Vernet educating and empowering Dominicans
Education holds an extremely important spot in the priorities of the Dominican Republic’s government, and they will utilize whatever is necessary to acquire the necessary tools to “prepare ourselves to compete in the world.”
In 2004, Margarita Cedeno de Fernandez, the first lady of the Dominican Republic, set out to find the most productive way to educate the Dominican population. Until then, Dominicans had had neither the facilities nor the tools to get the most out of the government’s investment in education.
One of those tools was found right next door in Puerto Rico, where Virtual Educational Resources Network, Inc. (Vernet) is producing educational software compatible with the government’s plans to educate and empower its lower income families with few opportunities to strive in the open market. Vernet’s educational software, which emphasizes skills in English, Spanish (Valores, Planeta de los Verbos) and mathematics (Destino Matemáticas™), turned out to be exactly what the Dominican government was looking for.
“Our software is designed to serve as a supplement to regular school education and to provide computer-assisted training to comprehend the basic elements of math, Spanish and English,” said Manuel Figueroa, a former Lucent Technologies executive who runs Vernet. “What has been fascinating about our experience in the Dominican Republic is that it has become a tool to train adults and school children alike, and it has become highly popular.”
Cedeno’s office and Vernet have been providing supplementary education to Dominican communities through a network of community technological centers in several Dominican municipalities. They have achieved an amazing success.
“One of our objectives is to train adults to become more self sufficient,” said Cedeno. “To give, for example, single mothers the necessary tools and vocational skills to start their own businesses. These programs have helped do just that.” As a result, and through this partnership, “we have had a marked increase in small business being started in [our] communities.”
Vernet’s programs for Spanish and mathematics are prepared and designed by teachers to “literally take you by the hand and teach the basics of math and grammar,” Figueroa explained. “But in the process, many adults who had never been exposed to technology have lost their fear of computers. Many people in the poorest municipalities in the Dominican Republic had never had the chance to experience working with computers. After using our programs, they can’t get enough of the computer, which means they spend more time in community centers and actually retain what they have learned. They say to themselves, ‘I can do this,’ which gives them a sense of empowerment that we never really expected.”
Spot inspections by Vernet designers and staff in the Dominican Republic have found that during school hours, every single computer terminal at the Community Technology Centers is occupied by adults learning new skills. After school, the children take over the terminals. Together, between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. the programs are in constant use.
Instead of designing a separate program to teach English, Figueroa explained that Vernet, being the exclusive distributor of the much-admired software product called “Rosetta Stone” for Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, decided to introduce that program for this venture. Designed and manufactured by Virginia-based Fairfield Language Technologies, Rosetta Stone is the top-selling language software in the world.
“Our motto is prepare to compete,” Figueroa stated.
"Our educational programs through the Community Technological Centers have had a positive side effect,” Cedeno said, “in that it has helped combat adult illiteracy as well as helping better prepare school children for the challenges ahead.”
For Vernet, the popularity of its program in the Dominican Republic has helped carve out a new niche in Latin America. Over the next couple of months the company will open a new facility in Santo Domingo’s Cyber Park to design and manufacture software headed for similar programs in Panama and Ecuador. Proposals have already been sent out to the government of Colombia.
“Vernet Dominicana is already in its execution stage,” Figueroa said. “We feel we have room to create new products to export and provide a similar service in countries that are now striving to be competitive. From our perspective, this is not a sprint. It’s a marathon and we believe our relationship with the Dominican government, and our future in the Dominican market, will help both Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic become leaders in the production and design of education technology.”
