Watch TechChange on re:publica Panel: Refugees and Online Education

With over 9,000 attendees and 1,000 speakers, re:publica 18 is one of the largest conferences about digital culture in the world. The conference has a diversity of attendees such as artists, activists, scientists, hackers, entrepreneurs, NGOs, journalists, social media and marketing experts, and many others. The re:publica 2018 theme is POP, touching on opening up societal discussion to all and make net culture and politics tangible to anyone.

TechChange was invited to participate in the “Tech for Good” track supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The goal of this track is to bring together inspiring and innovative inputs that highlight the potential of digital technologies to solve global problems.

Meronne Teklu, an instructional designer at TechChange, participated on the “Building a new life, one e-lesson at a time: refugees and online education” panel along with Maren Kröger (UNHCR), Henner Kirchner (GIZ Jordan office), and Mohammad Moataz Ghannam (Kiron Higher Open Education). Main points of focus included how new technologies and policy approaches to making e-learning tools available to refugees, and the ethical and political issues that come with using e-learning platforms in vulnerable communities.

re:publica 2018 was truly a transformative experience – from exploring the beautiful city of Berlin, to meeting inspiring panelists and attendees, to having rich dialogue on how the public and private sectors can collaborate in making impactful programs, it was truly an enriching opportunity. Thank you to BMZ for sponsoring the panel, and Charles Martin-Shields from the German Development Institute (GDI) for organizing!

*Photo provided by re:publica flickr.