 Mrs. Sofia Toscano, thank you so much for taking the time for this interview and first I'd like you to introduce yourself to the viewers who may not know what you're doing in that part of the world, so tell us about yourself. Yes, my name is Sophie Madness Toscano, I'm a Belgian lawyer. I've been recruited as expert by ITU to assist in offering the module on school connectivity. It is a module that we did, there are two distinct aspects of it, one is the one laptop per child, the other are the legal and regulatory issues related to school connectivity. That toolkit is available as from today on the ITU website and contains many best practices, case studies and lessons in how school connectivity can benefit countries, communities, schools and of course our children. Okay, so your session was about discussing that module and what are the main elements of it without going into much detail, but for those who have not heard about the module, what key elements are there in it? Well, when you're looking at a school connectivity plan and in the session we had today we also had a gentleman from Egypt that was talking about how in Egypt they achieved school connectivity. The key point is that one must look at it holistically, one must look at a global approach and see school connectivity, schools and connectivity. Therefore you need to look at ICT policies and laws, you need to set a realistic timetable, you need to look at funding, you need to see who the stakeholders are going to be and what they're prepared to contribute. But then you also need to prioritize what schools are you going to connect, can it be a top down, so is it the centralized agency that will decide what schools to connect or does it come from the schools themselves that request connectivity. Then you also need to look at the network details, so what technology will you use to achieve the school connectivity and you cannot forget the support mechanisms as well. You must look at maintenance, you must look at sustainability of the project. And finally you have to have an entity in place that looks at coordination, monitoring and evaluation as we saw from the case of Morocco which was presented today as well, evaluation and looking at what has been achieved and how can it be improved as a key element to school connectivity. So those are the key elements that one needs to look at. So the major part of the discussion was on why do we need national school connectivity plans, so why do you think these are important things to look at? Well we need a national school connectivity plans first of all because you cannot underestimate the importance of connectivity in schools in terms of improving the way of education, in terms of access to information from around the globe. In terms as well as of administration of the various schools and also to use the schools as anchors for community connectivity because even in the rural areas you will see that schools are often seen as a place where children feel safe but where other people feel safe going to. So if you can use that as anchors for connectivity including for other groups with special needs such as people with disabilities, women and girls etc. So when you talked about the module you said that you came across several approaches that other countries have taken. So what are the approaches that have been done before and what is your view on them? Well we have seen the successful approaches and we had a couple of presentations on that today. The successful approach is really where there has been a global approach, where there has been coordination between the Ministry of Education so the education plans and the connectivity plans. The successful approach has also been where there has been regular review where stakeholders have been drawn in appropriately and where the financing has been assured. But the successful approach as well is if I look at a country like Portugal that today is aiming for one laptop for every child in the schools is because since 1998 Portugal has looked at school connectivity as a global part of their ICT policies. They've involved the telecommunications regulator, they've involved the education entities and they've looked at it, they've brought it into their licensing approach and telecommunications, they've brought it into their license evaluation approach and telecommunication. They've brought it into their universal service obligations and they've brought it into cooperation between government and private entities such as the Intel we see the one laptop per child initiative generally. In Portugal that one laptop per child initiative is called Magaliais and that is where they have brought together telecoms operators with stakeholders with government. And what Portugal is doing as well is not just looking at the equipment but also looking at the content that is all part and parcel of their policies. So what are the examples we've seen in the module? You can see examples from around the world from Latin America, from Africa, from Europe. But what you've seen in the more successful examples is where the approach has been well coordinated, well thought out and well implemented. So how do you think school connectivity can change the way children learn and the way schools can be administered? The way in which children learn I think there you have an opening up of the whole world towards children and yes you might say well are we not concerned in the type of information that children won't have accessible to them. I think that is part of the planning that you need. You need to look at your cybersecurity laws and you need again in that holistic approach when you evaluate the IC policies and legislations you need to look at those laws and see that the appropriate laws are in place so that inappropriate content cannot be easily made available to children. Now if we look at how can they benefit from it, well if our children have the benefit of researching on the internet, looking at cases, country examples, looking at explanations of mathematics problems, looking at reading things in English that prior previously were in French or any other language that they wished to learn that prior previously we would have to go to book