As of August 13th, Samsung Electronics has revealed the opening of a new Samsung Smart School in Cusco, Peru. For those that may not know, Samsung’s Smart Schools are part of an initiative by the company aimed at servicing children who may not otherwise have access to the technologies the company provides. Samsung has been running Samsung Smart Schools for several years already, as it started back in 2013 and the children involved in the program tend to fall within the fourth grade age range. This latest addition to Samsung’s list was opened in the countries oldest national school of science and arts – serving an estimated 2,300 students – and brings the total number of Samsung Smart Schools in the world to around 140. That includes availability to students who are residents of 18 different countries.
As part of this latest initiative, children attending the Peruvian school are given access to electronic blackboards, PCs, tablets, and other bleeding edge technologies with a specific focus on giving those students more opportunities to better their circumstances through self-development. The program teaches the benefits of those technologies, as well as providing a platform for students to discover the rest of the world in an educational manner. One student at the school has reportedly described the program as playing an important supporting role in helping students to “learn about the world” and has expressed hopes that the program will help develop both the region and students.
Samsung is hardly the only company taking part in advancing technological learning for the underserved or disadvantaged, but the company’s efforts may be unique in how it also drives interaction between students coming from vastly different cultures. For example, another recent opening occurred in 2016 in the company’s home country of South Korea which provided access to telecommunications technologies, VR cameras, tablets, and translation tools in order to connect the students in Asian to students at the company’s very first Smart School in Portugal. Efforts from Samsung with its Smart Schools initiative been largely successful, as Samsung continues to show year-over-year enrollment increases and a relatively consistent string of new openings. It also serves as a great platform for Samsung to advertise its more humanitarian nature and the way its electronics can lift people up and improve the world, which shines in stark contrast to the controversies currently circulating around the company at its core.