Radical Educational Technology-Nokia Educational Delivery System
Here in Nepal, the need for high quality educational resources (which are very often technology based in our modern-age) often butts up against the reality of logistics and lack of infrastructure for most of the rural regions of the country. Nepal suffers from a notoriously weak infrastructure; roads are often in disrepair, and more often simply not present in most locations outside of the central region. Even the main highways are often crumbling due to erosion and the mountainous physical setting of the country. Yet one of the biggest success stories in the country in the last number of years has been the wireless mobile network-Nepal has opened its telecom sector, and as a result of the new competition, mobile phones are now seen spreading across the country, with towers in increasingly remote regions (recently a tower was put up at Everest Base Camp, boasting the highest wireless coverage in the world).
Thus, it seems, Nepal would make a perfect pilot for Nokia's Educational Delivery; the system uses the existing wireless networks to transmit high quality educational videos to a teacher or administrator's handset, which is then plugged into a television or computer and used to aid educators in their content delivery with high quality educational materials. Nokia has partnered with educational content providers throughout the world to develop these videos; the program has been rolled out across Latin America in partnership with Telefonica and Educared, and also in the Phillipines and Tanzania, with the collaboration of the local telecom and education officials. The results have been unanimously positive. Utilizing wireless networks to deliver educational content in regions where the internet is not accessible or prohibitively expensive and that would otherwise be completely cut off, expounding the educationally-fatal Digital Divide.
I have been working to bring this technology to the Khumbu Region of Nepal as part of the Magic Yeti Library Project, and have approached all of the major players (local telecom provider Ncell, UNESCO, which has sponsored these technological initiatives in the past, and Nokia itself) with the hope of bringing a pilot program to the students of the Khumbu. This new technology could very well play a very important and vibrant role in the educational development of the area.
