Salt Lake City firm makes a connection to Africa

SALT LAKE CITY — The fact that it's a small, small world — and getting smaller — was very much on display this week when the ambassador from the African nation of Senegal flew to Utah to see the founder of a Salt Lake City-based software company.

Until Friday, Fatou Danielle Diagne and Dusty Heuston had never personally shaken hands. It only felt like they had.

Diagne is Senegal's newly appointed ambassador to the United States, stationed in Washington, D.C. Heuston is chief executive officer of the Waterford Institute, a Utah company that produces educational models, programs and software for children.

You could say they met on the computer.

They became aware of each other earlier this year when Waterford's vice president of international marketing, Charles Callis, flew to Dakar, Senegal's capital, to make a presentation of Waterford's learning materials.

Accompanying Callis was Jim Parkinson, an educator and Waterford consultant with extensive contacts in Africa.

Parkinson introduced Callin to Diagne, who at the time was the government minister overseeing education for Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade.

Soon, the minister, the president and the Waterford emissaries had a computer surrounded, viewing Waterford's innovative software specially designed for children age 6 and under.

Then something happened unheard of in America's education bureaucracy.

President Wade turned off the computer and said, "I want this for my country."

He asked that a pilot Waterford program be set up immediately.

When word reached Heuston back at Waterford headquarters in Utah, he wondered if it might be a bad connection.

Did he hear that right?

They saw the presentation one time and made a decision?

"This is so unusual, it's almost unbelievable. They did it all in 24 hours. Usually you start with discussions, then presentations, then more discussions," says Heuston, who has presented his materials countless times since he started his Waterford programs 34 years ago.

Heuston's — and Waterford's — philosophy is that for optimum educational development, children need to be stimulated early — by ages 4, 5 and 6 — and that the best way for this early stimulation is with software.