In the News
Connect To Learn Marks One Year of Progress
One year after its official launch, Connect To Learn announces milestones in technology deployments and partnerships for bringing a 21st century education to students in Africa, Latin America and in the Caribbean. Celebrating one year of promoting access to quality education in developing countries through implementation of ICT solutions and scholarships, Connect To Learn announced exciting developments recently:
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More than USD 1.2 million in new commitments for scholarships for secondary school students in Africa
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Some 5,000 students now have access to quality education through partnership with telecommunication operator Bharti Airtel, throughout the Millennium Village sites in sub-Saharan Africa: in particular Ghana, Tanzania and Kenya where Connect To Learn is now active
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Wireless operators Entel in Chile and LIME in Jamaica join the public-private partnership, bringing the initiative to Latin America and the Caribbean, where hundreds more students will benefit from the program
Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson, said: "We believe that ICT can be a transformative force in bringing access to a quality education to all communities, even the poorest and most rural, and cloud computing will be a game changer. The opportunities that mobile broadband technology can provide should be available to all children across the world. This is what we mean by 'Technology for Good."
Connect To Learn has raised more than USD 1 million to be used for scholarships for secondary school students, girls' dormitories and educational resources in the Millennium Villages in Africa. A comprehensive scholarship program has been developed and initiated in four schools in Ghana and Tanzania to date.
"Connect to Learn is a thrilling example of how advances in technology and development strategies can improve education, gender equality, and overall wellbeing," said Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. "Connect To Learn enables schools in remote rural villages as well as urban centers to mobilize the internet to improve education, connect children around the world, and inspire today's youth with opportunities through education.
"We put a special emphasis on girls' secondary education, knowing that when girls are empowered to stay in school and gain 21st century skills, they not only improve their own life prospects but those of their families, communities, and national economies. I am deeply gratified that Ericsson, Airtel, and other leaders in mobile telephony and wireless broadband are taking leadership in educating today's young people for the future, and in connecting today's youth around the world via the internet and new information and communications technologies," concluded Sachs.
Connect to Learn is a public-private partnership that promotes universal access to a quality 21st century education, providing scholarships, especially for girls, and implementing information and communications technology (ICT) solutions in schools.
Ericsson is a founding member of Connect to Learn, providing expertise and innovative mobile broadband solutions in the partnership with Millennium Promise and the Earth Institute at Columbia University. One example is PC as a Service, which dramatically improves the way that education can be delivered, at a fraction of traditional computing costs, by using cloud computing.
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About Connect To Learn Connect To Learn is a not for profit global educaton initiative designed by Ericsson, Millennium Promise and the Earth Institiute as Scientific Advisor, to ensure a 21st century secondary education for all - especially for girls - by providing scholarships for secondary education, and using Information & Communications Technologies (ICT) to connect classrooms and improve access to quality educational resources around the world. For more information, contact Executive Director, Kara Nichols.
About Entel Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones S.A. is the largest telecommunications Company in Chile with Ch$ 1,086,816 million in annual revenues reported in December 2010. The Company provides mobile and wireline services (including Data & IT, Internet, local telephony, call center, long distance and related services). Entel also has wireline and call center operations in Peru. Entel is listed on the Chilean Stock Exchange (Bolsa de Comercio de Santiago) under the ticker symbol ENTEL and is headquartered in Santiago, Chile.
About LIME LIME is the Caribbean's largest telecommunications company with a proud history in the region, and which is always working to improve life in the Caribbean. LIME delivers the very best communication services to governments, businesses and families in 13 Caribbean countries with one unifying promise - building, connecting and serving communities. LIME is part of Cable & Wireless Communications PLC, one of the world's leading communications companies. Visit www.lime.com to learn more.
About Bahrti Airtel Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 19 countries across Asia and Africa. The company offers mobile voice & data services, fixed line, high speed broadband, IPTV, DTH, turnkey telecom solutions for enterprises and national & international long distance services to carriers. Bharti Airtel has been ranked among the six best performing technology companies in the world by BusinessWeek. Bharti Airtel had over 228 million customers across its operations at the end of June 2011. To know more please visit, www.airtel.com Ericsson is the world's leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators. Ericsson is the leader in 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies, and provides support for networks with over 2 billion subscribers and has the leading position in managed services. The company's portfolio comprises mobile and fixed network infrastructure, telecom services, software, broadband and multimedia solutions for operators, enterprises and the media industry. The Sony Ericsson and ST-Ericsson joint ventures provide consumers with feature-rich personal mobile devices.
Ericsson is advancing its vision of being the "prime driver in an all-communicating world" through innovation, technology, and sustainable business solutions. Working in 180 countries, more than 90,000 employees generated revenue of SEK 203.3 billion (USD 28.2 billion) in 2010. Founded in 1876 with the headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX, Stockholm and NASDAQ New York.
Sanchez-Palm Girls Scholarship Fund Dedicated to Connect To Learn Will Educate Hundreds
Generous husband-wife team of agricultural researchers establishes new fund to educate girls through Connect To Learn scholarships
Renowned agronomist Pedro Sanchez and ecologist Cheryl Palm have set up a new scholarship fund for young girls throughout poor, rural parts of Africa who are hoping to attend secondary school. The husband and wife team have designated $370,000 to create the Sanchez-Palm Girls Scholarship Fund at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. This Fund will link directly with Connect To Learn, directly supporting our work to get young girls into high schools in the developing world, and improve those schools with computers and internet connectivity.
In 2002, Sanchez was the recipient of the World Food Prize, the foremost international award recognizing the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world; it is largely considered to be the Nobel Prize of agronomy. Sanchez was recognized for his pioneering work to restore fertility to some of the world’s poorest and most degraded soils. A $250,000 cash award accompanied the prize, which they set aside and invested which is now being used for the new scholarship fund.
