"I took off from work for this," she said tentatively starting the computer up. Singh, 16, has been working at a nearby textiles factory for three years, but what she wants to do is work with computers. This class maybe the key to a job in what the Mauritius government hopes will be the newest pillar of the economy here: information technology.

"We hope to be the regional leader in IT," said Sushil K. C. Khushiram, Minister of Economic Development, Financial Services, and Corporate Affairs. "And we believe that the Cyber City that we are building will be key towards that goal."

Right now Cyber City is 150 acres of sugar cane. But thanks to a partnership with the Indian government, which is supplying $100 million, and expert advisors, including Devendra Chaudry as the CEO of the new venture, by next year it will be well on its way to becoming a campus both physically and virtually.

"It will be completed in about a year and a half," said Chaudry, who spent 20 years in the Indian civil service. "It's a city about four things. The first two, work space and bandwidth are immediate projects, to be followed by IT education and human resources. The business and legal framework will be ongoing throughout."

Chaudry seemed lonely in his brand new office on the top floor of a high rise building in Rosehill, a nearby suburb of Port Louis.The office windows overlooked what will become the Cyber City. Save Chaudry, the rest of the floor is still empty. Furniture with plastic scraps still hanging in places filled the freshly dusted office. But Chaudry bustled around, answering the several phone lines, balancing coffee, and a palm pilot; he said that he's rarely out of the office before 9 in the evening.

Chaudry is busy because IT is such a priority to the government, and with unemployment and inflation on the rise the pressure is on to speed up the process. IT development, argued Marc-Herni Ravaux, Microsoft's regional manager operation, is essential for sustainable economic development in Mauritius. But it is not the short term fix, he said, that the government is looking for to bolster the faltering economy.

"The government really believes that IT in five years will employ 5,000 people," said Ravaux. "It is a long term response, not a short term investment. Mauritius today is not really mature, there are many different problems to be tackled first, such as bandwidth and education."

The bandwidth problem is both created and solved by Mauritius Telecom, which has a monopoly of all telecommunications on the island until 2006. Too little bandwidth will limit the IT system, which will rely heavily on Internet platform networking. Mauritius Telecom has signed onto the SAFE project that is laying fiber optic cables up and down the Indian Ocean, the same project that all ready supplies most of South East Asia with high-speed Internet connections. But how much bandwidth is bought is at the mercy of Mauritius Telecom, which is partly owned by France Telecom, as the system becomes available to Mauritius at the end of this year. And, although the university is launching a Mauritius Institute of Technology this year, Ravaux said that there are simply not enough tech-educated workers right now to cope with an influx of software companies. In fact, Ravaux said, most medium and smaller companies are not only computer illiterate, they are computer leery.

"This is my first time really learning about all this, you know, software, hardware, discs," said Singh, holding up a disc with a half-smile. She, along with 14 other of her classmates, are part of the first generation of tech trainees. But there are very few programs like this one, that are government funded. For the most part computer classes offered in Mauritius, are done through large corporations needing to train their staffs, including Rogers, Mauritius Telecom, and the Bank of Mauritius.

"But this could all change in the next few years. The Mauritius people are learning fast, we see that in the number of PC sales that is increasing," said Ravaux. "We have been here for four years, and we remain eagerly watching these new developments."

Many people in Mauritius, whose GNP per capita is the equivalent of USD $3,800 per year, cannot afford a personal computer, like Singh, who said that she makes 3,000 Rupees a month (about USD $300). But to encourage people to buy computers, the government, through the Development Bank of Mauritius, has begun subsidizing the purchasing of PCs.

"I would like to buy one," said Singh, "but there is a long waiting list. I hope to get one maybe next year."

Khushiram said that investments in technology and education can never go wrong. "There is a difference between what one wants and what one needs. Here in Mauritius we both want and need the cyber city. The is the future that we hope to give to our children."

Singh hopes to be one of those who profits from her government's newest venture. "I read about it in the newspapers, and that's how I became interested," she said. "I hope that it turns out to be something worth my time."