Ericsson Nest Forum unites education and broadband

Updated: 2011-11-15 15:44

(chinadaily.com.cn)

  Comments() Print Mail Large Medium  Small 分享按钮 0

The Networked Society Forum, NEST, hosted by Ericsson, has wrapped up in Hong Kong, having sparked new inspiration among the public and private sectors to lift education on the global agenda.

NEST participants prioritized target areas for further collaboration to create the conditions to make learning available to everyone, everywhere. Topics covered during the two-day event included the way we teach and learn in a connected society, and how Information and Communications Technology can support that.

Sharing across geographical and cultural boundaries is one concrete way ICT can contribute. Sir Harold Kroto, a Nobel laureate in Chemistry and NEST discussion leader, said: "We should inject the ideas of every brilliant teacher into every school if we can."

Access, broadband and collaboration were common themes. Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and another discussion leader, described his experience in seeing mobility change people's lives in Africa. He said: "At Columbia University, every week we turn on the screen and 20 campuses are on live simultaneous video conference and we now have a worldwide classroom."

Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson, said there are immediate results to this gathering. "One major accomplishment of our time together is that we have lowered the barriers. After this weekend I think we have come closer to experts in academia, the public sector and our industry colleagues to understand the challenges and opportunities before us."

"And we know that we have to start sharing now. There is a great need for us to compile and share the already-existing examples of how broadband is changing education in the world. We will set about gathering those examples right away," said Vestberg.

"We all need to have better metrics to describe the powerful relationship between education and ICT. In the past we have measured connectivity's impact on GDP and jobs. Together with Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, we will start the work to develop the methods and metrics to show this. This will help bring the opportunities of utilizing technology in extending the reach of education to the attention of policymakers", Vestberg said.