Imagine 1, and a Start for Conduit

Here’s the story:

Conduit starts this year. We run a few tests between willing college classrooms, work with teachers to integrate Conduit into a curriculum. We build a portfolio, learn from mistakes. We look at the legal implications of connecting to places like Cuba and China from the USA. We build our network, finding teachers who are interested, who want to moderate. We start with college classrooms, and work from there. Who has the technology already? Who needs it?

In 2013 Conduit is established as a non-profit. We have a few connections that run year round, connecting anywhere from every month to every week. We are beginning to test a high school programs, and work on the legal side of bringing this to younger children. We are developing games that do not require a common language or that teach each classroom a few words in foreign languages. Our network continues to grow. We can apply for grants for specific programs. Our fund-raising program is picking up steam - letting students in more privileged situations work to connect with students less lucky. A program asking foreign exchange students to be moderators, translators and helpers takes it's first steps.

By 2015 we have some of the more difficult connections made - one off sessions and test runs are underway. We have one solid base (a school or university) in twenty different countries and are expanding all the time. Our elementary school program gets a chance to test itself. Kids play games with other kids. We are able to pay Conduit employees a salary. We expand into more schools, making more connections.

In 2017, our three main programs are running smoothly - an open ended one for college classrooms, to be adapted to the professor's curriculum, a program for high school students, with a focus in language learning, and a program for elementary school students, teaching each other and their teachers about their cultures through play. Another program goes into the planning phase - a mobile unit with teleconferencing equipment that can reach more remote areas. The fund raising is not only for technology now, it is for whatever a classroom needs - software to pencils and chairs. Alumni keep in touch. They form partnerships of their own, building on relationships formed in Conduit programming. The program continues to expand. Fifty countries are on the network.

We aren’t the scientists, but we’ll help hold off the famine while different kinds of sustainable farming (vertical, rooftop…) are brought in and established. We’ll keep the world thinking about a country most of them have never seen, will never see. We’ll make sure that people care and that they remember that we are all in this together.