BT challenges students to shake up communications industry

Students from across the globe will today team up to design the next wave of communications services, in a competition organised by BT. The BT Global Design Challenge asks participating schools to come up with working solutions of how IT and communications could be used to aid education and social inclusion worldwide.

Students from eight UK schools will be twinned with others from India, Africa and the USA using videoconferencing and other collaborative technologies such as wikis, email and interactive learning platforms. The teams will then be asked to come up with potential solutions to the human and technological communications challenges presented by an increasingly competitive global economy.

Phil Dance, BT’s MD of technology development, said: “Today’s youth are tomorrow’s customers - we want them to tell us what products and services they want to use. What should be the next cool, ultra cheap mobile device? How can we include older members of the local community? How can communications technology help to reduce our carbon footprint? Young people have a unique insight into the future of our world.”

For the last two years, BT has undertaken a number of activities to understand the needs of young customers ranging from six to eighteen years of age. Activities in the UK include 'teach-ins', software evaluation, ‘young customer hothousing’ sessions and new ideas workshops.

For more information or to find out how your school can participate, see www.easicop.org