Codebreaker Turing’s legacy is helping Malawi enter digital age
THE family of computing science pioneer Alan Turing are carrying on his legacy after their charity won a UK Government grant to help provide digital skills to Malawi.
The Turing Trust, run by the celebrated codebreaker’s nephew Dermot and his son James, refurbishes old computers donated to it by businesses and the public, to give to schools in the African country.
The Edinburgh-based charity has so far reused over 5,700 PCS, enabling 55,000 students across Africa to gain a digital education.
It is celebrating receiving a £50,000 Small Charities Challenge Fund grant from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office to help a further 6,500 Malawian schoolgirls learn how to work computers.
Chief executive James Turing, 29, said: “My great uncle Alan is often known as the father of modern computer science, and we are proud to be continuing his legacy by helping some of the world’s poorest communities get access to computer technology.
“Nobody in the family since has ever dared to go into computer science themselves, just because of the fear of turning up to class on day one and saying your name is ‘Turing’… then not knowing the answer to a question.
“Nonetheless, we thought about how we could follow Alan’s legacy in a way we think he would have appreciated. Alan was very much interested in doing things for the benefit of all, rather than the individual.
“Everyone in the UK has benefited from computing technology, thanks to pioneers such as Alan, so we are passionate about ensuring everyone around the world has the chance to learn digital skills too.
“My great uncle once said, ‘We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done’. This is certainly still true, in regard to enabling every student a chance to learn IT skills that are vital in today’s economy.”
Mathematician Alan Turing is now famous for his work cracking the Germans’ secret Enigma code messages. The work of Bletchley Park codebreakers is credited with shortening the Second
World War by two to four years – saving millions of lives.
Turing was awarded an OBE in 1946, but was chemically castrated after being prosecuted in 1952 for homosexuality. The war hero was also barred from continuing his work with GCHQ and committed suicide in 1954, aged just 41.
He was granted a posthumous Royal pardon in 2013 and was portrayed by actor Benedict Cumberbatch in the 2014 movie The Imitation Game, which also has James as an extra.
James moved to Scotland in 2010 to study civil engineering at the University of Edinburgh and admits his famous family connection helps persuade businesses to hand over their old computers to the charity.
He said: “I spotted the need for our work during a gap year trip to Ghana
in 2009 before I started university.
I had volunteered to help do work on a construction site, but the project never got started. While I was there someone asked if I could help them source around 20 computers for a local school, and that kickstarted the whole idea of the Turing Trust.
“It led to me coming back to the UK asking for donations of computers and I quickly realised the whole Alan Turing connection was a very big ‘in’ when talking to IT managers.
“They will often give you a second of their time to kind of say ‘You what?’, and eventually ‘Yeah, I am throwing these computers away actually. You can have them’.
“We send approximately 1,600 computers a year now over to Malawi on average. The Small Charities
Challenge Fund funding will really give us the tools to expand this.”
Malawi ranked 149 out of 162 countries in a United Nations Gender Inequality Index study in 2018, and this is something the Turing Trust aims to address.
In the past five years, UK aid funded programmes have built more than 158 classrooms, giving 33,000 students better access to education, and also provided bursaries for over 35,000 girls to attend secondary school.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: “It is wonderful to see the Turing Trust build on the outstanding legacy of Alan Turing, by enabling schools in Malawi to be part of the digital revolution – giving children computing skills that are crucial for creating jobs and prosperity in the 21st century.”
I quickly realised the whole Alan Turing connection was a very big ‘in’ when talking to IT managers