Students video conference between China and Germany

Yesterday, T-Systems connected students from Oberhausen, Germany, live with their classmates in China. During their stay in China, the students are working on a reforestation program and participating in other activities. Their meeting was also environmentally friendly: via video conferencing.

China is so close in the virtual world. The students from the Elsa-Brändström-Gymnasium (High School) in Oberhausen, Germany experienced a completely new type of class. They were connected with their classmates, who are currently participating in a field project in China, via online video conferencing for almost two hours. The students at home congregated around a PC equipped with a webcam in the IT room at their school. Their schoolmates connected from an Internet cafe in Dali. They had the chance to give a first-hand impression of their host families and their work on the reforestation project. They also answered the many questions of their peers.

A video conferencing solution made this real-time conversation possible in flawless image and sound quality. The solution was provided by T-Systems and T-Mobile free of charge for the project. "It worked smoothly and was very easy. With only a few mouse clicks, our students were connected with the Far East," says Matti Spiecker, who is the initiator of the Stiftung Welt:Klasse. The broadcast is part of the partner-ship between T-Systems and the Stiftung Welt:Klasse, which organized the four-week stay in China. Additional broadcasts, for example from Thailand, are planned. The youth programs organized by the foundation give students the chance to stay with a host family in developing or emerging countries and participate in environmental programs. The goal is to promote intercultural exchange and to raise awareness of global interdependencies and environmental topics.

Video conferencing is also a perfect match when it comes to the environment: “Perhaps the students will remember later on in their professional lives that they don't have to hop on board a plane to attend a meeting," says Frank Wallbaum, T-Systems project director. In many cases, desktop video conferencing can make air and land travel unnecessary. According to estimates, during the past three years, more than 40,000 video conferences operated by T-Mobile have prevented the production of 7,000 tons of CO2.

You can find information on environmentally friendly video conferencing at http://www.zero-emission-meetings.com.

Stiftung Welt:Klasse
Stiftung Welt:Klasse was founded in 2006 by business administration student Matti Spieker from the University of Witten/Herdecke. The foundation enables young people in Germany to innovatively gain experience by going on field trips lasting several weeks to developing and emerging countries. The entire class is integrated into the project.

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