BEIRUT - Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Global
(TAG.Global) jointly with the Lebanese Portal of Education, Development,
Accreditation, and Technology (PEDAGOGY) Consulting Firm, have launched the
Smart School Bag Project, under the patronage, and in the presence of Lebanon’s
Minister of Education and Higher Education, HE Dr. Abbas Halabi, and HE Dr.
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, TAG.Global founder and chairman.

The ceremony which was held at the
Ministry’s auditorium, was attended by representatives of the education sector
from various Lebanese governorates, officials from the Ministry, members of the
Center for Educational Research and Development, as well as a host of school
principals and heads of educational institutions. That is in addition to
representatives from education syndicates and associations, educational
offices, academics, educational researchers, and union officials.

In his address, Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh expressed
his pride in launching the first-of-its-kind smart school bag in the Arab
region, calling on all Arab youth to be filled with ambition and strong will
towards the future. He stressed the importance of lifelong learning,
considering it as basic as food and water, recalling the beginning of the
technological and digital revolution.

Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh stated that education
development started a long time ago, ever since he had chaired the first UN
conference on Transforming Education, that focused mainly on standards and
reporting. He said: "today is the time to think about the future, and the
need to shift from education to learning to encourage innovation attributed to
its importance in creating jobs and boosting world economies”adding:

“It is a historic moment to launch this global
digital transformation project from my beloved country, Lebanon."

For his part, Minister Halabi praised Dr.
Abu-Ghazaleh’s efforts  in implementing
the digital transformation strategy in Lebanon. He mentioned that the Smart
School Bag would effectively lessen the burden on teachers, learners and
parents thanks to its technical flexibility. He further stated that the digital
transformation is part of the Ministry’s mission, which already signed the
digital transformation agreement at the United Nations to introduce it into the
Lebanese curriculum.

Meanwhile, PEDAGOGY Co-founder and General
Manager, Mr. Hani Hamed, commended the role played by the Ministry in enhancing
the partnership between the public and the private sectors to promote the
educational process, pointing to the efforts of the Center for Educational
Research and Development in coordination and cooperation with TAG.Global in
developing the Smart School Bag project. This initiative, he noted, was
materialized through the inauguration TAG.Global’s  Technologies (TAGTech) factories in Egypt,
Jordan, Lebanon and China.

In the same context, PEDAGOGY developed
special software in partnership with leading global technology companies to
digitize curricula, transform schoolbooks and develop interactive digital
educational content for all academic levels.

Mr. Hamed reviewed the different stages of
the Smart Bag’s development, praising the team’s tremendous dedication that
resulted in creating 143 e-books in Arabic, English and French. He further
announced that the educational curricula was awarded the Quality Matters
Accreditation; the leading accreditation for developing quality indicators for
e-learning, in addition to attaining a second accreditation by ARRAY Global
Accreditation for academic programs and educational curricula.

For his part, PEDAGOGY Educational
Programs Manager, Mr. Fayad El-Halabi, gave additional details of the Smart
Bag, which includes diverse, interesting and non-traditional digital
educational content in line with the requirements of the Knowledge Revolution
the world is currently passing through. Such a Bag also keeps pace with the era
of Artificial Intelligence and meets the aspirations of learners in the digital
age as well as the growing market needs for 21st Century skills.

Mr. El-Halabi referred to a number of
projects carried out by PEDAGOGY in terms of digital content, such as the
project to convert paper educational curricula into interactive digital
curricula for the Ministry of Education in Iraq, and a similar project in Saudi
Arabia. He then gave additional details about TAGTech’s technological devices
that constituted the main part in the development of the Smart Bag.

It is worth mentioning that the Talal
Abu-Ghazaleh for Technology (TAGTech) started manufacturing electronic devices
including laptops, tablets, smartphones, and other technological devices, at
its factories in China, Egypt, and Jordan by Jordanian experts specialized in
the manufacturing and production field, offered in more than 50-locations
worldwide.