30 Jan 2012

Reaching the hundreds of millions of children not in schools

By Rajeev Singh-Molares, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s Asia Pacific Region and Chair of the World Economic Forum’s ICT Agenda Council

We are wrapping up our annual meeting at Davos. I find my time here energizing – a lot of leaders with a passion for improving the world. That includes our Information Communications Technology Global Agenda Council.

On Thursday I chaired a session with the Council (see the video below to learn more about the Council). We focused on the potential of mobile education.  The potential to turn mobile phones into teachers, classes and libraries. The potential to extend basic education to the millions children not enrolled in school.  The potential to accelerate access to vocational training and higher education.

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With almost 6 billion mobile devices in use, we have a global platform to leverage. But to move mEducation into the main stream, we need more applications. With applications designed to extend reach, we will improve education quality and, more importantly, people’s capacity to earn wages, innovate, and to participate in the formal economy.

We also discussed the need to accelerate mobile health and mobile finance (the ability to access health care and financial services through a mobile device).  But, like with mEducation, we need applications which are demand-based and user-centric. We think young people can play an important role here.

If we educate young people on basic application programming, we have the potential to spark some creative new applications while empowering people to take participate more fully in the digital economy as both consumers and producers.

We see evidence this can work. Now we need to multiply some of the small case successes.  And we need the help of leaders and citizens across the globe to make this happen.

WEF is a great place to get the attention of leaders, highlight organizations that are redefining paradigms, and build a shared commitment to making mobile devices’ potential real. That’s what we are doing here this week.

 
 

2 Responses to Reaching the hundreds of millions of children not in schools

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  1. Faiyazur Rahman says:
    April 25, 2012 at 1:59 PM

    i am a student of electronics and communication B-tech 3rd year…….
    i want to do vocational training in telecommunication….
    plz help as well as guide me how to apply apply in alcatel-lucent
    thnx…

    Reply

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