On April 20, 2021, the second Tencent MEET Education Technology Innovation Summit (hereinafter as MEET Education Technology Summit) hosted by Tencent Education was held in Beijing. Experts and guests from education management departments and institutions at all levels gathered to discuss about the future development of education informatization together. The conference focused on the theme of "Science and technology help the intelligent upgrade of education and build a new teaching ecology", paid close attention to the "new growth" brought about by the "deep cultivation" of science and technology in the field of education informatization. LI Ming, Director of the International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (hereinafter as UNESCO-ICHEI), was invited to participate and deliver a speech at the summit.

Director LI Ming delivered a speech (Photo source: Tencent)

Director LI Ming's speech focused on the theme of "Science and Technology Empowering Education · Accelerating Educational Reform", emphasized the importance of education fairness for global human well-being and sustainable development. In order to encourage more educational organizations and technology companies to actively assume social responsibilities, empower education with science and technology, and promote education equity, Director LI Ming used educational cases to expound the significance and feasibility of promoting education fairness with technology during the COVID-19. With the financial support of Tencent Charity Foundation, UNESCO-ICHEI launched the International Institute of Online Education (hereinafter as IIOE) project during the COVID-19. Through multi-dimensional support such as online teaching capacity building, software and hardware resource sharing, and personalized policy recommendations, IIOE helps universities in developing countries to deal with relevant challenges caused by the COVID-19, and improve global education equity.On this basis, UNESCO-ICHEI released the Recommendations on Accelerating the Digital Transformation of Global Higher Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020. Director LI Ming, along with Deputy Secretary of Tencent Charity Foundation DOU Ruigang, Vice-President of Tencent Cloud and Tencent Education FU Manqing, launched a joint initiative at the summit to reiterate the recommendations:1. Online Education for Equitable and Quality Higher Education;2. Capacity Building of Higher Education Professionals for HEI Digital Transformation;3. Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships for Philanthropic Resource-Sharing;4. Evidence-based Policies for Online Education Quality Assurance.It is hoped that the cooperation will encourage more colleges, enterprises and organizations to jointly build and share resources and experience, strengthen cross-field and cross-industry multilateral cooperation so that to promote equity with technology and contribute to the realization of the 2030 goal for sustainable development of education.

Recommendations on Accelerating the Digital Transformation of Global Higher Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic was jointly released (Photo source: Tencent)

In the meeting, Director LI Ming and Deputy Director WANG Guobin, along with Vice-President of Tencent Cloud FU Manqing and General Manager of Commerce in South China XU Zhangliang, signed a strategic agreement together. UNESCO-ICHEI and Tencent Cloud intend to form strategic cooperation in the fields of cloud services, open educational resources, ICT training, and technical support.

Signing Ceremony between UNESCO-ICHEI and Tencent Cloud (Photo source: Tencent)

Tencent Cloud (Beijing) Co., Ltd., a cloud computing brand built by Tencent, provides the world's leading cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence services for government agencies, corporate organizations and individual developers in various countries and regions around the world. With excellent technological capabilities, Tencent Cloud will create rich industry solutions, build an open and win-win cloud ecosystem, promote the construction of the industrial Internet, and help all walks of life to achieve digital upgrades.