By Ron Chen, Senior Correspondent, ASEAN Region

To date, UNESCO and Huawei organized ten Campus UNESCO sessions, focusing on technology and education, reaching students from 39 schools in 20 countries.

Campus UNESCO is an ongoing program that gives young people aged 14 to 18 the opportunity to share views with experts from UNESCO and civil society, for 90 minutes, in either English or French, on topics related to major UNESCO themes such as education, artificial intelligence, sustainable development, gender equality, and citizenship.

Huawei has been partnering with UNESCO on this program since June 2021. The sessions have covered a wide variety of topics, including the relationship between technology and education, the impacts of new technologies for now and the future, and how technology can be used for the good. Students particularly enjoyed the topics related to current issues that were on the agenda when the pandemic closed the school’s doors in 2020. Among these topics, we find those related to changes in school with or without digital equipment, and the necessity of physical schools when everything can be found on the Internet.

“We believe the achievement of the SDG and challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic are incredible ingredients for innovation,” said Senior Programme Specialist, UNESCO , Dr. Valtencir Mendes at one of the campuses.

Other issues of great concern were discussed during campus sessions, such as the value of digital skills on the labor market and new behaviors to prevent cyberbullying. The latter is indeed a rising threat for many teenagers in an increasingly digital world where social media is prevalent in the lives of young people, especially when they leave the classroom.

Sharing their experiences and views with expert speakers can raise awareness among young people, not just about the impact of new technologies on their daily lives, but also regarding the leading role they can play in shaping the future.

Speakers other than UNESCO experts may also be invited to these sessions, including inspirational people from the organization’s networks, such as NGOs, IGOs, startups, spanning a wide range of expertise (scientists, researchers, project managers).

Aligned with the aims of Campus UNESCO, Huawei and UNESCO are also partnering on the “Technology-enabled Open Schools for All” project, for which the implementation phase was launched in 2021 in Ghana, Egypt, and Ethiopia. This three-year project is supporting the construction of resilient education systems in the face of global disruptions such as COVID-19. In addition to equipping schools, the project provides trainings for teachers and students in the use of digital tools, online platforms to link school and home learning, and develops digital curricula accessible remotely.

The “Technology-enabled Open Schools for All” project is aligned with the Tech4Education domain of Huawei’s digital inclusion initiative TECH4ALL, which aims to drive education equity and quality with technology. Huawei’s ambition in the TECH4ALL initiative can be summarized as follows: to leave no one behind in the digital world.