CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa : social investment, GET-IT

GET-IT Networking conference: Immersive Learning!

Daniela.Opp — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:24:00 GMT

This was just so amazing and very rewarding. On 16 and 17 October we held our second GET-IT networking conference in Cairo, Egypt. The conference was hosted by the Ministry of ICT in the ‘smart village’. We had representatives from 80 GET-IT centres, government organisations and educational institutions, as well as real entrepreneurs - our success stories - and they came from about 20 EMEA countries. We all joined hands during the conference and made the theme of the conference – Immersive Learning – a reality.

What did we do? The aim of the conference was to bring together delegates from our GET-IT centres, leaders from education and government and HP management, to exchange experiences, share best practices and get the latest updates on our GET-IT programme. This conference enabled participants to grow their own GET-IT network and learn from each other.

A real highlight for me was to see what GET-IT can achieve when we all come together and the impact that our GET-IT training clearly has on students and the local economy. Another highlight was hearing from entrepreneurs who spoke about how they were able to build their business or improve their economic situation as a result of their GET-IT training.

For instance, we heard from Aissatel Amet from France. She said that she had wanted to establish her own business as a web designer but she lacked sufficient knowledge in Excel programming and numbers. Her GET-IT training helped her to develop her knowledge and ability and she has now successfully launched her own business. These are moments that warm your heart.

The huge amount of work that went into organising this event was also a big highlight for me. It was clearly evident that the Micro Enterprise Acceleration Institute (MEA-I), the Suzanne Mubarak Peace Movement Foundation (one of our GET-IT partners in Egypt), United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and of course HP really worked so hard and so well together. It was amazing. In addition to sharing experiences and best practice, we also provided our delegates and NGO partners with the latest developments of the GET-IT programme, specifically focusing on our online extension of the programme.

For example, in future the GET-IT centres will have the opportunity to get engaged in curriculum developments online and will be able to suggest topics of interest. Also, we have just launched our second serious game on the online GET-IT City platform. It is called GET-IT Blossom and it represents an extension of our existing online training platform GET-IT City.

GET-IT Blossom is an interactive training programme where the player is a manager of a flower business. The player has to make sure that his customers are happy, the turnover increases and the plantation and office-related work are run successfully.

It was so motivating and rewarding to see how the centres shared their experiences and engaged so well in ‘immersive learning’. To see how GET-IT helps students on a local level makes me feel very strong about our programme and I can’t wait to grow the scope and impact of this programme even further. We have made a lot of contacts within the centres and a number of governments are now really interested in growing GET-IT.

As you will remember from earlier blogs, GET-IT focuses a lot on online learning. This is why we made sure that the conference could also be accessed online to enable people who could not attend the conference in Cairo to participate from their own vantage point. They could do this, for instance, via our GET-IT Facebook page or our Twitter page and of course our GET-IT Homepage. You can find more information about the conference on all of those pages.

I would like to finish my blog entry by extending a big thank you to everyone who participated in the conference. Thank you for all of your contributions, your trust and your work. Let me also thank our partners, the Micro Enterprise Acceleration Institute for all their hard work in helping to organise the conference, as well as to the Ministry of ICT and the Suzanne Mubarak Women´s International Peace Movement for hosting us and for their support both before and during the event. Chapeau!

Daniela Opp, Manager Social Investment, EMEA

PS: you can find recent news about GET-IT on our homepage, our video or latest case study.

GET-IT growth in Africa and the Middle East

Daniela.Opp — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:57:00 GMT

Since May last year we have been working with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to grow our GET-IT programme in Africa and the Middle East. GET-IT is part of HP’s social investment strategy aimed at innovating teaching and learning to help young entrepreneurs achieve success in their future careers. The programme provides IT equipment, a cash donation, IT training and also ‘train-the-trainer’ sessions for trainers from our respective local partner organisations.

So far, HP and its partners have rolled the GET-IT programme out to nearly 100 centres in 30 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, reaching more than 43,000 people through online and offline training courses. The plan is to grow GET-IT even further to reach over 500,000 young people by end of 2010.

I am happy to tell you that we are now opening another 20 new GET-IT centres in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The centres will be in Algeria, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. This figure more than doubles our GET-IT community in Africa and the Middle East.

The need for IT and entrepreneurship education in these regions is particularly high. UNIDO constitutes a strong partner for HP and has done an excellent job in selecting our GET-IT partners in Africa and the Middle East. You can find the list of our new partners in Africa and the Middle East here.

Our partner MEA-I will be holding ‘train-the trainer’ sessions for the trainers of our new GET-IT partner organisations over the next three months. The sessions are called ‘Guidance Courses’. They are held over five days and offer instructor-led, classroom-based and high interactive training, incorporating experiential learning methodologies.

The goal of this course is to provide trainers with the foundations in technical and facilitation skills and the knowledge required to conduct the GET-IT curriculum and training for students. Moving forward, we are looking to bring parts of the ‘train-the-trainer’ sessions online in due course.

I will soon be able to update you with other great new developments with the programme, starting with advanced online tools and games through to our annual networking conference which be held in October. So, stay tuned for more information on our flagship progamme GET-IT.

