CASTALIA’S CEO YAMAWAKI TOOK PART IN A GPE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN NEW YORK ON TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION
First World Bank-oriented international conference on education during the 77th United Nations General Assembly, where representatives of governments, public institutions, and private sectors gathered to make a transformation in education in developing countries through technology
Castalia’s CEO Satoshi Yamawaki participated in “Technology for Education Transformation: A Consultative Dialogue Session with the Private Sector”, an event that took place on September 21 in New York City, organized by GPE (Global Partnership for Education), a World Bank international fund dedicated to educational use.
Castalia was selected to participate the event as the only private sector company from Asia that offers support on education by way of technology in developing countries. Yamawaki introduced our ongoing digital and code education projects in Africa and exchanged opinions on public-private sector coordination. A side event of the 77th United Nations General Assembly, the session was an international conference that brought together educators, international public institutions such as the World Bank, and educational project managers from global IT companies such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft to name a few.
At the conference, selected representatives of private sector companies made presentations and discussed on two matters: 1) Lessons and experience of public-private collaboration leveraging technology for education outcomes, and 2) Focusing efforts: education challenges amenable to a technology solution. They also exchanged opinions with government officials from various countries as well as representatives of development banks such as the World Bank.
Following is an excerpt of the speech that Yamawaki made at the conference:
First of all I am thankful to have been invited to this conference, where global and major players of the field get together.
I came here right from the frontline of education in the developing countries. Last month, I was in Cairo for more than two weeks to do a boot camp of code education for elementary school students, a joint project with the Egyptian Ministry of Education. Shortly after this trip, I will fly again, this time to Ethiopia, for an educational project using technology that will probably be the country’s biggest to date. As I make a speech here, our local team is providing code education to elementary school students in Iraq. Starting next month, with the support of JICA, we will be working with the Ministry of Education in Kenya for a code education project.
What I would suggest everyone to think is not only “how to start a project” but also “how to make it continual”. In one country in Africa, its educational ministry and ICT authority announced that they already distributed tablets to students and notebook PCs to teachers, and installed networks at schools.
However, when I visited schools in the said country, some schools did not have any devices distributed to students or teachers. At schools that did distribute, tablets and PCs were sort of abandoned with no operating systems updated and no method of network connections figured out.
Sure, they might have made devices, clouds, and networks available. But when teachers do not know how to use them and instructors can only provide poor trainings, how can all these materials be of use?
I suggest a “teaming up” as a solution. The project should be a consistent one involving all of you here – financial institutions, device and software manufacturers, NPOs, and edtech companies like us.
I believe in the power of technology.
However, technology alone cannot solve educational problems in developing countries. I hope such problems are tackled through a team effort. Funds, abilities to negotiate with governments, and human resources that continually work with teachers and students on the scene, are all vital parts of the collaboration.
[About GPE]
Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is an international fund dedicated to educational use, founded in 2002 under the initiative of World Bank. Aiming to make an equal and quality education available for everyone, the organization is based on partnerships with developing countries, donor countries, private sector companies, foundations, multilateral banks, international institutions, and NGOs. They obtain financial resources for education from all over the world, and help solve the most important agendas in education that developing countries face.
https://www.globalpartnership.org/who-we-are/about-gpe