student per year, one hundredth of California’s $17,500 student budget. Rote learning has been the standard. Most parents lack the skills needed to help their children with school and career planning. The resources we take for granted (computers, Internet, textbooks, school library, a good teacher/student ratio, well-trained teachers, informed parental support...) aren't available.
LEC has overcome this challenge with Looma, an affordable, interactive audio-visual education system "in a box". It provides educational content and teacher support to the entire classroom-offline. Looma integrates a computer, A/V projector, webcam, and easy user interface with the national curriculum and a massive library of media files, teacher tools, learning games, and educational videos. It needs only 55 W ~ easy with solar. With Looma, students' roles are changed from 'audience' to 'actors'!