shops and buy the books and there was always a delay in our learning capabilities and our willingness, they now have the chance of getting to that more easily. Now in terms of the administration of the school, I think there is a question of first of all the optimization of the processes of the procedures and also secondly more transparency, more openness, there is more opportunity for parents to get involved in the school administration. I for one, I live in the United States and my child's grades are available online, any announcements from the schools are available online but also the annual report from the school is available. So the administration of the school in terms of financing management but also in the transparency towards the parents gets reset by that kind of activity. Okay so when we talk about school connectivity, who are the real stakeholders? Is it just government, is it NGOs or is it a mix of both? How do you see the stakeholders in that area? The stakeholders are a mix of a number of stakeholders. You have governmental authorities, in the first place obviously we're talking about school and connectivity so you would have education entities and ICT agencies. But then other stakeholders can be or those contributing to the process can be equipment manufacturers, can be telecommunications operators, can be NGOs, can be international donor agencies, can be other government entities that have an interest in school or in connectivity and bringing that connectivity to other communities. So you have a wide variety of stakeholders that should be brought into the process and determined school connectivity. Okay we're really interested to know about Portugal's licensing experience it went through and how it impacted school connectivity in particular. As I mentioned earlier on in the interview Portugal has had a very comprehensive approach to school connectivity since the 1990s. What happened was that Portugal at the end of the 90s was chairing the European Council so had the presidency of the European Union. Their main, their key point in their presidency was the information society in Europe and they promoted that in Europe initiative within their presidency. Now that was just at the time that the 3G licenses were being granted in many countries in Europe. And what you were seeing is that in Germany and the UK in particular you had these huge auctions bringing in tremendous amounts of money. Now, government in Portugal had a study carried out to look at the impact of high licensing fees in houses. High licensing fees would impact the rollout of 3G and the cost for consumers. But also they brought in this how can we promote the information society in this process. So rather than asking for huge licensing fees what happened was that 50% of the evaluation criteria for the 3G licenses were based on innovative information society projects. Operators had to come up with innovative information society projects and were evaluated on that for their 3G licensing. And school connectivity was part and parcel of that. Some of the operators came up with school connectivity projects. Now mixed to that of course government continued with their e-policy and with their e-policy continued to provide that connectivity to schools. What happened is that part of the license fees were also put into a special fund and agreement was made between government and Intel so that that special fund could then be used within the context of the one laptop of the child to come up with this Mabinage program. So it is a very interesting concept, it's a very interesting approach to school connectivity in that it's being approached through various angles. So when we mention approaches what are the different approaches that you covered in the session like the hybrid approach, the top bottom approach. That's the approach in how to select the schools because as we say when we're looking at large countries today we had Brazil speaking, we had Egypt speaking. These are large countries and when we talk about covering their schools or providing broadband to their schools we're talking about a lot of money. Schools that's like the gentleman from Morris said how do we small poorer countries finance the provision of broadband to schools. So you do have to prioritize or you do have to have an approach in which you say this is the schools we'll cover initially and this is the time for the further coverage of schools. That can happen either by the government agency or you can have a scheme in which you say okay this is the school connectivity, let schools apply for their connectivity. So that's the bottom up approach in which it's the schools themselves that state their case for being a priority rather than government imposing a particular priority. And a hybrid one? The hybrid one is a little bit of both in which there is an approach but you still have applications from individual schools within a certain action plan that is specified. So what support do we need when we speak about school connectivity or national plans? What kind of support is needed? Is it just monetary support or something else? As I say when we look at the various steps in which we define the school connectivity plans you need to look at your legal and regulatory framework. You need to set the deadlines. You need to look at what the best technology is within your framework within your timeline. And then obviously you do need to figure it out to price it out and see if this is the funding that will be needed for the school. So my final question, how do you think school connectivity is related to other community issues like disabilities and women's rights and other topics? As I said previously now in the interview schools are seen as a safe place. Schools are seen as community places. Particularly when we're talking about public schools because you saw from the session that most school connectivity projects connect the public schools or the municipal schools. So they are often seen as public places or as places where communities can have activities whereas anger is for connectivity. And that's how I think when you have that connectivity into the schools you can expand that connectivity to improve other services.