Whether you are talking about Chickens or Computers, viruses usually
are getting a bad rap in the news lately. In the interest of balanced
journalism, we are pleased to bring to your attention a good story
about a virus.
This virus’s name is Sagar. He is the top-ranked student of class three
at the Yusuf Technical School in Comilla, Bangladesh and he is a
trend-setter. When the Global Connections and Exchange Program
came to the school, the program was aimed at secondary school students,
ages about thirteen to seventeen. However, the Yusuf School also
has younger students who were very inquisitive about the new computer
center.
 Sagar’s
mother works at the school, and his family lives on campus. The
Internet Learning Center (ILC) is literally a stone’s throw from his front
door. Everyday, whenever he has a chance, he spends his free time
at the ILC. As other students leave the center, he hovers nearby
waiting for a chair to open up and swoops in to claim it. Before
school, he drops by the center, he eats lunch quickly to spend some
free time on the computers, after school he’s also likely to be found
in front of one of the monitors until the ILC closes. Since he
seems to pop up every time a computer is turned on, he has become known
in the ILC as “virus”.
 Sagar
can turn the workstations on and off, launch any program in the center;
he types quickly in Bangla and English, and the mouse is a mere
blur. He’s a pro at Word and Powerpoint, and often shows off his
drawing skills for visitors. He takes requests, and can produce
good looking pictures in MS paint in under a minute. In fact,
he’s become so proficient that he is now often seen helping other
people run web searches, use their email or figure out various features
of ILC software. Interestingly, before last year, he had never
seen a computer; now, he can’t imagine living without one.
Someday, he hopes to become a software engineer or graphic artist – any
profession where he can use a computer every day.
We hope that we are incubating many more computer viruses like Sagar,
and that their interest in computers and information technology is
infectious.
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