Watch the Oslo Dialogue Conference

Dialogue conferences have been held in Oslo and Washington, D. C. in order to get input from the market on the innovation competition to develop a smartphone learning application for Syrian children.

The dialogue conference in Oslo was recorded and can be watched both with English and Arabic subtitles. The conference was held in Oslo October 26th 2015.

• See norad.no/eduapposlo for the agenda

It is advisable to watch the recording of the dialogue conference, in particular the Q&A session, before giving the written feedback we have requested.

• See norad.no/eduappfeedback in order to give your feedback 

List of participants in Oslo

Are you keen to know more about those who participated at the dialogue conference in Oslo on October 26th? Did someone ask brilliant questions or indicate areas of expertise that you would like to find out more about?

• See this excel-file for the list of participants (NB! The list includes only those participants who agreed to have their names and organizational details published. The list also includes some live-stream participants)

• To learn more about the innovation competition EduApp4Syria – please visit norad.no/eduapp4syria.

See recording with English subtitles below

EduApp4Syria - part 1

Part 1 of 3: In the initial part of the dialogue conference Norad's assistant DG, Henning Stiro, welcomed the audience, before State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tone Skogen, held the opening speech. Skogen emphasized the importance of education in crises and conflict, and the need for innovation to reach Syrian children with learning opportunities where they are. Afterwards, 5 brief videos on various aspects of the innovation challenge were shown (education in crises and conflict; a Syrian family's perspective; literacy; psychosocial wellbeing; and game based learning). The mobile operator Orange then held a brief presentation on their reasons for being involved in the project and how they will contribute.

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EduApp4Syria - part 2

Part 2 of 3: In the second part of the conference, Hilde Satertro from the National Prograamme for Supplier Development explained the rationale for more innovation in public procurement and the purpose of a dialogue conference with the market. Liv Marte Nordhaug and Hajo Schmidt-Horix from Norad then described the EduApp4Syria innovation competition in more detail and outlined two potential competition models. Potential suppliers were strongly encouraged to provide their feedback to Norad by November 15th. Alf Inge Wang from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology ended by summarizing why suppliers should participate in the innovation competition; 1) economic incentives: up to 1.8 mill USD; 2) R&D-input and; 3) high visibility.

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EduApp4Syria - part 3: Questions and answers

Part 3 of 3: In the last part of the conference, the organizers responded to questions sent in writing in advance and from the audience. Main topics addressed were intellectual property, inclusive design, the Arabic language, various aspects of psychosocial wellbeing, involvement of the target population, smartphone availability among Syrians, timeline, the business case, possibility of making for more languages/target groups and more.

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