Daniela Opp, Manager Social Investment EMEA

GET-IT: Africa highlights

Daniela.Opp — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:51:00 GMT

I have already written a couple of entries about our Graduate Entrepreneurship Training in IT (GET-IT) Programme. Since its launch in 2007 we have opened up 100 centres in 30 countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa and have already trained more than 43,000 students. We recently published an article about three GET-IT centres in Africa in our Global Citizenship Bulletin. Instead of repeating the article, I would like to encourage you to read it here. It shows you the experiences and impressions of three different NGOs which offer our GET-IT programme. Each one is different, but they all have the same goal: To teach young school leavers and undergraduates business skills with IT. Happy reading.

Daniela Opp, Manager Social Investments, EMEA

European SME Week: JA-YE and European Commission launch campaign for young entrepreneurs

Daniela.Opp — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:58:00 GMT

I would quickly like to draw your attention to this year’s European Small and Medium Entrepreneurship Week in Brussels which is taking place now up until 14 May. During the European SME week there will be over 1000 events in over 35 countries. You cannot miss it.

My colleague Jeannette Weisschuh was attending one of the events yesterday: the launch of the initiative ’Your World, Your Business’. This initiative was developed by the European Commission and Junior Achievement Young Enterprise (JA-YE) Europe to encourage young people to become creative, dynamic and responsible entrepreneurs of the future. You can find additional information on ’Your World, Your Business’ here.

Students participating in the ’Your World, Your Business’ campaign are asked to submit their ideas to the JA-YE Europe and HP ’Responsible Business Competition ’. Through this competition we want to encourage young people to consider social and environmental responsibility as they build their own small enterprises. Last year’s winner, the Austrian student company Infotainment , were on hand at yesterday’s launch to share their experiences with the audience. Students can submit their business ideas at www.responsible-business.org/europe/.

I strongly believe that, in the current economic climate, entrepreneurs are even more important for job preservation and creation. We should try to support entrepreneurship wherever we can. Another one of our social investment programmes, the HP Graduate Entrepreneurship Training through IT (GET-IT) does exactly that. We specifically target young graduates and unemployed youth to join the programme so that they can learn how IT can help them in building their own business.

Have you been to the SME Week? We would love to hear what you think about it.

Daniela Opp, Manager Social Investments, HP EMEA

New podcast: Promote entrepreneurial spirit

jeanne2007 — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:00:00 GMT

As you know from former entries, we have many GET-IT centres across Europe, the Middle East and Africa that offer under - or unemployed young graduates with business and IT skills which will help them to find jobs. We recently talked to Erik Dauwen, Director of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship Belgium who is in charge of a GET-IT centre in Belgium. To listen to the podcast, click here.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

Fight social and environmental exclusion: The e-inclusion Ministerial Conference

Daniela.Opp — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:11:00 GMT

At the beginning of December I had the opportunity to participate in the e-inclusion Ministerial and Expo in Vienna, where HP was one of the main sponsors. HP presented our latest accessibility products and showed some great solutions on web accessibility. We integrate accessibility into our HP products and website development process in order to improve user experience. This is accomplished by buttons identified by touch, ports and switches positioned within easy reach and also large adjustable displays.

The event is organized on an annual basis by the European Commission. This year there were 90 exhibition stands, more than 130 speakers and nearly 1500 delegates who all talked about or presented their approach on how information and communication technologies can fight social and economic exclusion.

The conference focused on bringing together many actors of civil society, the economy and the government to exchange their knowledge and best practices, to honour best practices (e-inclusion awards) and to create a discussion forum about different initiatives and the way forward. The exhibition area constituted a great pool of existing approaches and ideas and it was exciting to see what’s already out there.

This is the second year that we have participated in this event. We had one exhibition stand where I presented our GET-IT programme, which aims at fostering entrepreneurship among young graduates aged between 16-25 in Europe, Middle East and Africa. I presented details on our newly launched GET-IT City portal, which allows us to reach students beyond the classroom. The portal gives students access to training and enables them to receive useful tips for establishing an enterprise. Students can learn IT and important business skills in an entertaining way, with online games and videos. Click here to get your own impression about GET-IT City and let me know what you think.

In addition to our exhibition stand, the lead for our organization, Gabriele Zedlmayer, Vice President, Corporate Marketing and Global Citizenship, Hewlett Packard, Europe, Middle East and Africa, delivered a keynote speech about digital literacy. Gabi made it clear that technology access is a key factor in bridging the digital divide. But access is not enough: eSkills are needed to participate in the information society.

I really enjoyed some very fruitful conversations with many important HP stakeholders. Through these discussions I gleaned more ideas on how we can make our social investments even more relevant to society.

Daniela Opp, Manager, Social Investment and Economic Development

GET-IT – let’s walk the talk

Daniela.Opp — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:27:00 GMT

I am at Brussels airport, flying home after our first annual GET-IT Conference, which was themed around “e-skills development for young entrepreneurs” and I am still very thrilled and excited about the 2 days we have spent together. The event took place at the Brussels HP office on September 18-19.

