Participants at the Memorandum of Understanding signing ceremony included Xie Bing, president of operations of TI China; Yang Jun, vice director of the Division of International Cooperation of the MOE; Roger Carver, director of TI's DLP® Front Projection Products Division; and Trisha Cunningham, TI's chief citizenship officer.

TI signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China's Ministry of Education (MOE) recently to donate 100 multimedia classrooms to schools in poverty-stricken areas of Central and West China.

These classrooms will join the 30 TI Hope Project libraries and 30 TI multimedia classrooms the company already has donated to primary and secondary schools in impoverished Sichuan Province, where TI's Chengdu fab is located.

"TI regards it a great honor to use its advanced technology to provide an intuitive, vivid, highly interactive teaching platform for teachers and children in poor areas to inspire students' interest in learning and enable them to know more about the wonderful world even without stepping out of their homes," said Xie Bing, president of TI China operations.

TI's DLP technology on display
In addition to Bing, participants at the MOU signing ceremony included Yang Jun, vice director of the Division of International Cooperation of the MOE, Roger Carver, director of TI's DLP® Front Projection Products Division, and Trisha Cunningham, TI's chief citizenship officer.

Under the memorandum, TI will donate 100 TI multimedia classrooms with 100 TI DLP technology-based projectors to schools in three poor provinces in China − Yunnan, Sichuan and Henan − to support the construction of information technology (IT) infrastructure for local schools and narrow the urban-rural digital divide.

China's MOE has commissioned the National Center for Educational Technology (NCET) to be responsible for the organization and implementation of this project. TI is committed to fully supporting various NCET IT activities, such as hands-on training of classroom teaching practices and equipment operations testing.

In response to the National Medium-and Long-Term Program for Education Reform and Development (2010-2020) initiated by the State Council of China, TI is helping poor regions in China speed up development of IT facilities, advance the construction of digital campuses and provide comprehensive Internet access, with a focus on strengthening the IT infrastructure for rural schools.

Warm appreciation
In 1998, TI began its partnership with the MOE to build joint laboratories in 100 universities in China. Over the years, TI has made continuous investments to support China's education and has helped the country train a large number of students in the field of electronics engineering.

The 100 multimedia classrooms to be built in West China will help improve students' IT education and improve education efficiency. They are also expected to play a role in promoting high quality education information communication and resource sharing, contributing to a more balanced development of education across different regions.

"It is TI China's long-term strategy to contribute to China's education and develop more Chinese talents in the field of electronics engineering," Bing said. "Since 1996, TI has been expanding the scope of its investment in China's education cause from curriculum development and establishment of joint laboratories to scientific research partnerships and development of IT solutions for education.

"In the future, we will further increase our investment in China's education, helping improve teaching and learning conditions, as well as teaching innovation."

Longtime education support
For many years, TI has witnessed and participated in the start-up and take-off of China's electronics industry, including considerable progress in its own business in China.

At the same time, TI has attached great importance to the fulfillment of its corporate social responsibility and is highly committed to its investment in China's education.

In 1996, TI set up a University China Program in full support of China's higher education as well as the country's talent development in the electronics industry.

Today, TI has built more than 500 microcontroller, analog and digital signal processing laboratories plus four technology centers in more than 300 universities in China, conducted more than 420 seminars on those technologies, and brought more than 42,000 students annually to its joint laboratories to work and study.

Also, every year in eight universities in China, about 350 new students from poor families receive educational funding through the TI Students Assistance Program.