Tec project Share+ only one from Latin America in global competition

Share+, a social educational project by Alejandro Gabriel Hernández, an Industrial and Systems Engineering student at the Toluca campus, is in the semifinals of the Ericsson Innovation Awards 2021.

This project is competing with 13 initiatives to reduce the digital divide and is the only one representing Latin America in this international competition.

Alejandro is on the Leaders of Tomorrow program, which provides 100% scholarships to talented young people to study for a degree at the Tec.

His project is focused on the basic education level including elementary and middle schools, and it aims to bring digital content to students, parents, and teachers.

It takes the topics included in Ministry of Public Education textbooks and puts them into PowerPoint presentations with the goal of assisting with online learning.

The material is classified by school level, grade, and subject and can be downloaded for free. “We created a simple application to allow textbook content to be seen in a more friendly way,” Alejandro said.

Share+, semi-finalist at Ericsson Innovation Awards 2021

The Ericsson Innovation Awards is an international competition open to university students from anywhere in the world and of all ages who use technology to solve global challenges. 

This year’s theme revolves around bridging the digital divide:

“The digital revolution is leaving half the planet behind, driving up inequality and causing us all to lose a world of potential. Help us bridge the digital divide,” the organizer says on its website.

“Because this year’s theme referred to technological innovation projects that help reduce the digital inequality gap and benefit communities, we think that aligns very well with the objective of the project,” Alejandro said when explaining why they participated in the contest.

The proposal is competing with 13 other projects from 10 different countries: Singapore, Taiwan, India, Kenya, Sweden, the United States of America, the Philippines, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Australia. “Our project is the only one from Mexico and the only one from Latin America,” explains Alejandro.

Share+ is the only one that focuses on enriched digital education with an impact in remote areas. They define Share+ for this contest as follows:

“Using accessible software programs, these interactive educational materials can be run without internet, making them ideal for more remote areas.

“This allows children to continue classes without a teacher, using interactive content that can be adapted to each grade’s curriculum.”

The finalists will be announced on November 15 and the winner in December.

The origin of the Share+ social project

This initiative was born from the need to provide dynamic and accessible educational content to marginalized communities during the pandemic and for groups that do not have access to the internet.

“The initiative emerged in July 2020 with the goal of helping teachers, students, and parents with online learning. This has been done through the creation of a public folder where people enter, select the content, and download it.”

“The project is aimed at elementary and middle school children. We seek to implement gamification of learning, so students learn through games,” Alejandro said.

The content is divided into theoretical content and exercises such as quizzes and games in which people can reinforce what they saw in the content.

Alejandro has the following to say about the project’s characteristics and advantages:

• No internet is needed.
• Content is transferable by WhatsApp.
• It encourages self-taught learning.
• It has a friendly interface.
• It uses the gamification of learning.
• It is an educational innovation.

There are materials for all the subjects that have textbooks. The contents are built based on them, and information that enriches the content is added at the suggestion of teachers. All materials contain the sources consulted. 

Share+ supports the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

The UN states that in 2020 many countries temporarily closed schools, “impacting more than 91% of students worldwide. By April 2020, nearly 1.6 billion children and youth were out of school.”

“Share+ is an initiative that seeks to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals issued by the UN. They focus on goals 4 and 10,” said Alejandro. 

Goal 4 is to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

The importance of this goal lies in the fact that it “enables upward socioeconomic mobility and is a key to escaping poverty,” says the UN website.

Meanwhile, Goal 10 is to reduce inequality within and among countries, as the UN states:

“COVID-19 has deepened existing inequalities, hitting the poorest and most vulnerable communities the hardest.”

The growth of the project

Since its creation, the project has attracted attention to join forces and help a greater number of people. “A week after we launched the call for volunteers, we had about 100 volunteers,” Alejandro said.

More than 400 volunteers have joined this initiative from different educational institutions, including: Tec de Monterrey, UNAM, Rotaract, and the University of Guadalajara. 75% of the volunteers are from the Tecnológico de Monterrey community.

In these 15 months of work, more than 600 smart contents have been produced and 50,000 children have been impacted.

Partnerships were made with different institutions, such as the Major General Anacleto Guerrero Guajardo Educational Fund in Monterrey, which provided tablets and Share+ provided the content to take them to remote communities.

More than 600 people were directly impacted, which is why Alejandro was nominated for the National Youth Award in the Social Commitment category.

Another partnership was made with Toluca Valley’s Sector 9 schools, benefitting more than 500 teachers, and indirectly impacting 15,000 children.

Meanwhile, outside our borders, a school in California called Calic Calmecac was approached last June. It uses the dual immersion scheme, giving classes in English and Spanish to students that are 50% American and 50% migrant.

“We’re collaborating to generate special content for the format they use. We’re working on that,” Alejandro said.

The proposal is competing with 13 other projects from 10 different countries: Singapore, Taiwan, India, Kenya, Sweden, the United States of America, the Philippines, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Australia. “Our project is the only one from Mexico and the only one from Latin America.”

The project has been achieved as a result of all of the volunteer efforts. There are 15 people who make up the Share+ Steering Committee. 14 of them are from the Tec community.

“We would like to establish it as a social enterprise. That would allow us to generate resources and be able to take the project to more communities in the country and the world, to take it to every place where it can help.”

“’Share’ is about sharing knowledge, and the ‘+’ is everything that can be shared,” Alejandro concluded.

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