For many years, Microsoft has invested in its belief that, when paired with ICT, an individual with potential and opportunity can contribute greatly to society. It enables them to enhance their imagination, realise their opportunity and to make an impact on the society they live in. By Thanya Kunakornpaiboonsiri
Sitting enthusiastically and impatiently wide-eyed, a primary school boy in Sevanagala – a remote province of Sri Lanka – cannot help but feel his heart beat at his first touch on a new keyboard. He moves awkwardly on an old wooden chair while spending intermittent seconds on each deliberate type and click, not because the chair is uncomfortable, or that the new keyboard is hard, but because he is simply too new to the computer with both the keyboard and screen’s interface in Sinhala - his mother tongue.
The boy imagines the lives and the world he sees from the computer, connects his unconnected life to a new horizon brought to him by today’s technology, and hopes that this opportunity will empower him and take him beyond the limits of his village.
Can this rural boy emerge as a significant contributor to his society in the future?
This was not just a question but an objective, an inspiration and a commitment by
Microsoft when it started Sri Lanka’s
GAMATA IT campaign in 2009 along with other similar projects across Asia Pacific that deliver ICT to the most isolated and disadvantaged rural communities. The projects empower young children with technology, tools and accessibility to better their living standard and take advantage of future opportunities.
“Today, it is not a problem of a digital divide, it’s an opportunity divide,” says Lori Harnick, Microsoft’s General Manager of
Citizenship and Public Affairs, Worldwide Public Sector, at the Accelerating Asia Pacific (AAP) Summit 2011 held by Microsoft this past December in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
For Microsoft, the growing gap between youth with access to technology, skill and opportunity to become successful, compared to those that are without has become a crucial concern.
“Globally, one billion people still lack access to information and communication technology,” Harnick states. She expresses her concern before adding that the major factor to address this problem is access to, and basic knowledge of, technology. This access and knowledge-sharing needs to be shared amongst youth throughout the region.
“If we do not act now to reverse this trend, the opportunity divide will only continue to grow,” she concludes.
Why Asia Pacific?
The GDP of the region reached US$5.45 trillion last year with 410 million people in the workforce and a 6.5 percent economic growth rate. Asia Pacific is also home to seven out of the top ten global ICT exporters, making them among the most competitive countries in the world.
“The IT sector is expected to grow by 4.8 percent between 2008 and 2013, adding 2.7 million more jobs and creating 32,000 new businesses,” points out Harnick.
Youth, as a valuable asset, plays an important part in the potential growth of the region, according to Harnick’s research.
“In Southeast Asia alone, more than 150 million people are expected to enter their prime working age over the next decade, many of these people are the youth of today and tomorrow,” Harnick says. “Sixty percent of people under the age of 25 years live in Asia; that’s just under two billion people.”
“Taking the size of the youth population in Asia and combining its attention for social action with the region’s economic potential, you can be nearly certain that Asian youth will lead an outstanding and positive change in the region and around the world,” notes Harnick. She adds that: “But, only if we help them, only if we continue to invest in them, to believe in them. So, they will continue to believe in their own potential to drive change in their neighbourhoods, their communities, their countries and the world.”
Similar projects to GAMATA IT have been initiated or supported by Microsoft across the region to emphasise its trust in the potential of youth to contribute to regional growth and success. Since 2004, Microsoft and its local partners have established about 70,000 community technology centres around the world and close to 10,000 of these are in Asia Pacific.
“These are places, large and small, where community members can go and access information technology,” says Akhtar Badshah, Senior Director, Microsoft Community Affairs.
Microsoft’s community technology centres around the world have reached up to 190 million individuals over the last eight years, and fifty million who have been given access are in Asia, both in remote locations that are experiencing technology for the first time, as well as state-of-the-art centres with amazing technology like downtown Hong Kong.
“Providing opportunity to individuals, particularly disadvantaged communities, not only empowers youth, but opens up their imagination, while realising their future,” Badshah says. Participants of Microsoft’s programmes will receive certification and related training experience will enable them to get into careers, gain higher educational qualifications or start small businesses.
YCAB Foundation from Indonesia and
Computer Clubhouse Trust from New Zealand are two of the centres highlighted by Badshah.
In YCAB, young Indonesians will join educational sessions of English language and digital training to find jobs as part of the Foundation’s belief that a future world will be led by technology, according to Veronica Colondam, CEO and Founder of YCAB Foundation.
Unlike the YCAB’s locally-focused operation, the Computer Clubhouse Trust works on a global level, having established over 100 clubhouses in Asia, South America, Africa and the Middle East.
