African Hospitals and Schools Share Experience with Innovative Digital Storage

During the four-day workshop, the technicians shared how they are using a solution called Synology Disk Station for different development-related purposes. In Wa (Upper West Region of Ghana), for instance, the system is used in a vocational training school. It helps to manage and share the school’s electronic documents and files and is used to manage the school’s local area network in an efficient and cost-effective way.

In the Sengerema District Hospital in Tanzania’s Mwanza Region, the Synology station is used to help share health-related information between the different hospital institutions. Before using the Synology technology, this has been a challenge and managing the technical infrastructure required, was not easy. Now, an administrator can more easily manage the infrastructure. He can for instance copy interesting health websites on the Synology station. Hospital staff can then access these websites locally, without having to connect to the internet. This significantly reduces bandwith usage (and costs). The Synlogy technology is also used to install third party applications such as Moodle. It is easily available in Africa as there are resellers in Ethiopia and Kenya.

In addition to sharing project stories, participants of the workshop also explored valuable features of the Synology system. And they learned new techniques for installing and administering the system.

A more detailed description of the workshop and the tool can be read here.