Roopal K. Earns Gold Award: Closing the Digital Divide

Roopal K. is no stranger to technology. She was playing with computers as young as 2 years old. Flash forward a number of years and at 12 she became the youngest member of the Singapore Geek Girls, and even started a chapter at her school, the Singapore American School (SAS). She is also a prolific writer, posting numerous articles for the SAS Perspectives blog and has created her own blogging website to share her experiences. It should come as no surprise for her Girl Scout Gold Award project she chose to use her skills to help others by “closing the digital divide”. By teaching new skills to those with limited access to both technology and related educational resources, her project aims to give them new employment opportunities beyond manual labor. Roopal created a detailed training course on the basics of Microsoft Office and internet safety. She tested the materials on a group of domestic helpers and younger Girl Scout Troops in Singapore, before heading off to Bangalore, India to teach the course to 80 high school students. In her project summary, she points out that this is just the beginning, “If I expanded my lessons with 10 different curricula, and formed a group of 100 other interested teachers, we’d be able to teach 80 x 10 x 100 = 80,000 students.” While the Gold Award project was completed and accredited by USA Girl Scouts in August 2016, her work is ongoing; SAS has supported students to build a computer lab in Batam so Roopal can continue teaching. Congratulations Roopal!