To build an inclusive and intelligent world that leaves no one behind is at the core of Huawei's TECH4ALL Summit. The tech giant also calls for its global partners to join the campaign.
The campaign focuses on four areas namely: driving equity and quality in education; conserving nature with technology' driving inclusion and accessibility in health; and using ICT to boost rural development. It focuses on digital technologies, application enablement, and digital skills, and works with global partners to promote and expand digital inclusion to help achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
TECH4ALL has projects in over 200 schools worldwide that has benefited more than 60,000 teachers and students. Digital technologies have been deployed to improve resource management and biodiversity conservation efficiency in 22 natural reserves around the world. Huawei smartphones provide 15 accessibility features and are used by about 10 million users each month. Huawei's RuralStar solution provides mobile internet services for more than 60 countries and regions, covering more than 50 million people in remote areas.
"UNESCO and Huawei jointly launched this project in July 2020," said Stefania Giannini, Asst. Director-General for Education at UNESCO, talking about the three-year technology-enabled Open Schools partnership program with Huawei. The project explores future schooling models, thereby contributing to UNESCO's global initiative on the future of education."
To build a more crisis-resilient Open School system, all countries have to consider the three pillars of new infrastructure for a learning system: technology, digital content, and the digital competencies of teachers and human facilitators. UNESCO's Dr. Fengchun Miao, Chief Unit for Technology and Artificial Intelligence in Education, looked at how to leverage the power of technology in the education field.
Vodafone Foundation talked about Instant Network Schools, a program that aims to bring high-quality education to refugees and host communities, with plans to connect 500,000 refugee students and their communities by 2025. Huawei is one of the partners of expanding connectivity to more schools in Africa.
"We believe that every boy and girl should have access to quality education, no matter where they are and whatever their nationality," said Oisin Walton, Vodafone Instant Network Schools Program Manager.
Another program partnership is between Huawei and Close the Gap. Called DigiTruck, these green, solar-powered mobile classrooms which are converted from shipping containers are equipped with recycled ICT devices and gives enhances and develops digital skills of young people. This program was already rolled-out in Kenya and France, and will be implemented in Ethiopia this year.
In China, there's the Green Pepper program that aims to deliver online training for teachers. As of date, it has reached nearly 80,000 young rural teachers and 17,000 schools.
In her opening remarks introducing the environment track, IUCN Director General Dr. Grethel Aguilar addressed a range of environmental issues, pointing out that technology can be used to mitigate humanity's growing impact on the planet. "Digital technology can be an important part of the solution and help us solve global challenges if used correctly and smartly."
Meanwhile, James Hardcastle, Associate Director of the IUCN Protected Areas Programme pointed out that we must empower more people to use technologies for nature conservation and referenced the Tech4Nature initiative- an IUCN- Huawei partnership that aims to develop scenario-specific technoligies to safeguard natural ecosystems in 300 protected sites by 2023.
Currently, the project is running in Thailand, Spain, Mauritius, Switzerland, and China. Ecomode President Nadeem Nazurally elaborated on the Mauritius project, which aims to protect and restore the African island nation's rapidly vanishing coral reef using AI-powered real-time video monitoring, which can be transmitted to experts, both local and worldwide.
Continuing the environmental track, Rainforest Connection Director of International Expansion Chrissy Durkin introduced the Nature Guardian System, which uses acoustics technologies to monitor endangered species alert rangers to threats like illegal logging and gunshots. Bernardo Reyes Ortiz, President of Forest Ethics in Chile, explained how the Guardian platform supported by Huawei is providing a lifeline for the nation's endangered Darwin's fox, of which there's less than a thousand thought to remain in existence.
Smart and networked monitoring technologies are a crucial tool for nature conservation. Dr. Steph Wray, Chair of The Mammal Society in the UK, explain how acoustic solutions have been deployed in England to protect the increasingly rare red squirrel, which is threatened by the invasive and vastly more populous grey squirrel.
For Tan Yanfei, Exec Director at Hainan National Park Research Institute, acoustics monitoring is the key to improving conservation of China's critically endangered Hainan gibon, with a view to doubling its population in 15 years.
These are just some of the progress shared by TECH4ALL's partners in environment and education domains, as well as in the initiative's health and development domains.
"If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, walk together," said Tao Jingwen in his opening remarks. "We believe that more partners will work with us to advance the TECH4ALL action plan in the future. Join us for a more inclusive, intelligent world where no one is left behind."
Watch the full video recording here--- TECH4ALL: Advancing Digital Inclusion with Technology
Read more about the projects and stories here--- TECH4ALL
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