Plan Ceibal authorities and team leaders talk about the main challenges they faced: making resources available, greater infrastructure, distribution protocols, and new educational formats, among others.

That it was possible to put forward a robust contingency plan was due to a great extent to the leadership and mobilization of Plan Ceibal management teams, who in coordination with the National Public Education Administration (Administración Nacional de Educación Pública, ANEP) sought innovative solutions for the challenges posed by the pandemic. 

Leandro Folgar

President – Plan Ceibal and Fundación Ceibal

“We had to be creative and implement in a very short time frame, with no time to test prototypes, and in that respect we had to rely a great deal on teams. Fortunately, the teams rose to the occasion. Ideas were few, clear and powerful and that made it possible to provide the service and the great response that we were able to give.”

Fiorella Haim

General Manager – Plan Ceibal  

“Delivering computers was a major challenge this year. It was vital to get the laptops to the children when they were working from home, and in three months we managed to deliver 100,000 computers.”

Irene Gonzalez

Education Manager – Plan Ceibal

“From the first days we were focused on creating the Ceibal en casa (Ceibal at home) proposal which meant preparing teachers to use the technology so that they could reach the students, connect with them, work with them, sustain education online, and also connect with the families so that they could accompany and support their children.”

Claudia Brovetto

Red Global de Aprendizajes and Ceibal en inglés Manager – Plan Ceibal

“We asked ourselves how we could support and reach the children and teenagers who, for various reasons, don’t have access to technology. That was how the possibility came about of working with multiplatform or transmedia ideas and reaching them through television, with television as an excuse, as a starting point.”

Enrique Lev

Head of R&D+i – Plan Ceibal

“We had to quadruple the infrastructure in a situation where we didn’t know how many students or users were going to be contacted the next day. The only thing we knew was that we had to be able to meet that demand.”