a girl with Coding sisters sign next to her

Chapterthon 2017: Digital Schools

Winners

During 2017, 30 Chapters from all the regions worked hard to extend the education benefits of the Internet to their communities. Connecting schools to the Internet, teaching coding to girls, training teachers and parents, raising awareness about the safe use of the Internet, developing an online platform for a school and helping to create educational, and local content were just some examples of the amazing work our chapters did.

Each project proved us once more that the Internet plays an important role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goal on Education. Each project contributed to shaping the future of children, parents and teachers.

While all the projects left an important mark on local schools, the Internet Society community members voted and selected the best project. Chapterthon 2017 winner was the Internet Society Turkey Chapter for the project Coding Sisters, which had the aim of optimizing the opportunities for girls to be involved in STEM field.

Chapterthon “Digital Schools!” is WSIS Prize Winner 2018

Chapterthon 2017 won the WSIS Prize 2018 for the Category C11: International and Regional Cooperation. WSIS Prizes is a unique international contest developed to showcase the projects that are leveraging the power of ICTs to achieve the United Nations SDGs, 17 global goals dedicated to building a better world by 2030.

Thirty Internet Society Chapters from all the regions worked hard to extend the benefits of the use of the Internet in education to their communities. Connecting schools to the Internet, teaching coding to girls, training teachers and parents, raising awareness about the safe use of the Internet, developing an online platform for a school and helping to create educational, and local content were just some examples of the amazing work our Chapters did.

Chapterthon is a global Internet Society (ISOC) Chapters marathon, where all ISOC Chapters can participate by developing a project within a timeline and budget to achieve a common goal for the development of education and the Internet. Once the project is finalized, the best project receives a prize.

What is Chapterthon?

The Internet Society seeks to improve the quality of people’s lives in all parts of the world by providing them meaningful access to an open, trusted, and global Internet. The adoption of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the UN in September 2015 gave us a clear framework to increase our development efforts as well as reinforce our commitment to bringing the benefits of a globally connected Internet to everyone.

We have always seen the Internet as a critical enabler for sustainable development and believe that access to it will help accelerate the achievement of all of the SDGs.

To make this real and show the impact of the Internet in the achievement of the SDGs, we want to help our Chapters move the needle on one SDG in particular: SDG4 – Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

For 2017, the topic was Education and the Internet. Projects had to fit in one of the following categories:

  • Digital literacy
  • Online lectures
  • Training people in the community
  • Developing connectivity for a school or an educational institution