Huawei's education strategy unveiled

Huawei’s Deputy Chairman Ken Hu has outlined the company's vision and strategy for education under its digital inclusion initiative, TECH4ALL. 

According to Huawei, digital technology plays an important role in education but 50% of the world’s population still does not have Internet access. With many people lacking the skills needed to use digital devices, the digital divide in education continues to widen.

Hu said: "We believe that everyone, everywhere has the right to education and the equality of opportunity it brings. As a technology company, Huawei wants to help with connectivity, applications and skills by focusing on two important areas of connecting schools and developing digital skills respectively.”

Source: Huawei. Hu.

Huawei will help to provide access to high-quality educational resources such as digital curriculums and e-learning applications to schools, and provide teacher and student training by connecting schools to the Internet with partners.

Huawei also plans to provide digital skills training for vulnerable groups in remote areas, especially for female students through projects such as DigiTruck. Currently active in Africa, Huawei hopes to replicate the programme in the Philippines and other countries in the next two years.

"These all solar-powered, mobile classrooms with wireless broadband access can reach even the most remote communities," Olivier Vanden Eynde, CEO of Close the Gap, a key partner of DigiTruck, said.

Huawei has stepped up its efforts through its TECH4ALL initiative in support of UNESCO’s Global Education Coalition, set up to tackle the global challenges impacting education due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“This crisis has changed the face and future of education. It has demonstrated how fast change can happen through partnership, when expertise and resources are matched up with local needs to ensure learning continuity, especially for the most marginalized students,” said Stefania Giannini, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education.

At the same time, the Huawei ICT Academy launched its Learn ON programme in early April, aiming to address the educational needs of University-based ICT talent affected by the epidemic. The programme brings together global university partners and offers college cooperation incentive funds, which can be used for online courses and examinations, online experiments, etc., and provides more than 130 massively-open online courses (MOOC) resources, covering technology such as artificial intelligence, big data, 5G, and the Internet of Things.

“Many lessons have been learnt this year in low- and middle-income countries, adapting services to address the needs of users and responding to the impact of the global pandemic by evolving business and critical partnerships. The GSMA and the mobile industry are supporting the current situation, and committed to long-term support of the SDGs (the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals) in the era of ethical leadership,” said Stephanie Lynch-Habib, CMO, GSMA.