If Africa is to compete in the
digital age, a focus on people and the young ones is the starting point,
and in parallel we need to leverage the power of connectivity to enable
education and from there reap the benefits
to the society and the economy.
So how can we enable digital inclusion to support the future of education?
Key enablers to support digital
inclusion and greater adoption of mobile services to support future
education are having the infrastructure in place, smartphone
affordability, consumer educational readiness and content.
This pandemic has created the
largest disruption to the education systems in history! Nevertheless,
this crisis has stimulated innovation and was a great example of the
power of connectivity sustaining education and also
the power of collaboration. When all partners came together to enable
connectivity and develop solutions for schools, education was sustained.
This inspired us at Ericsson to
partner recently and join forces with UNICEF to help close the digital
gap by mapping unconnected schools worldwide in 35 countries by the end
of 2023, many of which are in Africa. This
is a critical first step towards providing every child with access to
digital learning opportunities. This joint effort is part of the Giga
initiative that aims to connect every school to the internet.
In addition to funding, we are
committed to provide resources for data engineering and data science
capacity to accelerate school connectivity mapping. Together with our
partners in the industry, we will assist with the
collection, validation and analysis of real-time school connectivity
data. This is part of our Connect to Learn program, a global education
initiative which has reached over 180,000 students located across 25
countries to date.
Today, technology is presenting
us with an opportunity and it’s on us all to collaborate, change
mindsets, drive policy changes and create the necessary environment for
knowledge sharing and execution and be part of building
a brighter future for Africa.
But how can we contribute moving forward?
If we will have a true impact on
inclusion, we must work together on behalf of the excluded population
to scale connectivity, enable technology adoption and leverage it
towards enabling education. We will need to focus
on public-private partnerships and collaborate to create the necessary
environment for knowledge sharing and execution. To accelerate digital
inclusion, we all have a role to play.
Just because a person is
connected doesn’t mean our job is done. It’s about what connectivity
will bring to him or her and what it will solve.
Together, we are fighting
diseases and technology proved us that it has the power of saving lives
and our world. Today, we have an opportunity to set #AfricaInMotion and
accelerate Africa’s growth with digital inclusion.
We can create historical change with technology as a key enabler; a
society where more people have the opportunity to enjoy what we take for
granted.
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