#GMIS2020 VIRTUAL SUMMIT: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 2020 | 16:55 - 17:30 GMT+2
DAY TWO:
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Panel Discussion
H.E. HUSSAIN AL HAMMADI Minister of Education, UAE
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EDWARD ZHOU Vice President for Global Public Affairs, Huawei Technologies
PUSHING THE LIMITS IN THE HEALTHCARE, TELECOMS AND EDUCATION SECTORS: BENT, BUT NOT BROKEN? The COVID-19 pandemic has been the catalyst for a massive adoption of advanced technologies in the healthcare, education and telecommunications sectors, heard a discussion on the impact of the pandemic on the education and telecoms sectors. Demand for telemedicine consultations rose 60-fold in the US alone, while over 1.2 million students in the UAE shifted to distance learning within two weeks. The UAE had been well-prepared to make that shift, said H.E. Hussain Al-Hammadi, the UAE’s Minister of Education, thanks to the launch of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Smart Learning Initiative in 2012. The initiative had introduced ‘Smart Classes’, whereby students utilise smart devices and high-speed 4G networks as a means of acquiring knowledge.
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“We really invested a lot a long time ago in all these infrastructure requirements to enable us to continue educating in different scenarios,” he said. “It’s about building the best learning platform that is really smart, resilient, and meets modern requirements. Then you need to provide teachers and students with appropriate devices that enable them to enter the network and have the capabilities to use advanced applications and software to be embedded in the learning platform.” The rapid shift to distance learning on an unprecedented scale had still created huge technical and logistical challenges for the education system, said Al-Hammadi. To deal with this, the Ministry of Education created a Satellite Operations Centre to cope with the demand and connect with the parents and students. Edward Zhou, Vice President for Global Public Affairs, Huawei, highlighted the role that telecommunications had played in
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