Trends: Telekom Inside

Deutsche Telekom is contributing to a modern educational system through a myriad of projects.

Faster learning with Deutsche Telekom AG: Thanks to an Internet connection with bandwidth of up to six megabits, surfing has been rapidly on the rise in German schools since the end of summer vacation. T@School is the name of the Deutsche Telekom project in which the company provides all of the nation’s mainstream public schools with free online access.

Europe's largest telecommunications corporation recently raised the stakes and unleashed a substantially higher bandwidth. Thanks to the enhanced bandwidth, teachers can now integrate additional teaching materials that require the processing of large amounts of data. Examples include films, animated graphics and live chats.

T@School is supported by the "Schools on the Network" Internet initiative, introduced in 1996 in conjunction with the German Education Department. It offers a range of services. For instance, the “Teachers Online” portal provides teaching materials, and facilitates exchange with colleagues at other schools. Schoolchildren can find tips on how to construct their own homepages, among other things. Almost 800,000 teachers and schoolchildren use the services regularly. “The tools from ‘Schools on the Net’ have contributed substantially to making digital media a solid component of school teaching," says Education Minister Annette Schavan.

Class Kits for elementary schools

The establishment of the Deutsche Telekom Foundation in November 2003 itself represents a cornerstone in the corporation’s commitment to education. The foundation supports education, scholarship and research in the areas of math, natural sciences and technology. The foundation aims to foster interest in the natural sciences among children through its elementary school project known as “Class Kits".

At the same time, the universities benefit from foundation-sponsored professorships financed by Deutsche Telekom. In a joint effort with the Technical University of Berlin, for example, the company has set research in modern communications and information technologies as its goal. The recently established Telekom Laboratories employs 75 researchers working in this area.

Together with UNICEF, Deutsche Telekom is also focusing on children in Africa. Under the leadership of T-Mobile, 5.000 schools will be built over the next few years in Angola, Rwanda, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Malaŵi. At the same time in South Africa, the Deutsche Telekom subsidiary, T-Systems, is actively sponsoring competitive sailing. The ICT service provider is the main sponsor of the Shosholoza team, which competes this summer in the America's Cup. It also supports the Izivunguvungu MSC Foundation for Youth in Cape Town.

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