"I believe that linking the Sanchez-Palm Girls Scholarship Fund with the Connect To Learn initiative is the best platform we have today for reaching girls in remote areas with secondary education using 21st century technologies," said Sanchez. "Cheryl and I are proud to play a part in advancing girls education, because we know an educated girl can have a profound impact on the development of a community."
Universal secondary education, especially for girls, has major implications for the development of a community as well as in slowing down population growth. In the poorest parts of the world where girls are still not in secondary school, they are married at a young age and have six to eight children on average. Those who stay in school end up marrying much later—perhaps in their early to mid-20s—enter the workforce, and have two to three children. Education is an essential element for social change and sustainable development that is more likely to reduce poverty. Without girls reaching such level of education, there would be little hope that the world population would stabilize at 9 billion people by mid-century.
Despite the indisputable value of education and the progress made thus far, many children still do not complete primary education, and even fewer continue on to secondary school. Currently 84 percent of children worldwide attend primary school; however the participation rate drops to 60 percent for secondary school. Female attendance rates are especially low, with only 17 percent of girls enrolled in secondary school in sub-Saharan Africa.
"Connect To Learn seeks to provide scholarships to deserving individuals that would not be able to attend secondary school and to link those schools, teachers and students in remote areas of Africa to a global community of teachers, information and teaching resources through internet connectivity," said Cheryl Palm.
Through a partnership with Ericsson, secondary schools throughout villages in Africa are increasingly becoming more connected, providing an unimagined opportunity for these communities.
Pedro Sanchez is the director of the Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program, and a senior research scholar and director of the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He also directs AfSIS, the African Soils Information Service that is developing the digital soils map of the world. Sanchez is professor emeritus of Soil Science and Forestry at North Carolina State University and served as director general of ICRAF - the World Agroforestry Center from 1991-2001 in Nairobi. He is the 2002 World Food Prize laureate and a 2004 MacArthur Fellow.
Cheryl Palm is a senior research scientist in the Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program of the Earth Institute, where she is also the science director of the Millennium Villages Project. A tropical ecologist focusing on managing land use change to provide food security and environmental sustainability, Palm has worked in Asia, Latin America and Africa, and chaired the International Nitrogen Initiative, a global forum for multidisciplinary research about this essential element that forms the proteins we eat , but also poses some health and environmental hazards.
The full costs of a 4-year secondary school education near the African villages where we work are ridiculously low: US$2,400 per girl, often including full room and board in safe dormitories, or US$600 per year. Tax deductible contributions to the Sanchez–Palm Girls Scholarship Fund are welcome, to be able to reach more girls every year.
Connect To Learn at Work in Ghana Secondary Schools, 2011
Connect To Learn recently implemented our first complete ICT solution in Ghana, in two senior secondary schools where our scholarship recipients are enrolled. The laptops are networked using cloud computing technology, giving students and teachers in these isolated rural villages access to learning and teaching resources from around the world. In this video, the implementation team from Ericsson and the Millennium Village Project, along with several Ghanian students and teachers, share their impressions of how this technology is improving learning outcomes, especially for girls.
UN Secretary-General Tells Malawi Students: “Education is the foundation. You are the leaders of the next generation.”
Visiting the Millennium Village of Mwandama in Malawi on May 30th, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spent time with students and teachers at Dindi School, telling them, “I’m very impressed by visiting this Dindi school. Education is the foundation, education is the basis of your future, and the future of your country, and the future of your society, and of Mwandama. You can make yourself leader of your community, leader of your country, and study hard!”
Press round-up: We're making waves around the world
Last week was a big week for Connect to Learn: we launched our website and an international initiative to ensure that every child in the world has access to compulsory and quality education.
The Connect to Learn team was ecstatic to get the project off the ground, and especially to see so many people talking about the initiative. Below are a few of the media highlights:
Trina Yannicos wrote a great piece in The Examiner about Madonna's trip to Africa and gave an overview of the initiative:
Urgent call for universal primary and secondary school education for students worldwide.
Urgent call for universal primary and secondary school education and donations to provide scholarships, especially for girls, in Africa, Asia & Latin America.
Lilongwe, Malawi, 6th April, 2010 Madonna today joined the Earth Institute, Ericsson and Millennium Promise to announce a new global education initiative aimed at supporting access to primary and secondary education for every child in the world, with an emphasis on girls’ secondary schooling. The initiative—Connect To Learn—will provide secondary school scholarships, with a special focus on girls, and implement information and communications technology (“ICT”) in schools, enhancing the overall quality and availability of the education.
This powerful partnership is designed to address the current global crisis in education, and encourage others to answer the urgent call, which requires action by individuals, corporations, non-profits and governments around the world. More than 70 million girls and boys are not enrolled in primary school. Hundreds of millions are unable to attend secondary school, even when they pass the qualifying exams. Far more than half of those are girls, who face many unique challenges to accessing school. In addition, the quality of education, even for those with access, is often lacking.
A 2020 Vision
The opportunity to help put girls and boys around the world in school under the leadership of Jeffrey Sachs and his incredible team at The Earth Institute and Millennium Promise was thrilling enough—even before I knew about the amazing partners that had circled together with them around this goal. With Madonna and Ericsson on board as founding partners—she as the campaign’s chief “Education for All” Ambassador and advocate, and Ericsson the lead technology driver of the effort—it became clear to me that this initiative was truly unprecedented. A magic partnership aimed to help catalyze a worldwide movement in support of education for everyone, everywhere by the year 2020.
