The Networked Society Forum (NEST), hosted by telecom equipment major Ericsson, has concluded its two-day session in Hong Kong.
Access, broadband and collaboration were common themes at NEST.
Ericsson intends to extend the reach of this conversation by initiating further public private conversations on this topic also on a regional level.
“This will help bring the opportunities of utilizing technology in extending the reach of education to the attention of policymakers,” said Hans Vestberg, president and CEO of Ericsson.
“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,” Vestberg added.
The industry will have better metrics to describe the relationship between education and ICT. In the past the telecom industry measured connectivity’s impact on GDP and jobs.
Together with Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, NEST will start the work to develop the methods and metrics to show this.
Topics covered during the two-day event included the way we teach and learn in a connected society, and how Information and Communications Technology (ICT) can support that.
Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, described his experience in seeing mobility change people’s lives in Africa. But he says the challenges in education are universal.
“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,” Sachs added.
Industry leaders were energized about discussing the future use of communications technology.
“We have worked for years to get mobile handsets into the hands of people. We’re pretty much there with 100 percent penetration in some countries. Some people think it’s ‘Game Over’ for telecoms. But it’s not. We have a great opportunity to help other industries use this technology for good,” said Jon Eddy Abdullah, CEO of Total Access Communication in Thailand.
By Telecomlead.com Team
editor@telecomlead.com
