eTekkatho - Tekkatho meaning ‘University’ in Burmese - compiles resources from partner organisations such as MIT, Khan Academy, Wikipedia, and the British Council, along with the University of Manchester’s own MOOCs and My Learning Essentials courses.

The content is delivered through an offline intranet site that is installed on local networks in universities, hospitals, and various institutions within Myanmar. Due to the poor Internet infrastructure throughout the country, many online resources we take for granted in the UK are difficult if not impossible for the people there to access.

Research IT has helped to develop the current website and tools for ingesting new materials and provides technical support to the eTekkatho project for both their online and offline versions. We are currently working to automate testing and development, and create faster, leaner sites to deliver the resources over low bandwidth network conditions.

Research Software Engineer Rob Dunne, who has been embedded in the project, recently gave a presentation at the eTekkatho trustees meeting on technical improvements that Research IT can provide to increase the effectiveness of delivering learning materials within Myanmar. This board meeting, along with an awareness raising event at the House of Lords, has secured further funding for the project for another 3 years.

Research IT will now be working closely with eTekkatho to implement ongoing improvements, and to expand their educational resources into the medical field within the next 12 months.

See the eTekkatho website for more information.