The 11th cluster of Education held by the Actua program had fifteen participants. It was the first meeting organized after the second annual meeting of clusters, held in June.
In this context, Mrs. Imma Jimenez, head of the Actua program clusters, reviewed the results obtained in the second annual meeting of clusters. The idea was to concentrate groups from education, innovation and health and wellness in order to achieve a better co-operation in various fields. New ideas arose as a result of this co-operation, like the organization of congresses, conferences and high-level trainings, or language campus for language travel experiences.
Mr. Ferran Casas, head of HES idiomas, presented the language company and how, based on co-operation, a creation of an English summer campus was made possible in Andorra. He also mentioned how these campus can enhance different sectors of the country.
Afterwards, Mrs. Sonia Figueras, head of the Capacity Programme of the WTO THEMIS Foundation, presented the foundation, which is responsible for carrying out the program of training and education of the World Tourism Organization. Currently, the WTO has eliminated the sectors of education and training and has created many programs. In this case, the UNWTO THEMIS foundation works for transmitting priority to integrate tourism in the international political and economic agenda.
The main objectives of the foundation are to promote sustainable tourism, improve competitiveness, and promote the contribution of tourism to economic development. In order to implement such initiatives, Mrs. Figueras presented several programs of the foundation, highlighting the importance of cooperation.
The session ended with the presentation of the digital Christmas cards contest, an initiative by Actua in co-operation with the Massachusetts Institute of Tecnology (MIT). It is a competition-based scratch program, developed by the MIT.
The aim of the competition is to encourage the use of new technology as an educational tool.
The challenge will feature all education systems in the country with groups of 1 to 3 elementary students. The evaluation of the projects will be done through a panel composed of one member of each educational system as well as a member of Actua and the Ministry of Education.
Participants can submit projects until November 22nd. The prize is a Lego Minstrom, for the 3 finalists of the challenge, and it is set to be given in one of the Actua clusters.
In conclusion, we can highlight how the second annual meeting of clusters has influenced the education cluster enhancing cooperation. All participants expressed the importance of this cooperation to looking forward to new initiatives.