Two world leaders descended upon San Jose State Monday afternoon to discuss the role of technology in education around the world.
Nobel Peace Prize winner and female education activist Malala Yousafzai joined Apple CEO Tim Cook for a discussion moderated by SJSU President Mary Papazian about how technology could bridge the gender gap in education.
Taking a break from their final exams, 135 students were joined by community members who all received invitations to attend the event but were not told who the speakers would be. The audience collectively gasped when Malala and Cook were announced a minute before taking the stage.
“We’ve always believed that education is a great equalizer of people,” Cook said. “If you can fix that one, a lot of other issues fall by the wayside.”
“In some areas, where we have taken for granted that education is virtually impossible, like in refugee camps or rural areas, how can we use technology to make it easier to address those issues?” Malala said.
The 22-year-old runs the Malala Fund, an international non-profit organization which funds efforts to increase access to and quality of girls’ education in regions such as Afghanistan, Brazil and India. Apple began partnering with the Malala Fund in 2018 through donating and helping with technology resources.
“When girls are not involved in education, they’re not seen in the rest of society,” Malala said.
She emphasized the importance of working with local activists and advocates in international communities to understand their educational needs.
“Sometimes we can be sitting in a small room with amazing experts and incredible people coming up with solutions,” Malala said. “But when we actually take the solutions there, they may not work. Why? Because we do not know what are the local challenges and how the local community will react to those solutions and whether girls in families will be comfortable with that or not.”
Malala said that technology is not the answer in every case, as communities need to have access to electricity and have a basic understanding of English to be able to effectively take advantage of it.
In areas such as Afghanistan, the Malala Fund is exploring alternative technology tools that use less electricity so more girls can have access to learning resources.
A 2016 UNESCO report found that 130 million girls across the globe are out of secondary school, but Malala said the problem is bigger than just that.
“There are one billion girls right now who are not ready to enter the workforce, who are not ready to actually take jobs and show their skills because their education that they’re learning and getting is not a quality education or they’re not in schools at all,” she said.
The future is not all bleak though, as both Cook and Malala said they were hopeful for the future.
Malala said she is inspired by the courage of the young women she encounters in refugee camps who continue to pursue their dream jobs through education.
“I’m optimistic because of the generation that’s in this room,” Cook said. “I see people that really care about the world and what’s going on around them whether it be climate change or advocating for immigration reform.”
He described the mentality of that generation using a quote that one SJSU student had heard before.
“Actually at our orientation, our instructor said the same quote [Cook] said. Which is, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together,’ ” nursing senior Maryam Al-Helew said. “So that’s kind of been my motto throughout nursing school. It takes community for success and you’re stronger together.”
The use of technology in today’s society was not without criticism though, and Papazian directly asked Cook about it.
“It’s important that technology itself doesn’t want to be good, it doesn’t want to be bad – it’s solely in the creators’ hands about whether technology is made for good or evil,” Cook said. “You can see both of those today and you can see good things being used in bad ways.”
Humanities senior Navya Kaur, who is minoring in computer science, followed up by asking Cook about the role of government regulation in technology and privacy.
“Privacy must be regulated,” he said in response. “We see privacy as a fundamental human right. I worry about a world in which surveillance is the norm.”
Kaur said a key part of the solution would be tech leaders, such as Cook, and young people in tech fields participating in government initiatives to help officials better understand new technologies.
Papazian said she hoped that students took away that they too can make a difference in areas that they care about.
“Our students care about so many good things that they want to create equity in our society and our communities and I hope this gives them the confidence to go out and bring about the change they want to see,” she said.
For her part, Malala had confidence that the SJSU students sitting in the audience could use their skills to help build a more equitable world.
“When you’re studying in your room, in your library, and when you are working really hard, just know you will be great contributors to society, you will be transforming the lives of many and society really needs you,” Malala said.
