Posted: 29/05/2012
Calligo today announced its commitment to provide a free of
charge pilot cloud computing service for a Jersey school's computer programming club
initiative, supported by its partners VMware and Foreshore.
The launch of the programming clubs is taking place during the summer term and initially will
be piloted at four schools; Le Rocquier, Jersey College for Girls (JCG), Hautlieu and Haute
Vallee. The clubs will be mentored by local software specialists John Hollis, Christos Valerkou
and Simon Brown. The States of Jersey's Education, Sport and Culture (ESC) department
has worked with Julian Box, CEO, Calligo to help launch the initiative.
“I feel very strongly that technology helps businesses be competitive and the key skills need
to be learnt early on in education,” stated Box. “I am pleased to offer our ‘platform as a
service' cloud offering free of charge to Jersey schools. This provides pupils access to the
technology enabling enthusiasts in schools to learn to program. The fact that ESC have
supported me in offering this service indicates Jersey's desire to be ahead of the game in
providing and advancing technology learning in schools.”
The Calligo platform as a service (PaaS) offering ‘Calligo:CloudForce' is based on VMware
Cloud Foundry™ and is delivered on infrastructure supplied by local data center specialists
Foreshore. Cloud Foundry streamlines the development, delivery and operations of modern
applications, significantly enhancing the ability of developers to deploy, run and scale their
applications in cloud environments. Matt Piercy, vice president, Northern EMEA, VMware
supports the initiative. “VMware applauds Julian's and Calligo's effort and commitment to
make this project come alive. Cloud computing is a great enabler for technology learning and
we are pleased to be involved at an early stage in helping Jersey schools benefit from the
future of computing today.”
“It is refreshing to see local businesses like Calligo providing time and services free of charge
to benefit our local students,” said Rod Bryans, Assistant Minster for Education. I am looking
forward to seeing the outcome of the pilot programming challenge during the summer term.”
The programming clubs will each receive 12 sessions covering different areas of
programming such as creating objects, moving objects, bug detection and resolution. At the
end of the pilot a competition will be held to identify the best game created and the winning
school will win 20 Raspberry Pi computers.