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Around the world,
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53% of children in low- and middle-income countries
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are experiencing learning poverty.
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To make this challenging situation better,
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a broad-ranging partnership is improving access to education
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and setting up underserved communities
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for long-term success: the Learning Passport.
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(gentle music)
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The idea behind the Learning Passport
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was to bring digital learning to children on the move,
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children affected by humanitarian crises,
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like war or natural disasters.
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And what we were really trying to do in the beginning
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was to bring digital learning to these children
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that didn't have the opportunity
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to engage in any type of digital ecosystem,
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or digital learning experience, where they were.
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So a lot of that initial work was
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how do you do digital learning without the internet?
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And how to take some of the technology
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that Microsoft gave us and put it to work in the places
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that it really matters for UNICEF.
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So that's refugee camps, IDP centers,
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places that you
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would typically consider humanitarian environments.
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So the biggest challenge the Learning Passport
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is trying to address is the digital divide.
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So today we have 1.3 billion children and young people
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that do not have access to the internet,
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do not have access to digital learning solutions.
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The digital divide for UNICEF, from our perspective,
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is a fundamental problem,
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because it's only going to widen the gap
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between the haves and the have-nots
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of that digital productivity, of that digital participation.
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This is a completely new innovation
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that was driven by UNICEF and by Microsoft
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to deliver fully digital learning experiences
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for individuals, children and teachers, parents,
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community members, even humanitarian frontline workers
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or social workers or people traditionally outside
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of the education space.
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This can deliver digital learning
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without an internet connection at all.
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Technology has so much potential
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to supercharge UNICEF's goals,
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and the Learning Passport is an example of that.
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The partnership with Microsoft enabled that
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to be possible in a digital way by creating online
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and offline learning opportunities
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for people all around the world.
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The goal of the Learning Passport
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is to reach 55 million learners over the next 10 years,
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and that is not going to be possible unless
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we can crowd others into our ecosystem of partners.
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UNICEF brought together its global footprint,
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its 70-plus years of expertise;
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Microsoft brought us world-class technology;
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BCG helped in terms of our business planning and approach;
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and without those three core elements,
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the Learning Passport would not be where it is today.
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So BCG has been with us since the early stages.
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In 2019, they helped us develop
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our first foundational business plan,
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and what has happened since then is we've seen
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a tremendous amount of growth in the program.
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In 2019, we were really wanting to understand
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how can we design and scale a product
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that enables students without access to the internet
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the opportunity to learn?
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Then again, in 2023,
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you can imagine the world had fundamentally changed.
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And so in 2023, the question really was,
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how do we capitalize on the immense growth
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that the Learning Passport product has had
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and develop a business model that's sustainable
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and enables longer-term scale?
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Last year, we were at a very important inflection point.
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We needed to figure out,
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how are we going to scale and sustain this moving forward?
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And so BCG came in and they did two very critical things.
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First, they pressure-tested our vision,
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our plans for the future, our approach
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against what they were seeing out in the industry.
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They were able to then use a public-sector approach
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and say, "What are the risks here?
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What are the opportunities?
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What type of resourcing do you need?
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Do you have the right structure?
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Are you bringing in the right partners?"
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And one of the really good things that BCG did,
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because of their fluency with the UN
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and with the world I live in,
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they were able to understand a lot of other stuff
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in the space and compare us in a pretty objective way
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with the other actors that the Learning Passport
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is in league with.
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One of the things that was a real hallmark
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of this effort was the need to bring together the UN system
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and its perspectives and its scale
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with a private-sector lens
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around product design, business model,
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and how the private sector thinks about scale,
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as well as national governments
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and their priorities around enabling access to education.
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From 2018 and 2019,
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when we were working with BCG on the initial business case
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with Learning Passport, to today,
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there are now 40 countries using Learning Passport.
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We're about to hit 7 million learners worldwide.
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When we started in 2018, 2019, it was an idea,
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so the fact that we've made it this far,
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we've really tested, I think,
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the waters in terms of what's possible
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when you bring UNICEF together with
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a number of other organizations like Microsoft
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and the University of Cambridge.
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And so the fact that the Learning Passport is a living,
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breathing program that's reaching almost 7 million people
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is absolutely incredible.
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But I think what I'm most proud of is the team
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that we've built around it,
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the community of supporters that believe in the vision,
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believe in the ability for the Learning Passport
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to really make a tremendous impact in the lives of children
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and educators around the world.
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(gentle music)