Samsung Africa reaffirms commitment to education at eLearning Africa 2013

Samsung Africa reiterated its commitment to battling the education challenges the continent faces by showcasing several solutions at the eLearning Africa 2013 conference.

The tech giant also pressed organisations across Africa to reassess the ways in which they can contribute to providing education and skills development to the youth of the continent.

“Every company can help in some way to solve the education problems that we are faced with in Africa, which affects all of us and ultimately impacts our future success and sustainability on the continent”, says Ntutule Tshenye, Business-to-Government and Corporate Citizenship Lead at Samsung Africa. “For example, at Samsung we know that the best way we can help is by drawing upon our history of innovation and our expertise in the field of electronics engineering. But our solutions need to exist within a strong network of partnerships for them to have maximum impact.”

Samsung Africa prides itself on having its Corporate Social Responsibility focused on education. Its strategy is to connect its long-term business goals with a desire to improve lives. Leading the way here is its Hope for Children campaign which focuses not only on education, but also rural access and connectivity, and developing programmes that speak to community needs. The company’s goal is to directly impact five million lives across Africa by 2015.

The many different contexts in which Africa’s education challenges are set drove Samsung to focus on developing new education solutions, rather than ‘doing more of the same’.

Says Tshenye, “If we strive towards quality education for all; there can’t be any exceptions. We can’t solely focus our efforts on urban schools, or schools with electricity. We need to come up with solutions for the remotest parts of the continent – as well as everything in between. And we also can’t separate education from other challenges such as health care, which ultimately impact a child’s ability to learn”.

Notable programmes and solutions already rolled out include:

• the Samsung Smart School solution: a one-on-one learning platform that enables teachers to deliver an interactive learning experience
• Samsung Solar Powered Internet School: a portable classroom built in a 40-foot shipping container intended to be able to reach the remotest areas on the continent
• the Samsung Solar Power Generator: a generator that can provide enough power for eight years without any additional maintenance and has a lifespan of up to 25 years.
• The Samsung Electronics Engineering Academy: a programme designed to fast-track African youths into the electronics job market with a short-term goal of developing 10 000 service technicians by 2015.