At the Computer Clubhouse, students are taught how to leverage technology for creative purposes such as becoming entrepreneurs, as well as learning and creativity. Knowledge will be shared among clubhouse members regardless of the socioeconomic background.
“Technology does not discriminate on the basis of what colour skin you have or what language you speak because any language is fantastic when you add technology to it,” remarks Mike Usmar, Chief Executive Officer, Computer Clubhouse Trust.
Apart from providing basic technology and access to under-served communities, Microsoft also helps talented youngsters maximise their full potential and enhance their creative development. The
Imagine Cup is a global competition that attracts entries from 325,000 students from 140 countries. It is one of Microsoft’s significant investments in helping youth around the world imagine the potential of technology and how it can solve societies’ challenges.
The Imagine Cup confirms Microsoft’s belief about the potential of youth who are educated with the help of technology, given expert advice and an opportunity to define and imagine their future.
“Young people are socially conscious, passionate about doing good deeds, but also doing well. They are tech savvy. Technology is the air they breathe and is infused throughout their lifestyle,” explains Harnick.
“Providing opportunity for youth will require new skill sets, new ways of thinking and innovation that includes technology, but moves beyond it,” adds Harnick.
The world will benefit and celebrate if the imagination of young people both contributes to the greater society and is brought to fruition.
However, the global economic crisis is impacting today’s youth and their future more than ever before. Success nowadays requires more than just the basics, even skilled people struggle to find their footing, explains Harnick.
To accelerate the entire region is to empower the youth to realise their fullest potential. A programme named BETTER in Thailand is one of
Microsoft's community projects that supports IT skills’ enhancement of the country’s workforce, while building employability through technology and entrepreneurship resources.
“We believe that greater access to technology and the sharing of IT skills can really transform lives and enhance living standards,” Harnick says.
The BETTER project delivers training on entrepreneurship and ICT to help communities market their products. These communities can realise the benefit of ICT with the help of youth who realise and develop their skills by tapping and growing the potential of their communities. Both community members and youth will learn how to use ICT better, and be able to survive in the increasingly competitive market for small community business.
A 26-year-old organic gardener learned business planning at the Young Social Entrepreneur camp run by the BETTER project. Now, he can grow his business and contribute to the sustainability of his community.
A similar story was shared at the AAP Summit by Mechai Viravaidy, Founder of the
Population and Community Development Association in Thailand. When Viravaidy started the Bamboo School in a remote province of Thailand, he based his initiative on the simple concept that a school should make kids brighter, while not creating financial hardships for their parents.
“The Bamboo School is a base for social and economic progress, not just a school for kids,” says Viravaidy.
The Bamboo School teaches kids business skills, and involves their parents and the community in the projects. Also, it acts as an IT Hub for 26 communities and schools with 140,000 members. Lessons involve agriculture, e-commerce for rural products, small enterprise or whatever subjects that the students want to learn. The school’s micro-credit fund encourages students and their families to start up small business projects under the school’s platform.
“After grade 12, our kids will walk out of the school with US$10,000 in cash in their pocket from doing business at the school,” notes Viravaidy.
One of the school’s business platforms is to start e-commerce for rural products such as out-of-season limes, cantaloupes, mushrooms and herbal products. The kids will be supervised to plant, invest, save and contribute income and knowledge to their parents. They will also be prepared to be self-employed after leaving the school as almost 70 percent of young adults in Thailand will not be able to find jobs with already established companies.
“Teach the kids and they will share knowledge with others in the community,” Viravaidy confirms.
When given the opportunity, young people have created an impact on their communities far greater than Microsoft could have imagined. Not just contributing to their societies, but also by learning how to give and share opportunities with others in need.
Lilibeth Masamloc from
Visayan Foundation Forum, Philippines, uses the opportunity given to her: accessibility to technology and computer literacy to open a window to a new life. She now shares and contributes to her fellow country people.
After being freed from human trafficking, Masamloc received a six-month computer course under Microsoft’s Step Up Programme with Visayan Foundation Forum. She is now a social worker and a manager of the Kasambahay Education Center and is President of the SUMAP training and advocacy organisation, helping others from a similar background. Masamloc has travelled all over the country and abroad to talk about her experience, helping other trafficked women get their bearings.
From a poor boy in Sri Lanka to Masamloc in the Philippines, Microsoft has travelled great distances with its Asia Pacific non-profit partners to reach under-served youth, bridging the gap between technological accessibility and isolation.
“We believe in leveraging our combined technology, brainpower and networks to make opportunity available for as many young minds as possible. We must empower youth to change their world, we must move from opportunity imagined to opportunity realised,” concludes Harnick.