Rescue operations using drones, e-learning, education for all: Deutsche Telekom shows how its digital technologies, social commitment and partnerships can create greater participation and improve security. Here are a few examples:
Drones help to rescue disaster victims
New technologies can save lives. Drones prove their value in the search for people injured in disasters. Together with the German air traffic control service (Deutsche Flugsicherung – DFS), Deutsche Telekom has on several occasions run live trials to test the safety of using drones as an integrated part of rescue operations.
A drone operation is triggered by an emergency call, which causes a drone fitted with a heat-sensitive camera to be scrambled immediately. The drone begins looking for the victim as soon as it reaches the relevant zone. The drone surveys the area from a height of about 50 meters and sends high-resolution pictures of the scene to the rescue unit, who are then guided to the right position via their tablet PC. This ensures that the victim is found quickly and can be treated immediately without having to waste too much time searching in remote countryside or areas where access is difficult.
Deutsche telekom awarded the 2017 National German Sustainability Prize
Deutsche Telekom has been awarded the 2017 National German Sustainability Award in the "large companies" category for its comprehensive, Group-wide sustainability management work.
"We really do take sustainability seriously. At the same time, we also help other businesses to operate more sustainably", Timotheus Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom. Deutsche Telekom strives to ensure that its actions are responsible not just from an economic point of view, but also in terms of ecology and social responsibility. Because digitization, used intelligently, can be an effective instrument in the effort to reduce resource consumption and improve social participation, for example.
What is more, digitization provides answers to many social challenges, including some of the emerging challenges in health care provision and in education. A comparison with the UN's 17 sustainable development goals, for example, has shown that Deutsche Telekom's efforts, including its products and solutions, can contribute to nearly all of the goals. An essential precondition for all that, however, is ensuring effective data privacy and security. And that is another area in which Deutsche Telekom has carved out a reputation.
eStart project: Giving time back to refugees
The eStart project is dedicated to the topic of helping refugees. Employees of Deutsche Telekom give a voluntary commitment to helping refugees integrate successfully into their new homes.
And learning German plays a key role in that process. And that is where the eStart program offers help through its mentoring initiative. Mentors connect up online with "their" refugee once a week by video chat via the eStart e-learning platform to give them German language practice with the help of integrated learning material. The volunteer teachers accompany the refugees through ten one-hour lessons as their conversation partner, providing a supplementary service in addition to the students' regular integration courses.
Mentors and mentees are paired together according to personality and learning goals using a matching algorithm. This often helps to cement friendships between the participants outside the language course.
Media literacy for young and old
Deutsche Telekom promotes media literacy among children, young people, and adults of all ages through a variety of projects and initiatives in Germany and all over Europe.
How can we get children to understand the value of their personal data? What influence have social networks on opinion formation among children and adolescents? What can and should everyone look out for when buying an App? Deutsche Telekom provides answers to questions like these through its "Teachtoday" initiative, which can be found on the website of the same name. The site allows parents and educational specialists to swap knowledge and a wide range of materials on safe and competent use of the media, from adviceapps via a data privacy dossier, up to and including a "media competency" test.
Data privacy is another focal point of our efforts to promote media literacy. Deutsche Telekom's online advisor www.sicherdigital.de gives practical suggestions on how to work with digital media safely, a service also provided by our app magazine "We care".
Deutsche Telekom Stiftung
As one of Germany's largest educational foundations, Deutsche Telekom Stiftung is dedicated to improving educational practice in the subjects of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (MINT) and in the field of digital learning. The foundation's activities range from holding school competitions and providing innovative teaching materials to entering in partnerships at a political and community level.
One example of its activities is shown by the learning materials it has created for refugees. The Foundation has produced two parental advice books (available at www.telekom-stiftung.de/elternratgeber) for the use of anyone working with refugee families. The two booklets are inspired by the experience gained from various projects conducted by the Foundation and are designed to help refugee parents bring their children up to the standards appropriate to their age in mathematics and the natural sciences.
Both books are available in a German/Arabic and a German/English version. An employee of Deutsche Telekom Stiftung who was himself forced to flee from Iraq was involved in the translation effort and implemented the project as an intern at the Foundation.
