In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

Like many, I was saddened to learn of Neil Armstrong’s death in August. He was 82. When Mr. Armstrong made his “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” I was a 12-year-old boy growing up in New Jersey.

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In the lead-up to International Literacy Day on September 8, The Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia program launched Storytime in Asia, a month-long campaign that celebrates the transformative power of children’s books by providing critically needed reading material to some of the world’s poorest students.

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In Afghanistan, physicians across the country struggle to update their skills and provide adequate care to patients because of a lack of equipment, materials, and up-to-date medical texts. In 2011, The Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia provided over 4,000 medical texts to health care institutions in Afghanistan. Watch a new video, Kabul ER, filmed inside [...]

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Last week, The Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia launched an online campaign with Pearson Foundation’s We Give Books initiative to help bring 5,000 new children’s books to schools in rural Indonesia. For each book read online, We Give Books will donate one new book to support…

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In Afghanistan, physicians at training hospitals across the country struggle to update their skills and provide adequate care to patients because of a lack of equipment, materials, and up-to-date medical texts and reference materials. In 2011, The Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia provided over 4,000 medical texts…

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“Just because they are poor and isolated doesn’t mean they don’t have the potential to be the next Bill Gates,” said Shahed Keyes, the founder of Subornogram Foundation in Bangladesh, while introducing me to lively students at a school he started on the remote island of Mayadip.

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Internet users in Laos are estimated at only 7 percent of the population as of 2010, the last time this data was gathered. But, despite how low this seems, that is double the number of users than in 2008. And, as the economy continues to grow, internet usage is steadily climbing in Laos.

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Three years after the end of decades-long armed conflict in Sri Lanka, there are new government-sponsored efforts afoot to encourage people to speak both national languages – Sinhala and Tamil – and to promote English as a common link language.

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As Sri Lanka emerges from a decades-long civil war, employment opportunities are rapidly shifting from the public to the private and technology sectors, where speaking English is required. But, for many Sri Lankans living in impoverished outskirts or the war-torn North, English-language books are a luxury and remain out of reach.

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For three days in December, individuals from a range of industries gathered at the 3rd Annual Big Ideas Fest to explore the future of education. In a venue overlooking the Pacific Ocean, a stone’s throw from Silicon Valley, teachers, administrators, and representatives from policy and advocacy groups…

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