Bangalore To Be Home To UN Technology In Education Initiative

Bangalore is on the UN radar
To Be Home To Technology In Education Initiative
The Times of India

Bangalore: Bangalore is on the United Nations radar. The UN has chosen India’s Silicon Valley as headquarters for its ‘technology in education’ initiative.

The UN believes Bangalore has the potential to spearhead this global campaign, seen to be a pet project of UN secretary-general Kofi Annan. It’s the first-ever UN project to be based in Bangalore.

To give education and community development an exclusive focus, the UN has recently launched a special campaign to promote the use of technology in education called Global e-Schools & Communities Initiative (Gesci) under its ICT (information and communications technologies) Task Force.

Under this programme, India will function as a workshop where diverse tech-driven educationalcum-community development projects and best practices will be developed for the benefit of the world. “The UN has tremendous faith in India’s strength in ICT and its capability of building diverse educational and community service models that will have relevance across the globe,’’ said Aruna Sundararajan, country (India) programme facilitator, Gesci.

Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Uttaranchal, Rajasthan, Sikkim, MP, Delhi and Bihar have already evinced interest. Corporates like Microsoft, Intel and IBM will be part of it.

According to a recent study, India accounts for 64% of the total social development projects driven by IT. Working with the IT and education ministries, Gesci will facilitate policy support, technical assistance and global resources for the initiative.

All development models will be tried in India first. Gesci is expected to help India to achieve 100% primary education by 2010, five years ahead of the UN deadline stated in its Millennium Development Goals. To start with, the project will focus on Bolivia, Namibia and Ghana, in addition to India.

Global stamp
UN says Bangalore has potential to spearhead global campaign.
This is first ever UN project in Bangalore.
Under a special campaign on e-schools, India will function as a workshop.
10 states have evinced interest in participating in the initiative.