World Intellectual Property Day 2019 | 26th April 2019

World Intellectual Property Day 2019 | 26^th April 2019

World Intellectual Property Day

The World Intellectual Property Day was observed across the world on April 26, 2019 to spread awareness about the role that intellectual property rights like patents, trademarks, industrial designs and copyright play in encouraging innovation and creativity.

On this day, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) works together with various government agencies, non-government organizations, community groups and individuals to hold different events and activities to promote the day.

26 April: World Intellectual Property Day

The World Intellectual Property Day was observed across the world on April 26, 2019 to spread awareness about the role that intellectual property rights like patents, trademarks, industrial designs and copyright play in encouraging innovation and creativity.

On this day, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) works together with various government agencies, non-government organizations, community groups and individuals to hold different events and activities to promote the day.

Theme

The theme of World Intellectual Property Day 2019 was “Reach for Gold: IP and Sports”.

This year’s theme dives into the world of sports. It explores how innovation, creativity and the IP rights support the development of sport and its enjoyment around the world.

Lately, sports have become an industry of its own, generating multi-billion dollars and employing millions of people around the world. Sports businesses use patents and designs for development of new sports technologies, materials, training, and equipment. Business relationships built on IP rights help to secure the economic value of sports.

Background

• In October 1999, the General Assembly of the WIPO approved the idea of declaring a particular day as a World Intellectual Property Day.

• In 2000, the WIPO designated 26 April as an annual World Intellectual Property Day to address the perceived gap between Intellectual Property as a business/legal concept and its relevance to people’s lives.

• April 26 was specifically chosen as the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, first entered into force in 1970 on this date.

Source | https://www.wipo.int/ip-outreach/en/ipday/

These sisters in rural China made a library from trash

These sisters in rural China made a library from trash

The tiny, dimly-lit library had no bookshelves and hardly enough books to fill a cabinet. But for the children in the central Chinese province of Henan, it was a godsend.

A pair of sisters built the mini-library in 2016 using books they salvaged from the trash they picked up in a township in Henan called Yangmiaoxiang, one of the poorest parts of China where families live on less than $1 a day.

The story of hardship behind the library underscores the staggering inequality between China’s coastal cities and inland regions and the challenges Beijing faces as it seeks to eradicate poverty by 2020.

“China’s education resources’ distribution is extremely uneven,” said a user of Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media site, where reports of the story are widely circulated.

The minds behind the once-obscure library are 12-year-old Wu Nannan and 10-year-old Wu Shike, the Dahe Daily reported on Apr 9.

“I don’t have any books at home so I come here almost every day after finishing schoolwork.”

- Chen Chen, a 10-year-old boy in Chenzhuang Village

Like many children who live in the poorer parts of the country, the girls work to support their families.

When they’re not going to school, the sisters join their grandma, Wang Sulan, to collect junk and sell them to help pay for the ailing woman’s medications.

The discarded books and newspapers they found inspired them to build a library in their grandma’s house, where anyone can access for free.

Chen Chen, a 10-year-old boy, told Dahe Daily that he often reads books in the library after school.

“I don’t have any books at home so I come here almost every day after finishing schoolwork,” he said.

Poverty is one of the most pressing issues Chinese president Xi Jinping has vowed to address, along with pollution and financial risks.

Beijing has set the poverty line at the equivalent daily earning of about 94 cents. Some 40 million people, like many residents in the Henan village, currently live below this line.

As the sisters brought back more books, more children came to read after school, a rarity in richer Chinese cities where kids increasingly grow up glued to computer screens.

The Dahe Daily report prompted an outpouring of support and, with it, a flood of donations of new books, bookshelves and chairs.

“In the past we mostly had novels and magazines, but now we have more books catered to children, such as popular science cartoons,” said Wu’s uncle Chen Chunxin, according to the newspaper report.

Source | https://www.inkstonenews.com/society/chinese-sisters-made-library-out-trash/article/3007335

Improving learning outcomes: Shifting the focus from syllabus

Improving learning outcomes: Shifting the focus from syllabus

We need a fundamental shift from a focus on syllabus completion to a focus on delivery of competencies. We also have to reimagine in-service teacher education system to provide relevant skills and support to teachers at scale. Lastly, we have to rethink vocational education in secondary schools

One, children are far behind where they need to be, and teachers are focused on ‘covering the syllabus’ rather than bridging this gap. Given the teachers’ unidimensional focus on completing the book, students are mostly unable to make any sense of what is taught to them, thus falling further behind each year.

Full Info | https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/improving-learning-outcomes-shifting-the-focus-from-syllabus/1559302/