How Marginalized Groups and NGOs are Left Behind

[Music]

hello

i’m batiste and i see the world as a

mountain

and that we are all mountaineers trying

to climb our way to the top

the way you move forward in life is by

learning how you learn new skills you

get our

insight you get knowledge meet new

people you have new experiences

basically learning by living

but learning on its own is not enough

just like any mountaineer you need

equipment

i mean you need mountain shoes and a

backpack and climbing gear

for me technology is that equipment

that pushes you forward in life

technology is the tool that allows you

to learn and to discover new things

i mean today we live in a society where

information

is at our fingertips the largest human

built encyclopedia wikipedia

is accessible for free you can teach

yourself

programming or design or mathematics on

youtube

and in a split second you can find what

you’re looking for

on google anyone can do this right

wrong 52 of the world population

does not have regular access to a

smartphone

or to a computer the kind of tool you

need

to start your client so only a couple of

years ago

that i truly truly realized and also

witnessed

that not everyone has everything they

need to become

a mountaineer that some of us are just

wandering around in the world

they can see that mount you know but

there’s so many obstacles and so many

barriers in front of them

that they don’t even see where the foot

of the mountain is and where they can

begin

their climb that’s what they call the

digital divide you know it’s the gap

between people who have access

to modern information and communications

technology

ict and those who don’t have access or

who have restricted access

what i mean with that is that people do

not have access to telephones

televisions internet computers

and i believe that a digital divide is

an id

worth sharing and that’s what i’m doing

today with you by talking about my

personal journey

and at the same time by sharing tested

ways

of how we can collectively address this

digital divide

so let’s start with my personal journey

i grew up in belgium in the 1990s and

the first computer we had at home

was windows 95 and i still remember

being amazed seeing my father work on it

and then me afterwards playing a game on

it

it’s not the only technology memory i

have

i also remember the sound the beeping

sound of the dial of internet

also how slow it was compared to the

speed of the day

i think a lot of you are familiar with

the sound aren’t you

i also remember i think i was 9 or 10

years old

when i took a computer class together

with my father

and a friend from school and his father

and we learned the basic stuff about

computers and how to use them

it was kind of my first digital literacy

class

between that moment in time and today a

lot has of course changed you know that

first computer that windows 95

got replaced by others and when i grew

older

i had a smartphone and a laptop

looking back i have to acknowledge that

i was lucky

that was lucky that was born in a place

where we had a computer at home and that

was pretty normal

i was also lucky that i was born in a

place but also at the time

where i could learn the skills are still

useful

for me today and that i had the family

and the friends and the school

and the local community to support me

and to give me that little push

to set me up in life because fast

forwarding to today

i’m working as a product owner for

chiron kyron is an ngo

was founded in 2015 during the so-called

refugee crisis that hit

europe and a couple of months later

afterwards

after it was founded i joined them

because i was so intrigued by the big

big vision that karen had to support

refugees who arrived in germany

and wanted to go to university

because i don’t know if you know but as

a refugee it takes a very long time

before you’re able

to speak german and to get all your

documents in order

before you can apply to university

that’s why

karen built a platform where you had

online courses

and what you had guidance and advice on

how to apply

and besides that we also created a

partner network of universities that

were recognizing that online content so

these two years

average was not completely wasted

since 2015 and today five six years

we’ve learned a ton and every time when

we

discovered new challenges we had to come

up with new solutions

and we had to adapt our product and our

services to the needs of our students

so what have we learned

today i want to share with you five

insights

the first one is about our main goal

that main goal was to get

as many caring students as possible

into university i know it sounds

ambitious

and it was and we successfully managed

to get a lot of students

into a german university but at the same

time also a lot of them

did not get accepted on top of that

a lot of new students joined their

platform

and they were living in countries where

we as karen did not have an office

and that meant that we could not give

them the same support

as these students in germany because we

don’t know

in every country what the legal and the

university landscape looks like

and we don’t have the resources to build

up these partnerships with universities

that recognize that content in every

country

so at the same time we were noticing

that these students were still using our

platform and they were learning skills

and learning languages

in search for a job in search to start

their own

business that’s why we pivoted

we adapted our product we adapted our

