Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to present to the committee. My comments will focus on the first question the committee has put forward, which is in regard to the spending measures needed for prosperity and sustainability. Specifically, my presentation focuses on the fastest-growing population in Canada: aboriginal children. It also focuses on themes that this government has championed, among them economic development, strategic investment, and technology.
You've all received a copy of my presentation. What I'm going to discuss with you today is One Laptop Per Child. It's a program that is currently in 15 other countries, one million of them in operation, and it has yielded tremendous results. It's about education, empowerment, globalization, responsibility, and investing in a key resource, our children.
This iteration of One Laptop Per Child in Canada is unique. It focuses on aboriginal children. It has the support of organizations and individuals from the aboriginal community, among them Chief Atleo, Roberta Jamieson, Susan Aglukark, Clint Davis, the ITK, and several others. I point that out at the beginning because this is not a solution that has been made in central Ontario; it is in fact a solution that is being put together in collaboration with aboriginal leaders and individuals.
It's also a program that's built on partnership between the not-for-profit community, the private sector, and hopefully the government. It's a pilot project that I am speaking to you about today. We believe that if we can pilot this, this time next year, for our kids, about 5,000 of them in various parts of the country, we can in five years reach a population of 250,000 children between the ages of 6 and 12.
With respect to One Laptop Per Child, it was created in 2005 by a gentleman named Nicholas Negroponte. He's the founder of the MIT media lab. It's a low-cost, low-powered, connected laptop. In fact I have one with me, so you can see that it's actually proven, not something we're going to come up with in this pilot program. It's a tool to get aboriginal kids involved in their own education.
Briefly, the important part is what the laptop will have on it. This particular laptop will have on it a literacy program with aboriginal content. It will have on it a financial literacy program with a banking opportunity, so we're giving actual skills and practical skills to children. It will have at least 100 books, 50 of which will be from aboriginal authors for aboriginal children, and we're pleased to announce that Heather Reisman has agreed to give us the other 50 books. It will have connectivity to the Internet, an entrepreneurship program, a mentorship and leadership program, games to improve dexterity, self-esteem, and creativity, and we'll be doing that in partnership with CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
We'll also be working with ParticipACTION to come up with a physical education program so that we're not creating a bunch of children sitting in front of computers but that they learn how to use technology for their physical health.
We're also working with the University of Waterloo so that as these programs are developed by the content experts, they are handed over to, as we call them, high-performing tech geeks at the University of Waterloo, who will then be coming up with the application. So we are striving to have an academic aspect to this.
I'm going to go through the deck very quickly. It's important to understand who will benefit from One Laptop Per Child. Obviously, our main population is aboriginal children 6 to 12 years of age, their parents, their communities, teachers, other family members, and we believe, with this investment, Canadians. We are talking about the fastest-growing population in Canada and a population that has demonstrated enormous results when given the opportunity.
As indicated on page 7, the accomplishments to date are taken from a number of evaluations in these 15 different countries, all at different stages, but we know that at the end of the day kids become more interested in their learning. There are lower dropout rates, increased school attendance, and higher literacy rates. They become more creative. Because of their access to the Internet, they explore areas of opportunity that they may not have otherwise explored. In fact, the programs that are on here are musical in nature. There are memory games. There are memory tools. There's a calculator on there. There's a journal on there. So what we've seen is that kids are becoming a bit more engaged in their education.
In reference to page 8, if I came to you with a program and didn't tell you that there were challenges and opportunities for those challenges, it would be a little bit of a misleading statement. We've identified three challenges and three ways to solve those challenges. One is breakage. The computer is built for kids, so the breakage rate is less than 1%. Regarding training, we really believe the best way to get these into the hands of aboriginal kids is to have aboriginal adolescents be the trainers of these programs, so that's built into this program. In terms of the cost, this is a very low-cost solution to literacy problems, self-esteem, and the engagement of children.
Built on this, on page 9 we talk about potential partnerships. For the pilot program, we're talking about $5 million over three years, shared between not-for-profit, profit, and the government. So that boils down to about $2.5 million for the government, and that would be $833,000 per year for three years. At the end of the day, we believe that after three years of this pilot program, and within five years, we could cover the entire population--obviously, with increased investment.
On page 10 I talk about why this is a useful investment for the Government of Canada. I won't go through all of this, but we look at it as a strategic investment. That's a very important part of this equation. Often not-for-profits come and ask for a bulk of money and tell us they'll try to do good things with it. This is an investment in a population that needs it, and it's built on a partnership.
After a pilot program this would be a cost of $250 per child. Currently I'm told we spend $215 per child on just language training in this country. At the end of the day, the bottom line of this program is that it's innovative, it's targeted, it's proven, and it's supported by aboriginal leaders and is cost-effective.
On page 12 you'll see the roll-out. The plan is to do the content to raise the funds and to have these computers in the hands of 5,000 children by this time next year.
Thank you very much.