Also in the keynote, Bill announced a collaboration with WETA Workshop (a New Zealand company best known for working on digital effects for the films Lord of the Rings and King Kong) and NTICED (Australia’s Northern Territory Institute for Community Engagement & Development) to develop a program based on the fast-growing and innovative MARVIN platform—avatar-based animation software that uses culturally familiar animated characters to make design and communication relevant and engaging for users. Made possible through Microsoft’s Partners in Learning program, this project will support and expand the development of educational technology that is accessible and relevant for everyone throughout the Asia Pacific region, including individuals who experience the world in different ways because of impairments or disabilities.
Meeting these diverse needs of everyone involved in education - from policy makers, to ministries of education, to teachers, to the ultimate beneficiaries, the students and their parents—is the goal of Partners in Learning. Last Friday, we were proud to announce a very significant milestone in the program’s efforts to extend the benefits of technology around the world: that Partners in Learning has now reached over 100 million students around the world through its programs and solutions – with 33 million of these in Asia alone.
As I mentioned earlier, Microsoft believes that education doesn’t stop at adulthood, but that learning is a life-long endeavor. In today's knowledge-based economy, computer literacy has become a vital workplace skill—a skill that millions of people worldwide still lack. This is why at GLF Asia we announced the expansion of an innovative pilot program that aims to bring new learning and training opportunities to people through iCafes (shared-use public Internet cafes). Through an agreement with Philippines-based iCafe provider Netopia, we hope to extend the benefits of technology to more people in Asia, initiating a pilot program in Netopia’s 169 iCafe outlets. As part of this pilot, Microsoft and Netopia will offer exclusive e-learning opportunities through the Microsoft IT Academy Learning Portal. Participating users can visit Netopia outlets to complete free Microsoft Digital Literacy courses on MS Office 2007 and acquire ICT certifications with the potential to increase their employment opportunities.
Finally, we announced a collaboration with Pelita Harapan University in Jakarta to open a new Microsoft Innovation Center (MIC) in Indonesia. Through partnerships with universities around the world, MICs provide access to world-class resources for software developers, IT professionals, students, academic researchers and entrepreneurs. As there are currently four Innovation Centers operating in Indonesia in partnership with leading universities across the country, this expansion marks the second largest investment in the program in the Asia Pacific region, after China.
For all of the benefits available through these and other programs, it’s important to remember that technology is not a ‘silver bullet’ for bringing world-class educational opportunities to everyone. More than anything else, this will take partnerships. In all of my experiences in Jakarta, though all of my discussions there with education ministers, government leaders, and school administrators, at the end of the day, I believe that it all boils down to answering one central question: how can any nation create the conditions that allow successful education practices and experiences to scale to reach the most people? We believe that the answer to that question is found through strong public-private partnerships, illuminating the path to success in delivering on the Unlimited Potential vision for creating educational and economic opportunity.
Thank you,
Anoop
