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Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, GSMA and World Cup Stars Team up for Education Campaign

February 19, 2010

(WORLD CUP TECHNOLOGY)
Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, the GSMA (News - Alert) and international soccer players have announced the “1Goal: Education for All” mobile campaign.
 
It is the world’s largest cause-related campaign undertaken to ensure that every child in the world gets an opportunity to go to school by 2015. More than 72 million children in the world are denied to have access to basic primary education. The campaign supported the cause of universal education at the Mobile World Congress (News - Alert).
 
Mobile operators from across the mobile industry have teamed up with global soccer stars, along with educational champions, charities and campaigners to support 1GOAL – a legacy of the FIFA Football World Cup 2010.
 
Further, the operators serving more than 1 billion mobile users will bring an international mobile communications campaign with a wide reach, which will combine the platform of the world’s biggest sporting occasion with the world’s largest medium, to earn public support for 1GOAL.
 
The founding operator supporters of the mobile campaign from the GSMA’s Board include: AT&T (News - Alert) Wireless, Axiata Group Berhad, Bharti-Airtel, Hutchison 3 Group, KT, MTN, NTT DoCoMo, Orascom, SingTel Group, Smart Communications, SOFTBANK MOBILE, SK Telecom, VimpelCom and Zain Group (News - Alert).
 
Batelco Group of the Middle East, CSL of Hong Kong, Mobitel of Sri Lanka and Umniah of Jordan, also have recently joined the 1GOAL mobile campaign.
 
The 1GOAL: Education for All mobile campaign will offer a platform for millions of citizens from all across the globe to show their support in favor of 1Goal that launches on April 20th and runs up until the World Cup final in South Africa on July 11.
 
Coordinated by the GSMA, the mobile campaign comprises a number of mobile communications tools such as mobile advertising, applications and messaging to help millions of people sign up, via a host of mobile-response mechanisms. This is intended to demonstrate to global leaders and the UN that universal education is a universal demand.
 
“We are grateful for the GSMA’s leadership and partnership in creating this campaign,” said Her Majesty, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, co-founder and co-Chair of the 1GOAL initiative. “I want to thank each and every one of you here today who has joined the 1GOAL team and who’ll reach out to subscribers with a message, an app, or a widget. 1GOAL is about people-power… the largest ever, never-before-done, cause-related campaign of its kind. And I hope that those of you in the mobile ecosystem who haven’t done so, will join up and sign up before our kick-off in April.”
 
“Our board has recognized the role, responsibility and reach of mobile in harnessing global support for universal education, a critical part of the UN’s mission to eliminate world poverty,” said Rob Conway, CEO and Member of the Board of the GSMA. “As a result, today we announce a collaborative campaign that is unprecedented in our industry, utilizing the scale of the world’s largest medium to make a real difference to the future for millions of children in the world.”
 
“As the South African football team captain and on behalf of my team and the children of Africa, thank you to the worldwide mobile team that has signed up so far to support 1GOAL,” said player Aaron Mokoena. “This will be the year that the mobile fraternity and football joined hands for the greatest of events, and the greatest of causes: education for all.”

Deepika Mala is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Marisa Torrieri