Dell organizes PolicyHack for teachers

Dell has hosted an interactive hackathon as a part of its three-city PolicyHack series, where teachers focused on their learning journey. In a first-of-its-kind hackathon for teachers, Dell has partnered with the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) and Ignus, to create a platform where teachers, school representatives and a cross-sectional group of experts related to education can interact with each other.

The maiden PolicyHack in India was conducted at two levels: over 80 schools pan India shared their statements of purpose. Basis the evaluation parameters, top 20 shortlisted schools presented their ideas to the Jury, which comprised of Sanjay Awasthi, Member- Secretary, National Council for Teacher Education; Rajive Gulati, Head, Start-Up Incubator, HARTRON; Prof. Dr Anantha Duraiappah, Director, UNESCO MGIEP; Subir Shukla, Founder, Ignus; Ajay Kaul, Director and GM, Head Government Business, Dell EMC, and Ritu Gupta, Director, Consumer India, Dell.

Dell plans to present three more PolicyHacks in other regions of the country in 2019, in an endeavour to foster and cultivate innovative ideas on how teachers can leverage technology for themselves and for the benefit of their students. PolicyHack is a global forum of Public Policy discussions, curated under the umbrella of Realizing 2030, wherein Dell strives to explore and realize the true potential of technology to drive human progress.

The objective of the PolicyHack is to enable an ecosystem-wide understanding of key problems that impact the learning journey of a teacher. The Government Boys Senior Secondary School No. 1, Ghonda won the maiden hackathon for teachers, Delhi, who presented the most promising and innovative ideas and solutions. The teams who were runners-up were Indraprastha International School, Gyan Devi Salwan Public School and Dr Sampuranand SKV-1.

Ajay Kaul, Director and GM, Head Government Business, Dell EMC, said, “Teachers have always played a key role in fuelling curiosity in the minds of young students. These students set out to become some of the brightest minds in the world. Inspired by teachers’ contribution to our education system, Dell PolicyHack India aims at creating a platform dedicated for teachers to address their day-to-day challenges and explore how technology can help enable their success. As a company, we are focused on transforming education, and our efforts with Atal Innovation Mission, EduVision and Dell Aarambh are a testimony to that. These hacks will add another dimension to our ongoing efforts, and will provide a lot of inputs to the budding edu-tech communities, by sharing with them real issues faced by administrations and teachers. We are truly thrilled to partner with UNESCO-MGIEP and IGNUS in bringing this PolicyHack for Teachers – and we hope it makes a difference.”

Dr Anantha Duraiappah, Director, UNESCO MGIEP, said, “We all must move away from the present assessment-obsessed competitive system to a structure that rewards collaboration, empathy and compassion for the social good. Digital pedagogies can help educators develop content that is fun, engaging, interactive and immersive for the user, and reach out to a large pool of students.”

Dell is committed to turning the winning proposal into a reality. The PolicyHack team with the winning proposal will work alongside Dell and the relevant stakeholders to further develop their policy solutions post the hackathon.