Luigi Pessina
Director, Global Education Programs and Strategy, Intel
Cristina Pez
Director – Commercial Sales & Marketing, Acer EMEA
Roberto Rosaschino
Senior Business Manager, Education, Acer EMEA
Two tech giants have formed an innovative partnership that will help ensure young people are equipped with the digital skills they need to succeed in the modern working environment.
Educators are increasingly turning to innovative learning solutions and cutting-edge technology to add inspiring new dimensions to classroom experiences for both teachers and pupils.
Digital skills critical for the future
With data indicating that more and more jobs will require raised levels of digital skills, bringing technological solutions into the learning space is going to be crucial to equip students with the skills to meet the needs of the evolving job market. This was underlined by the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (2023), showing that over 40% of 13 to 14-year-olds were underperforming in computer and digital literacy, prompting a drive to reduce that by 2030.
Unique edtech partnerships
Against this backdrop, tech giants Acer and Intel have forged a partnership to help offset the digital skills shortfall with a programme for students and educators alike – the Intel Skills for Innovation Initiative (SFI). It endeavours to equip pupils with the capabilities they will need for the world of work in the years ahead and is supported by a series of free-to-use lesson plans in the form of SFI Starter Packs, with some developed in cooperation with the Acer for Education project.
Cristina Pez, Commercial Director for B2B and Education for Acer EMEA, explains: “The goal of the programme is to bring future-proofed technology to schools and institutions to foster a meaningful, inclusive and engaging learning experience.”
Real-world experiences
The SFI programme is a key tenet of the initiative in helping teachers incorporate technology into the curriculum. Luigi Pessina, Director of Global Education Programs and Strategy at Intel, says: “The main objective is to integrate skill activities into the teaching and learning experience, focusing on real-world experiences for students.” The platform features a professional development suite with 80 hours of online content plus more than 120 packs of technology-infused activities and ready-to-use lessons that teachers can download.
With traditional jobs set to disappear — as highlighted by the World Economic Forum which forecasted that by 2027 more than 80 million roles such as administrative-type tasks will disappear and be replaced by new jobs centred around artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and specialist data analysis — different skillsets and mindsets will be required.
These skillsets and mindsets are integrated into the SFI content and range from social and emotional aspects to design and computational thinking, data science, programming and AI coding. “All the content around SFI is geared towards developing the skills and mindsets that pupils will need for the future to see that they are workforce-ready,” he adds.
It’s important that together,
with our technology, we are
delivering the right content.
Strong collaboration
Pessina points out that the collaboration boosts capabilities in developing robust technologies that are geared towards the education system, such as supporting students with high-performance cost-effective devices (robust laptops or Chromebooks) running on Intel Core technology.
“The partnership enables us to reach out to schools, institutions and organisations with the right devices supported by the right tools and resources,” says Pessina. SFI is already running in more than 60 countries with over 130,000 teachers engaged on the platform. It has recently been recognised by the European Commission (EC) as the first teacher programme to be fully aligned with the EU DigComp framework.
Starter packs developed by educators for educators
A critical element of SFI is the Starter Packs, specialised lesson plans containing material that has been “developed by educators for educators” as a new way to empower educators and accelerate student learning by introducing technology with real-world applications.
Inspired by the product designs and solutions of the Acer for Education portfolio that focuses on enhancing the classroom experience, the Starter Packs are a set of practical activities for students aged 10 to 19. They include details on lesson structure, topics relevant to the grade of school, the skills and subjects to be covered and have pre-prepared content to guide teachers through a two-hour lesson, but with the option to fine-tune for specific scenarios.
“It is a one-stop, complete solution for education to run through lessons and develop digital skills,” says Roberto Rosaschino, Senior Business Manager (Education) for Acer EMEA. Underlining the importance of collaboration and pointing to the ‘powerful’ EC finding in 2019 that 30% of teenagers were underperforming in digital literacy, he says: “The more students can manage and work with digital skills, the better impact they could have in their future work. So, it’s important that together, with our technology, we are delivering the right content.”
Ready to use content
With teachers rarely having time to create their own content, Rosaschino says it is crucial to deliver something that is “ready to use, and easy to use.” New Starter Packs include Screen Sense; Optimise, Design and Minimise; and Durability by Design. Each lasts two hours, introduces relevant apps and tools, and focuses on scenarios that digital experts experience in their day-to-day working lives.
Durability by Design is a physics-based module and takes STEM (science, technology, maths and engineering) principles into real-world applications. Using an Acer laptop as a starting point, students learn which key features go into making a durable laptop and then use Autodesk Fusion 360, a program based on computer-aided design (CAD), to create and test a prototype.
Filling the digital gap
Meanwhile, Screen Sense is a science-based module focusing on digital wellbeing and embracing the Canva app to help students understand the real-world impact of prolonged screen time and distance on their health before learning how to mitigate these effects. “In this package, they will understand the importance of properly using devices and then create posters to educate other students,” adds Rosaschino. “It combines the digital wellbeing aspect with design thinking.”
Optimise, Design and Minimise is about sustainability where students will tackle real-world applications of packaging design and optimisation by calculating how to cut the most amount of packaging boxes from a single cardboard sheet. They’ll use CAD to create custom packaging for boxes of varying laptop sizes and then take those creations into Jupyter Notebook to cut the templates. This is all done by linear programming.
Rosaschino says: “The idea is to cover as many different topics as possible but with the same goal – filling the gap in digital literacy.” The high-level partnership is equipping the next-generation workforce with essential skills to thrive in an increasingly digital and challenging modern work environment.
We are working together
to inspire the potential
of our next generation.
Engaging classroom tutorials
Acer and Intel are also working on making initiatives such as AI Classrooms a reality, a programme which would seek to enable educators to leverage AI tools to streamline lesson planning, create engaging tutorials and deliver more personalised teaching for students that are customised per each individual students’ learning needs to accelerate their progress.
It also harnesses the power of Acer TravelMate AI PCs with AI-user-centric solutions such as Intel® Core™ Ultra processors, capable of running high-compute AI tools, and applications such as PurifiedView and PurifiedVoice, which enable teachers to hold crystal-clear online classes.
“We are working together to inspire the potential of our next generation,” adds Pez.
Within that evolution, several pilot programs with Windows and Chrome solutions are being conducted in the UK, US and Australia, as well as Spain, Italy, Bulgaria and the Nordic countries.
Under the process, schools experience the devices on a trial basis to ensure they can fully perform in the existing school infrastructure, before committing to purchases. The pilot programs enhance teaching productivity through AI-enhanced tools that deepen student performance analysis, boost digital literacy and deliver technology updates.
Pez underlines the importance of the partnership with Intel: “We understand the need for empowering teachers with content that helps students to achieve skills for the future. Our main scope is to continue to support digitisation of schools with the idea of enhancing the teaching and learning experience.”
It is underpinned by an ecosystem that has seen the partnership create a panel of certified resellers with strong expertise in education as well as collaboration with Microsoft, Google and institutions such as European Schoolnet and UNESCO, alongside close liaison with schools to “understand their evolving needs.”
