Hungary - Contest ‘95

Combines the efforts of a national foundation, a government ministry, and leading international software company Microsoft in encouraging student initiative in the use of computers

Partners: Ministry of Education and Culture and Microsoft

As the use of Microsoft software (Office '95 and Windows '95) is fairly widespread in Hungarian schools, it was the intention of the Soros Foundation Hungary (SFH) and the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) to encourage students to make more use of these software for educational purposes.

A partnership was initiated by SFH and formed around the common desire of all partners to expand and increase the use of Microsoft software in Hungary. SFH and MEC already had an established track record of collaboration on educational issues and both were prepared to rely on the internationally recognised expertise of Microsoft. The partners decided to use a public contest among school-based teams on the creative use of Microsoft programs as their common initiative.

Emil Koplanyi of SFH describes how the partnership initiative was developed. "We established a Board, with the participation of all involved parties. The Board was entrusted with the preparation of a call for participation to school-based teams, the organisation of the contest, and the evaluation of applications received. At the final round of the contest, representatives of all three partners were present."

The partnership itself was organised in just one month and was based on verbal understanding of the partners. SFH played a leading role in coordination. Microsoft's founder and chief executive, Bill Gates, appeared in person at the announcement of the contest, which provided ample media coverage and publicity of the initiative.

The partners brought different resources to the initiative. Each contestant received a base kit from Microsoft for the duration of the contest. Of the 450 schools participating, the 100 finalists were authorised to keep the base kit. The MEC funded the implementation of the contest, including organiser’s fees and other direct costs, and awarded the winners. SFH provided the first, second, and third place winners each with a multi-media computer. Gifts of lesser value were given to other teams. SFH also organised a summer camp for 50 of the participating teams.

Koplanyi describes the outcome of the initiative. "The partnership absolutely achieved its goal. It was our intention to orient the students' use of various software for their studies, for the preparation of project work, as specified by SFH and its partners in priority areas such as environmental issues, healthy life style, and others. The students cooperated well. The user friendliness of the software and the high numbers of schools participating were important to the success of the initiative."

SFH and Microsoft are currently planning to organise a new competition for secondary schools regarding home page making, using specific software provided by Microsoft.

Contact: Emil Koplanyi, Soros Foundation Hungary
Tel. 36-1-3150303
Tfx. 36-1-3150201
E-mail: kemil@soros.hu