Project Connect

Project Connect is an initiative that aims to map every school in the world. The goal is to provide real-time data assessing the quality of each school’s Internet connectivity, eventually creating an observable metric of society’s progress towards enabling access to information and opportunity for every community on Earth. Technology has increasingly become the focus of education aid with funding focused on interventions in schools with access and steady connection to the Internet. However, while many national governments have committed to connecting their schools to the Internet, few have the capability to monitor where that is occurring and on what scale. In parts of the global south, the physical locations of many schools are difficult to identify. This disparity in school location and Internet connectivity knowledge has the potential to increase the digital education divide, as schools already connected to the Internet will receive more technology-based resources while schools currently disconnected will be left behind. This is where Project Connect comes in. Not only will this platform help governments and international aid actors deliver connectivity to schools currently without or with unreliable Internet, but the data can also be mobilized during emergency response situations to help locate schools, often used as relief centers. This map will remove the current knowledge gap and ensure transparency and accountability in the delivery of education aid and services.