At
the Huawei TECH4ALL Summit, Huawei called for global partners to join the
TECH4ALL digital inclusion initiative, which aims to build a more inclusive and
intelligent world that leaves no one behind.
Huawei's
TECH4ALL initiative focuses on four areas: 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).
At
present, more than 60,000 teachers and students benefit from TECH4ALL projects
in over 200 schools worldwide. 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.
Inclusion
and equity were major talking points in the education track of the summit. In
her opening remarks, Stefania Giannini, Assistant
Director-General for Education at UNESCO, discussed technology-enabled Open
Schools, a three-year partnership program with Huawei that is rolling out
in Ethiopia, Egypt, and Ghana.
"UNESCO
and Huawei jointly launched this project in July 2020,"
said Stefania Giannini. "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 of
Unit for Technology and Artificial Intelligence in Education, looked at how to
leverage the power of technology in the education field.
Vodafone
Foundation discussed its Instant Network Schools program, which 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 for expanding connectivity to more schools in Africa.
Vodafone
Instant Network Schools Program Manager Oisín Walton said, "We believe
that every boy and girl should have access to quality education, no matter
where they are and whatever their nationality."
Close
the Gap's DigiTruck Program Lead Bram Over gave an update on the DigiTruck
program. DigiTrucks are green, solar-powered mobile classrooms converted from
shipping containers. They are equipped with recycled ICT devices and provide
training for young people in digital skills. Huawei has supported this program in Kenya and France. Later this year,
Huawei and Close the Gap will implement the project in Ethiopia.
Ling
Hui from the YouChange China Social Entrepreneur Foundation introduced
the Green Pepper program for young teachers in rural villages in China. The program delivers a year of online training to
teachers and has reached nearly 80,000 young rural teachers and 17,000 schools
so far.
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.
Dr.
Aguilar said, "Digital technology can be an important part of the solution
and help us solve global challenges if used correctly and smartly."
As
facilitator of the panel discussion, Associate Director of the IUCN Protected
Areas Programme James Hardcastle, 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
technologies 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 and alert
rangers to threats like illegal logging and gunshots. Bernardo Reyes Ortíz,
President of Forest Ethics in Chile, explained how the
Guardian platform supported by Huawei cloud is providing a lifeline for the
nation's endangered Darwin's fox, fewer than 1,000 of which are 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, how acoustics 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.
Tang
Yanfei, Executive Director at Hainan National Park Research Institute,
explained how acoustics monitoring is key to improving conservation of China's critically endangered Hainan gibbon, with a view to doubling its population
in 15 years.
Partnerships
are the fuel that powers progress in TECH4ALL's environment and education
domains, as well as in the initiative's other two domains – health and
development.
"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 recording of the summit at https://www.huawei.com/en/tech4all/news-and-events/events/hc2021-t4a-summit
Read
more about TECH4ALL projects and stories at https://www.huawei.com/en/tech4all
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