Since 1957, HP has shared its inventive spirit, industry leadership and talented workforce, with the communities in which it operates worldwide. As part of this commitment, HP is a key supporter of the World Summit on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, being held today in Muscat. During the summit, HP Middle East’s managing director Joseph Hanania will meet with ministers and other industry leaders to discuss how governments and multi-national companies in the region can use technology to improve education; foster a culture of entrepreneurship; and facilitate economic growth.
“HP believes that education is the key to fostering a spirit of inventiveness in children, which will in turn promote a culture of entrepreneurship amongst young adults,” said Joseph Hanania.
“HP engages closely with schools in the region, just as we engage with our customers, to understand their specific needs and discover how technology can help them achieve their goals. We intend to share our insights and expertise at the WSIE summit in order to agree how we can collectively make technology available to all through education.”
HP uses its products, services and skills, in addition to philanthropic cash contributions to increase children and young adults’ access to information technology worldwide. In 2005, HP made social investments to help schools worldwide in three primary programme areas:
• e-inclusion
• Education
• Employee giving and volunteerism
In the Middle East, HP has invested in a number of community programmes to improve schools and encourage entrepreneurship amongst young adults.
In February of this year, HP announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Egypt and the e-Africa Commission, paving the way for the launch of the third NEPAD e-School in the Northern African region.
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The objective of the NEPAD e-schools initiative is to supply African schools with an educational technology solution including computer hardware, software, Internet connectivity, technical support and teacher training.
In November 2005, HP formed a technology partnership with the first annual forum of the Young Arab Leaders, in order to reinforce its commitment to pioneering innovation across the Middle East. Under the partnership, Hanania has conducted mentoring programmes for young Emiratis in Dubai, in order to share HP’s spirit of inventiveness and technology expertise with the nation’s future business leaders.
“HP is a business that was founded on innovation and we strongly believe that it is a critical component of economic success. Our support of initiatives such as the Young Arab Leaders Forum and WSIE, along with mentoring programmes, our essential parts of our commitment to contribute meaningfully to the communities in which we operate,” concluded Hanania.
Also in 2005 HP partnered with SAFAD Engineering and Electronics Ltd and Relief International-Schools Online, to launch a number of innovative educational projects in Palestine that have been designed to enhance computer literacy and information and communication technology (ICT) skills among teachers and youths while promoting community development, citizenship and cross-cultural exchange.
In 2004 HP and Relief International – Schools Online (RI-SOL) launched their first joint initiative for the creation of digital communities in Jordan. These DCCs are the cornerstones of a programme that aims to provide local communities with greater accessibility to the internet and information technologies, as a means to learn, work and benefit from the most appropriate technological advances.
As a technology partner of the WSIE Summit, HP will be supply the event’s media centre with its technology and products to the media centre. HPs notebooks, desktops and all-in-one printers will ensure a highly efficient and smooth running press centre for the attending journalists.
Following the outcomes of discussions at the conference, HP will announce further educational initiatives in the future, in separate announcements.
