Entry Date:
April 18, 2013

MIT-Haiti Initiative

Principal Investigator Michel DeGraff

Co-investigators Thomas Kochan , Vijay Kumar


MIT and Haiti signed a joint initiative to promote Kreyòl-language education in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines, part of an effort to help Haitians learn in the language most of them speak at home.

The project will take MIT-developed and technologically based open education resources, translate those materials into Kreyòl, disseminate them in Haiti, and evaluate the materials’ effectiveness. The work will be done in conjunction with professors and educators from a variety of institutions in Haiti, including the State University of Haiti, Université Carïbe, École Supérieure d’Infotronique d’Haïti, Université Quisqueya, NATCOM and the Foundation for Knowledge and Liberty.

A group at MIT has responded to the challenge presented by the destruction of Haitian universities by the earthquake of January 12, 2010. One silver lining in the dark cloud left by this earthquake is the unique opportunity to build in Haiti universities for the future. These future universities will be able to make quality education available to greater numbers of Haitians in more (geographically and socio-economically) diverse sectors of Haitian society.

The multiphase program provides faculty training and curriculum development for teachers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). More recently, MIT Sloan Executive Education has offered management and leadership training to Haitian officials.