curriculum we definitely support

to meet this new situation and to meet

the new opportunities

the second thing i want to share with

you is something i learned while working

together

with our teams in jordan and lebanon and

they told us that the distributed

literacy levels

of some of our students is rather low

because you cannot assume that everyone

who has a mobile phone or everyone who

has a computer

has also the right skills to use them

especially the skills that are needed to

learn

to live to work in a digital society

so we did two things one we created

together with partners already

three digital literacy courses and two

we simplified i technically will keep on

simplifying our platform every day

because

the more simpler it is to use the more

familiar it feels the more natural it

feels

the more easier it is more people can

use it

the third thing i want to share with you

is language

especially english i mean most of the

content

most of the internet is in english and

everyone speaks english right

no it’s a fact that 17

of the world population speaks english

natively

or as a second language so that means

that

four out of five people in the world

have potentially

extra barriers while accessing the

internet

and especially while studying online

because the big majority

of the educational content is in english

so what did we do we translated our

campus

in multiple language and we also started

adding

arabic content to our curriculum

the fourth thing that i want to share

with you is about the need for computers

and devices

when these students in 2015 arrived in

germany

they didn’t have a computer with them

they had a smartphone and

back then it was hard and still today it

is hard to study

a course online because so many of the

websites

so many of the content is only made for

computers

and of course we’ve tried to make

computers accessible for students over

the last years but

we cannot give every student a computer

so that’s why it’s so important

that we build mobile first

talking about building platforms that’s

the last point i want to do

is the need for low bandwidth and

inclusive

platforms did you know that 40 percent

of the world population

does not have access to the internet or

it is super expensive

we have a student his name is he’s from

congo he currently lives in malawi

and he is amazing

he is one of our community leaders and

he is every time

engaging and motivating and welcoming

other students and it’s

really great to see that but at the same

time it feels as well frustrating

knowing that he has to pay expensive

internet bundles

to be able to study online that’s why we

build a low bandwidth android app

and we keep on building alternatives

for users who have shaky internet

connections

these five lessons bring us to today and

as i said you know

every time when we discovered new

challenges we had to come up with new

opportunities and new

solutions and we had to adapt our

product

to it the challenge we have today is the

following

we know that online learning pure online

learning

is not enough and that

to be really successful with online

learning you need to have a community

around it you have to make the content

relevant

so that makes to localize it you need to

provide local support

we also know that we as karen cannot

open an office in every country

and that we cannot provide that local

offline support and that others maybe

can

and we also know if we want to achieve

the impact

that we want to achieve we need to work

together that’s why we decided to launch

the collective impact campus

we decided to open up our technology

to open up our platform for other ngos

so that they can run their own online

learning program

so that they can reach their communities

and manage their learners in a more

effective

and efficient way these partners bring

that understanding of the local context

and they bring that local support to the

table and we

provide them with a private space on our

platform and the tools and the support

what is needed

to digitalize their content

but collective impact campus is more

than just a platform

it’s also a collective of organizations

that want to work together

that want to work together by sharing

insights by sharing best practices by

maybe even sharing opportunities for

their learners and on top of that

we as kind want to enable them as well

to exchange

content and allow them to collaborate

together

so that more and more and more

programs get recognized

because if programs get recognized it

means that students

who graduate from these programs have

more opportunities

out there and that they can start or

continue

their climb on their mountain

i believe this is possible no i truly

believe this because technology

can do that technology is amazing

technology has created so many

opportunities has lowered so many

barriers

i mean let’s be honest without

technology i would not be standing here

in front of you today

and share you my ideas and technology

especially artificial intelligence will

only boost your society forward

in the next coming years and that’s why

it is super super crucial that we make

sure

that technology does not leave more

people behind

because i truly believe that if we all

actively and collectively work together

to create more access to content to

devices

to the internet at the same time teach

digital skills we can together

make sure that there’s a world where

more mountaineers

can find their own pathway on the

mountain of learning