Nokia and Telefonica yesterday announced to bring educational content to remote schools in Latin America through the use of mobile technology. The companies "made a commitment to transform the delivery of education in isolated areas as a way to close the digital inclusion gap in the region and promote social development."  This sounds a lot like what Nokia Life Tools is doing in India, and the MobilEdu program in China. From the press release:

The agreement will help expand the current scope of Telefonica Foundation's "Proniño" and "Educared" social programs - two of the most important  private initiatives focused on using information and communications technologies in the improvement of the quality of education in the region- and complement Nokia's ongoing work to harness the power of mobile technology for social development. 

The first implementation of this agreement is planned for Chile, where Telefonica's mobile broadband and Nokia's advanced mobile software Nokia Education Delivery will enable isolated schools in Chile to have access to high quality educational content, including the most innovative resources, tools and services for students, fathers and teachers via Educared. The agreement will be later expanded to other countries in Latin America and will prioritize schools where Proniño works. Proniño and EducaRed will thereby be able to ameliorate educational quality through ICT application to learning processes in some of their rural schools without fixed broadband connectivity.

Proniño is a program that contributes to the elimination of child labor through quality education, reaching in 2008 more than 107,000 children across 13 countries in Latin America. EducaRed program works in the promotion of the use of ICT in education, through its innovative portal and different teachers, parents and children training programs. In 2008, EducaRed received more than 60 million visits from the educational community in its Spanish and Latin American websites (www.educared.net).

The agreement will also extend to the adoption of Nokia Data Gathering software by Telefonica Foundation within its Proniño program.  Nokia's software solution will enable Telefonica Foundation to monitor and evaluate the impact of the implementation using mobile devices instead of paper forms.  This will avoid duplication of data entry, enable faster decisions and reduce environmental impact.