OMPT empowers the poorest people in the world with critical knowledge by equipping teachers with audio-visual technology, training and content.

 

OMPT founder Matt York sharing a video lesson with students in Southern Sudan

Insufficient education is one of the main reasons for suffering in our world. Half the world’s population is living on less than two dollars a day. Most of the nearly two billion children living in developing nations do not finish school. One-third of these children do not complete fifth grade. Many have no schooling at all. Yet no country has ever reached sustained economic growth without coming close to universal primary education for boys and girls.

Education for adults is even more inadequate. Basic knowledge about sanitation, hygiene and disease prevention can drastically reduce mortality rates, the number of orphans and the number of people in the world living in abject poverty.

Instructors throughout the world struggle daily to provide rural villagers and rural slum-dwellers with education that can improve their lives and provide beneficial returns including:

  • Lower rates of disease

  • Higher rates of language and mathematics literacy

  • Higher agricultural yields

  • Better practices in maternal and reproductive health

  • Improved hygiene and sanitation practices

  • Sustainable environmental practices

  • Greater economic self sufficiency

  • Increased civic engagement

  • Improved conflict resolution

Dedicated instructors work throughout the world to provide knowledge on these and other critical topics, yet they are too few, and they frequently lack the resources, training and curriculum to see their efforts bear fruit. They toil on as they are able, but they wish for simple tools available to teachers throughout the rest of the world that would help them have a greater impact.

No other investment as education has so much potential to lift entire communities out of poverty.

The primary outputs of the OMPT A/V instructional technology solution are enabled teachers, higher learning gains and improved conditions in critical populations of the world. OMPT increases the capacity of teachers and learners in the most under-served places on earth by facilitating the use of high quality content delivered to people on portable, affordable, self-powered audio/video equipment such as microprojectors, mini-loudpeakers and digital audio players that only require minimal assistance from a trained operator. OMPT works with partners in the field to provide instructional technology and content solutions that take into account the scholastic, technological, and financial framework necessary to serve needs around the world.

Our goal of equipping 10 million teachers with A/V instructional technology supports the 2015 UN Millennium Development Goals.