HP promotes creative education with technology grants to six European universities

HP Technology for Teaching Grant advances the use of latest mobile technology to improve innovation in education across EMEA.

HP today named six European universities that will receive HP Mobile Technology for Teaching Grants, an HP initiative that provides mobile technology to campuses around the world. This is the third consecutive year that HP has run this educational programme, worth around $2.3 million in EMEA, which this year will be extended to universities in Germany, Ireland, Italy and the UK.

HP created the Mobile Technology for Teaching Grants to positively impact teaching and students’ learning experience through the innovative application of mobile technologies. As a result of this programme, HP hopes that grant recipients will create new models of academic success, increase collaborative efforts among academic departments and institutions, and improve the visibility of individual project outcomes in the higher education community.

Commenting on the awards, Didier Philippe, chair of EMEA Philanthropy grant board at HP said, “All winning universities displayed a truly innovative approach to the use of mobile technology and creatively addressed many practical and methodological issues, such as project evaluation. I was impressed by the fact that all the applications demonstrated a clear vision as well as a clear set of expectations about the impact that the HP Technology for Teaching grants would have on the selected curricula and across their institutions.”

Universities across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) were invited to submit a proposal to HP, explaining how they would use mobile technologies to create new applications for both teaching and learning. The six universities that will receive grants were selected for their creative and innovative application of mobile technology in learning environments and their plans for broader deployment of mobile technology solutions.

“We are really honoured to have received the HP Technology for Teaching grant. Indeed it will be a great opportunity to expand our use of advanced technologies for teaching and for our students in telecommunication engineering to use the devices for new learning experiences in the classroom,” said Stefano Giordano from Universitá di Pisa when accepting the award. “New tools and new networking possibilities could help us build on the concept of an e-campus that we are strongly supporting through our teaching activities and research on broadband, multimedia and interactive communication.”

HP selected the following universities to receive first time technology grants this year:

• Imperial College London, U.K.
• Universitá di Pisa, Pisa, Italy
• Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
• Technische Universität München (TUM), Munich, Germany

Extension grants were also awarded to 2003 recipients:

• Campus Bio-Medico Roma, Rome, Italy
• Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin), Berlin, Germany

The six universities will each receive technology hardware worth around $64,000 from HP. These HP Tablet PC packages with products for one faculty member and a classroom include:

• Wireless HP Tablet PCs;
• Tablet docking stations and DVD-CDRW optical drive;
• Portable HP Digital projector;
• HP Access Point with wireless card;
• HP All-in-One inkjet printer and digital camera.

 
In addition to the hardware, each university will also receive a grant of $7,000 to fund the activities of a faculty member or PhD student who will be responsible for documenting the project and its results. HP hopes this will create demonstrations, presentations and publication opportunities for academic leaders on the application of mobile technologies in University environments. The participating universities will also be invited to attend a worldwide HP Technology for Teaching Conference on mobile technology for education to share achievements and best practices.