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

CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa : social investment, UNIDO

GET-IT Networking conference: Immersive Learning!

GET-IT growth in Africa and the Middle East