As you probably remember from my earlier blog entries, our Graduate Entrepreneurship Training through IT (GET-IT) is designed for under - or unemployed youth (aged 16-25) in underserved communities. We want to develop their IT and business skills so that they become more qualified for employment and better placed to create their own business.

We decided to hold a conference for our GET-IT network to bring them together from around Europe, Middle East and Africa, to foster knowledge exchange and best practise sharing amongst the group and discuss together how to grow GET-IT further in the most meaningful way.

Prior to the conference, we requested feedback from our network and results from our first year show that overall, our 70 GET-IT partners trained over 8300 young graduates and around 40% found a job after having attendend the courses. Wow, I can only say – great results, if you ask me!

During the conference we had a great mix of GET-IT centers, who have joined the network in 2007, when we launched our social flagship programme, but also centers that joined the network this year. In total GET-IT centers from more than 20 countries participated. We had young entrepreneurs, who attended the GET-IT training, who are the living example that the training works. They were able to launch successful businesses, created jobs for others and are even expanding their operations internationally now. Watch our newly launched GET-IT video, which is posted on our GET-IT website http://www.graduate-training-through-it.net/. Overall we had 41 partipants from 20 countries.

I also learned a lot in the workshop sessions, where we brainstormed about how to increase the impact of the training. This session was very benefical as we are always aiming at developing this programme further for the best local impact. But we also heard very intersting perspectives from the European Commission officials, who discuss the crucial role of e-skills and competences for Europe’s future as well as best practises from our highly valued partners of HP like JA-YE that discussed how the GET-IT curriculum helps advance their existing graduate programmes.

We heard from UNIDO, with whom we formed a partnership to strengthen the GET-IT programme in Africa, that some ICT students have not gotten the chance to be in front of a personal computer for 3 years! It is time to change that!

But clearly, one of the highlights was to hear from the GET-IT centers themselves, how they address entrepreneurship skill training. Great best practise sharing. And it is rewarding to see that GET-IT is so modular, that it adds value to the economic development in each country. We are currently running the programme in 25 countries with 70 partners.

The success of this conference supports us in our goal to increase the GET-IT network further. We want to establish 30 additional GET-IT centres and reach more than 500,000 students in total by 2010 through our GET IT centre network. I know it sounds like a high goal but only high goals enable you to stretch and go even further. I guess it is like chocolate: if you had one piece you want more and more.

To reach as many students as possible with GET-IT have been working on a web portal and presented the BETA version to the conference participants. The portal enables even those students who cannot access a GET-IT centre to still benefit from the programme through various features like the online game or video clips. I am particularly excited about this web portal because it allows us to reach more students in need for entrepreneurship skills. And I am proud to be part of this programme.

Conference participants welcomed the portal and showed tremendous interest in it. We will have a lot of partners testing it now and we hope to get valuable feedback to further advance the game. I must admit that I am a little bit jealous that such entertaining education tools have not existed when I was a graduate. It is amazing how much easier it seems to be for young people to pick up basic business and entrepreneurship principles through such tools.

And last but not least, I am particularly proud about our participants’and partners’ feedback that HP walks the talk with its strong social investment strategy and programmes.

Daniela Opp, Manager, Social Investments and Economic Development, HP EMEA

Global 2.0: network connections needed

jeanne2007 — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:09:00 GMT

I recently read an article by William J. Amelio, CEO of Lenovo who argues that the emerging economies’ ability to contribute ideas and knowledge to the global economy has meant that many more people have come out of poverty over the last 20 years than initially estimated by the World Bank.

He refers to “Global 2.0” as the driving force for the way out of poverty: We live in an interdependent network where innovative ideas are created in any corner. He is very right with what he says and I think we should make sure that the connectedness to emerging and developing countries gets stabilized.

HPs Social Investment Strategy focuses on the interconnectedness of different parts of the world with each other and in the next years, the networking aspect within our social investment programmes will be further strengthened. One big problem in African countries is for example that young graduates and scientists leave their home to follow a career in developed countries. To alleviate this “Brain Drain” we work together with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation). With the help of grid computing technology we help scientists from select universities to connect with other scientists abroad and to get access to international research projects and resources.

Another example of global interconnectivity is our partnership with UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization). We have agreed to open additional GET-IT training centres in African countries. GET-IT (Graduate Entrepreneurship training through IT) is another Social Investment Programme which aims at providing young unemployed graduates (age 16-25) with IT skills to enable them to set up their own business or to be better placed for work life. We provide IT equipment to non-governmental organisations (NGOs/NPOs) as well as professional guidance courses for their trainers so that they can offer interactive courses specifically designed to improve business IT skills of young unemployed school leavers and graduates. With UNIDO we have a strong partner at our side to spread GET-IT across the African continent where it can help to foster economic development and to especially enable emerging countries to build on their creative ideas and to be more successful in business. We are also planning to help the different GET-IT centers in mature and emerging markets become more closely linked to exchange best practices and learn from each other.

Global 2.0 is on its way!

Daniela Opp, Manager, Social Investments and Economic Development, HP Europe, the Middle East and Africa