Education gets smart.
Sun technology and expertise is shaping the future of education and helping bridge the digital divide.
Helping to bridge the digital divide, Sun Microsystems hosted its annual Worldwide Education and Research Conference (WWERC) in San Francisco last month from February 14-17. More than 600 education visionaries from more than 45 countries came together to discuss how technology innovations can help shape the future of education.
Providing a forum for global thought leaders in education, the WWERC 2005 conference enabled participants to share their top concerns, technology solutions, and best practices for meeting the unique learning needs of today's digital generation. Participants included Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Sun executives, ministers of education, university CIOs, and distinguished academics from around the world.
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Highlights
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The Digital Campus
Kim Jones, vice president of Global Education and Research for Sun, opened the conference with a discussion of how technology innovation is making the digital campus a reality.
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Along with Sun VP Kim Jones, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom kicked off the WWERC 2005.
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"Learning is no longer bound to a fixed location such as a classroom," Jones said. "Students are learning wherever and whenever they want, thanks to technology advances. We need to continue to innovate to transform education into a digital campus where a world of information and learning is right at a student's fingertips."
An entirely new way of looking at education, the digital campus creates a unified, seamless environment for learning, achievement, and administration that is available to all individuals. Through partnerships and collaboration, the educational community can work together to develop content, best practices, and architectural solutions, Jones said. The result will be a new campus for the 21st century that opens its doors to everyone everywhere--young and old, rich and poor, local and global.
"Nowhere is the digital divide wider or deeper than in the area of education," said Sun Chairman and CEO Scott McNealy in his keynote address. "The educational experience for the 'haves' is qualitatively different from those on the other side. We must encourage and train the next generation of developers to think big and act boldly no matter what side of the divide they're on."
To this end, Sun made several announcements at the conference about its efforts to improve education practices by providing low-cost, open network computing solutions and tools to the education community:
- The expanded Sun Student Developer Program makes it easy and affordable for young technologists worldwide to learn how to develop on the open Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS). The program now offers student developers direct access to Sun technologists, free software development tools and Web-based training, and $1 million worth of donations to student labs at select universities.
- Furthering its support of academic research, Sun pledged to donate ten blocks of 100,000 hours of CPU processing power, accompanied by 100 terabytes of data storage capacity per month, within the next year, to deserving research efforts. Institutions interested in applying for Sun Grid Research Grants can learn more here.
- A lower pricing model and enhanced features of the Sun Ray Server Software 3 and the Sun Ray 170 ultra-thin client increase the value of the easily deployed Sun Ray platform for budget-conscious education and research institutions.
- With Her Majesty Queen Noor's support, Sun announced its intent to collaborate with the King Hussein Foundation to provide Sun technology for key projects in the Middle East.
- Higher education customers can take advantage of the new Sun Java System Suites to build world-class infrastructure solutions. Priced at $25 per faculty member per year, the suites dramatically reduce service deployment costs for schools, and eliminate the time-consuming software audits required by other vendors to set educational pricing.
Breaking Down Barriers to Education
Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan and John Gage, vice president of the Science office for Sun, also explored ways to bridge the digital divide. In an on-stage chat at the conference, Her Majesty Queen Noor and Gage discussed how corporations, governments, and educators must join forces to lower barriers of entry to education. (See the photo to the right for video of the chat.)
"Queen Noor is a global leader in reforming and extending education, particularly for women and particularly in the Middle East," Gage said. "Her initiatives in deepening our understanding of Islam and the West, in advancing peace and economic development, and in defending and protecting the environment serve as examples for the world leaders in education who gathered in San Francisco."
"The city of San Francisco welcomes Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan and education leaders and visionaries from around the world to support the role of technology in education," said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. "I applaud Sun's continued commitment to education through innovative and affordable technology solutions that enable today's students to become tomorrow's leaders."
At the conference, Mayor Newsom announced an alliance between the city of San Francisco and Sun that will offer free access to Sun's StarOffice productivity suite software to all students and teachers throughout the city. More than 200,000 students in all public and private K-12 schools, community colleges, and universities--and more than 5000 teachers in these same institutions--will be able to benefit from the word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, and database capabilities of the StarOffice software. The value of this alliance is estimated to be more than $5,000,000. Other education and research institutions can also contact Sun to take advantage of no-cost StarOffice software licensing.
"By providing a forum for global education visionaries to meet and share ideas, the WWERC helps set the agenda for how technology can positively impact the future of education," Jones noted. "Sun will continue our long history of supporting and partnering with the education community to drive innovative use of technology in education."
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