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Mobiles for Education Alliance Symposium Opened Today at the OAS

The 3rd Annual Mobiles for Education (mEducation) Alliance International Symposium opened today at the headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, DC, with the participation of experts, representatives from the private sector, NGOs, researchers, project innovators, and policymakers engaged in the field of mobile technologies and education.

Opening the two-day event, the OAS Executive Secretary for Integral Development (SEDI), Sherry Tross, on behalf of Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, explained how technology has enhanced the impact of education, and how it has influenced both the work and the formulation of policies at the core of the Organization, and stressed its importance for promoting social inclusion in the countries of the region.

"This is a new theme for the Organization, and we are happy to be broadening our horizons when it comes to strategies involving innovation in education for social inclusion. Education has always been a priority of the Organization of American States; because only through education can we attain peace, democracy, human rights, and sustainable development, but also because the member countries recognize that broader access to knowledge through educational opportunities will improve living standards for all citizens and their families," she said. "A developed world depends on healthy, educated individuals who can contribute to the economic and social development of their countries," she added.

In welcoming the Forum participants, Executive Secretary Tross spoke of the importance of innovation and its potential to combat poverty, illiteracy and low levels of human development, “which are factors that adversely affect the consolidation of democracy." In that regard, she added that the exchanges, ideas and discussions that take place during the event "will help all of us gain a deeper understanding of how we can better serve the development agenda of our countries."

The representative of the hemispheric institution stressed that the event is a unique example of cooperation and partnership, and recalled that "at the end of the day, no organization, no institution, no country can achieve great results by itself." "What we see here represented today is partnership in action, we have the presence of universities, the public and private sector, and multilateral organizations such as the OAS all working together, trying to find constructive and substantive solutions and to be agents of change to achieve our common goals," she concluded.

The Director of Strategic Partnerships of Cambridge English Language Assessments, Michael Carrier, on behalf of the mEducation Alliance Steering Committee explained the mission and work of the organization and said that its goal is to reduce the barriers to access appropriate, scalable, and low-cost mobile technologies to help improve learning outcomes in education across all levels, especially in low-resource and developing country contexts. "Our work goes beyond the definition of mobile, we do not only focus on phone accessibility to give people a better education, it does not matter what technology is used, our goal is to democratize access to education, guarantee access to education for everybody, especially for those who face challenges and are in difficult contexts," he said.

Carrier said the Alliance's work has recently been extended to try to find partnership opportunities with the private sector, and urged Forum participants to contribute their ideas and approaches on how "to work and help expand the range of public-private partnerships to help promote this initiative throughout the world."

The keynote speaker was Brian Gonzalez, Director of the Global Education Sector at Intel Corporation, who discussed the initiatives and commitments made by that company to help communities in various parts of the world to bring education to more people. In his speech he explained how technology helps inspire young learners, "becoming a gateway that opens new opportunities for the youth and to promote teachers professional development."

"When we talk about technology and education is not the device, it is about the experience of the students who engage with the teacher and their fellow students," he said. “What matters is the human interaction,” he said, “but not one to one, but one to many in order to improve the way teachers teach and children learn.”

The Intel representative stressed the importance of collaboration and community building and said that "education is the foundation for entrepreneurship, innovation and competitiveness" and that, as such, educational experiences must be increasingly "more engaging, more exciting and more open."

The mEducation Alliance is an international collaborative effort between a diversity of stakeholders who are committed to reducing barriers for accessing appropriate, scalable, and low-cost mobile technologies to help improve learning outcomes in formal and non-formal education across all levels, especially in low-resource and developing country contexts. The OAS signed the mEducation Charter in April, 2013, establishing the Organization as a member of the Alliance’s Steering Committee.

This year, the International Symposium has an action-oriented approach with the mEducation Commit Fair for Project Scaling event where carefully chosen projects from the field will be presented, and participants will have an opportunity to identify potential collaborations and partnerships to strengthen and scale promising mEducation projects and initiatives.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-391/13