How the UN plans to connect every school to the internet by 2030

Two Geneva-based UN agencies, UNICEF and the ITU, have come up with the ambitious plan to get all schools around the world online by 2030. Alex Wong, co-lead of the Giga project, explains the initiative to bridge the digital divide. Nearly half of the world’s six million schools lack internet access, most of them in developing countries and remote rural areas. To address this digital divide, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) are on a mission to connect all the world’s schools to the internet by 2030. That’s just six years from now. Is it doable? And will internet access really help to make the world more equal? SWI swissinfo.ch spoke with Alex Wong, co-lead of the Giga project at the ITU, on the sidelines of the first ever Giga Connectivity Forum in Geneva (July 9-10), where a new hub is set to open by the end of the year. SWI swissinfo.ch: Why is it essential for schools worldwide to have internet connectivity? Alex ...