Qualcomm Wireless Reach: Always On, Always Connected PCs to Promote Digital Literacy in Rural Vietnam
By Hiram Lopez-Landin, Manager, Government Affairs
Imagine that the toughest part of your school day is not the actual lesson in the classroom, but rather just trying to get to school. A journey on makeshift wood planks and vegetative debris to get across floods is common. Coordinating with classmates to remain vigilant for landslides is a matter of survival in rural Vietnam. For Huong Ha and Khanh Vy from Hoa Binh province in Northern Vietnam, floods and landslides are realities of their daily journeys to school.
Ha and Vy are part of a program that is promoting digital literacy and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) skills, including coding, computer science, and cyber robotics. In collaboration with The Dariu Foundation, Qualcomm® Wireless Reach™ distributed more than 900 Always On, Always Connected PCs (ACPCs) powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon™ compute platforms at the beginning of the new academic year in November 2020 to 23 Vietnamese schools in the Tien Giang, Soc Trang, Hau Giang, Vinh Long, and Lam Dong provinces. By making educational devices more widely available, this program will initially help equip around 30,000 primary and secondary level students like Ha and Vy with the foundational digital skills and competencies in STEM to succeed in online and blended learning environments.
Students and teachers received ACPCs powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon compute platforms, which are equipped with 4G LTE cellular capabilities to provide a fast and reliable connection to the Internet, which is important for students for seamless remote learning. These laptops are thin, light and fanless, also offering multimedia capabilities and multi-day battery life. These features make them extremely portable, enabling students to extend learning time outside of the classroom and providing access to vital learning tools anytime and anywhere.
“With the ACPC laptops powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon compute platforms, we will be able to provide the students with STEM skills, including coding, computer science, and cyber robotics, as part of our program to bring quality education to students wherever they are and whatever their economic status, providing them equal opportunity for learning”, stated Hanh Nguyen, General Manager of The Dariu Foundation.
The program reflects Qualcomm’s priorities as part of the Global Education Coalition (GEC), an international multi-sector partnership convened by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Gathering key educator actors, the coalition aims to meet the urgent and unprecedented need for education continuity considering school closures, the shift to remote learning, and the interruption of teaching and learning brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Vietnam, due to limitations for online learning and a proactive Covid-19 containment strategy, students resumed in-class activity in record time. As true innovators, Ha and Vy seized the opportunity to envision the world as it can be and not as it is while engaged in coding lessons. Rather than being pessimistic given their challenging living situation, they instead invented an early-warning system prototype for flood and landslides. Using a water flow sensor upstream, when water reaches established levels then signals are sent to microprocessors. This signal causes barriers downstream to block pathways and prevent people from walking through.
Ha, Vy, and their peers will continue leveraging ACPCs to enhance their curriculum in-class but will soon extend learning time outside of the classroom. For now, though, they are keeping busy inventing for sustainable change and making their community a better place to live.
“We recognize how vital education is not only to one’s personal growth, but also how it contributes to the country’s economic development through having a learned and skilled workforce,” shared Mr. Ngoan Trinh, Deputy Director of Vinh LongDepartment of Education and Training. “The distribution of these Always On, Always Connected laptops allow us to bring quality education to students wherever they are and whatever their economic status, providing them equal opportunity for learning.”
Mobile technology, powered by Qualcomm inventions, has helped shape a better future by bringing the Internet to the unconnected, education to the unschooled, financial services to the unbanked, and jobs to the unemployed. Wireless Reach invests in programs that foster entrepreneurship, aid in public safety, enhance the delivery of health care, enrich teaching and learning and improve environmental sustainability. Since 2006, Wireless Reach has launched 126 programs in 48 countries reaching over 20 million people on five continents through Qualcomm technology.
