TODAY

More economic and finance materials from Khan Academy made available in the Myanmar language through Myanmar’s third Translate-a-thon Yangon, Myanmar.

MasterCard will support the third Translate-a-thon in Myanmar, jointly organized by Ooredoo and Khan Academy Burmese Translation (KABT), to make more world class educational materials accessible to the Myanmar population.

As part of its commitment to advance financial literacy around the world, MasterCard has pledged $10,000 to help expedite translation of Khan Academy’s economic and finance videos into the Myanmar language. The translated videos will also help Ooredoo and KABT democratize education.

Over 400 economic and finance videos in the Khan Academy library will be translated over the course of the next month.  In the first phase, the translation will be done through the “MasterCard Intern Program” established in partnership with Ooredoo’s Ideabox. The remaining videos will be translated at Ooredoo and KABT’s third Translate-a-thon.

The Translate-a-thon is scheduled to be held on November 15th, 2014 at Ooredoo’s offices in MICT Park. Volunteers from various organizations and communities will come together to translate Khan Academy videos, with finance and economic videos being prioritized. The event will be organized in the form of a fun and friendly competition with prizes sponsored by Ooredoo and MasterCard to be won.

Ross Cormack, CEO, Ooredoo Myanmar commented on the partnership: “We are delighted to be working with both MasterCard and KABT on this important initiative.  Myanmar’s people have a huge appetite for learning and we are committed to making education opportunities more accessible to the nation.  Financial literacy is critical to sustainable community development and to sustaining the incredible progress and development we have seen to date.  We look forward to another exciting event in November!”

In July, Ooredoo partnered with KABT to accelerate the dissemination of educational resources, including more than 6,000 videos on a wide range of subjects. With the support of MasterCard and KABT, Ooredoo spearheaded the initiative to localise world class educational resources in Myanmar by facilitating the translation of 1,000 Khan Academy videos into the Myanmar language. Ooredoo is also developing a mobile app to make it easier and more convenient to access these translated videos.

“Our research on financial literacy amongst youth in Asia Pacific shows that youths in Myanmar are lagging behind their peers in the region in money management, indicating that more education is required on this front. We’re thrilled to see that mobile technology is being leveraged through Ooredoo’s mobile app to make the translated videos easily accessible to mobile savvy youths. We believe that empowering and equipping young people with financial management knowledge and skills will benefit them, their families and communities in the long term,” added Antonio Corro, country manager, Thailand & Myanmar, MasterCard.

The first two translate-a-thons saw 355 videos on subjects including math, science, computer programming, health, and finance, translated into the Myanmar language

More information about the event can be found on the Facebook page: www.facebook.com/translateathonmyanmar/.