Poor children get access to solar-powered digital library

DAVAO ORIENTAL — School kids residing in one of the province’s farthest sitios are now enjoying a new way of learning through a digital library platform called Starbooks. Turned over by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) to Patong Elementary School in Barangay Malibago in Cateel town, the solar-powered Starbooks serves as an offline library with tons of readily accessible, up-to-date information related to science and technology. This was implemented under the DOST’s Community Enhancement through Science and Technology, to give students ‘access to a wealth of science and technology information right at anyone’s fingertips’.

Having no electricity and access to the internet, students in this far-flung sitio — situated 33 kilometers away from the town proper — have no other means to learn except from the state-of-the-art books and lectures taught in school. The Starbooks contains thousands of digitized science and technology resources in various formats such as text, video and audio placed in specially designed pods set in a user-friendly interface. Among the highlight features of the Starbooks are videos that aim to stimulate Filipino’s entrepreneurial capacity dubbed “Tamang DOSTkarte Livelihood videos”.

DOST Provincial Director Sharon Mendoza said that the distribution of Starbooks in schools aims at increasing interest among students to science subjects that would hopefully entice them to enroll in science and technology-related courses, and inspire them on entrepreneurship and research. Aside from the Starbooks, the DOST also provided one week supply of nutritional foods and ceramic water filters. (Thru PIO)