Innovation, Execution and Equity: Appreciating HP's Role in Education

By Anneliese Olson

When the pandemic took hold last March, rapid changes seemed to touch every aspect of our lives. In the face of these massive shifts, HP quickly responded in two crucial arenas: using 3D printing to make sorely needed supplies for healthcare workers and calling upon various parts of our business to support immense remote education needs.

A year later, I’ve reflected on the work we’ve done, especially in education. This has always been a priority for HP, but the past year reminded us just how important—and inspiring—it is to enable learning. Particularly inspiring early on was the work my colleagues put into creating Turn to Learn. As school districts across the country were struggling to shift to remote learning, HP quickly partnered with TIME for Kids, NASA and Britannica to make quality curriculum available to Title I districts across the country. We also began to imagine how printing could help ensure that every child would be able to keep up with their education remotely, regardless of their access to high-speed internet.

Along the way, we all learned invaluable lessons ourselves. Those lessons, I believe, will help us transform and continue to lead with purpose in the uncertain times still ahead.

Real listening for real innovation

Eventually, remote schooling found a rhythm—but it always posed challenges. Friends of mine who’d been trying to monitor kids’ screen time before the pandemic were now throwing up their hands at the futility of it all. Listening to them, it seemed clear that digital solutions weren’t enough. So we looked to our ability to offer materials that could be printed in hard copy and still provide meaningful, engaging work for students. We didn’t need the data to tell us, because the parents did: The printed materials we provided weren’t just a substitute for digital learning, they were an equally valuable tool for making remote learning manageable.

For my division, it was an exciting moment. We were thrilled to see the multiple ways in which print had renewed relevance, and to understand how we could have a big impact on communities and families by really being part of the community of users we wanted to reach and responding to what we were hearing from them. Once we saw how our work was providing real value, we were able to take the next step toward expanding our reach, so that even greater numbers of families around the world could have access to these kinds of resources. And while my team stayed focused on all of these ways that print was providing value, we also collaborated with other teams at HP who were continuing to reimagine what HP’s larger outreach and role could be.

Innovation meets sustainability

One of my favorite projects in 2020 was HP Refresh, which organized communities to donate and distribute used laptops to help families fully participate in remote learning. The success of this program didn’t come from years of R&D; it came from a collective effort to crowdsource the technology that was badly needed in schools across the country. While I’m proud that HP was able to provide tools to make the Refresh program possible, it would have had little effect without the parents, teachers, school administrators and neighbors who coordinated drives and deliveries. 

This ability to move from innovation to execution and equitable delivery is, for me, key to the sustainability work we do at HP. It’s where our value truly comes from. It’s how we make things better in the communities where we live and work, and it’s how we make sure that education and opportunity are available to all people and communities. This crisis has emphasized that education is always going to be central to any impact we make because it’s the most fundamental way we shape the future of our communities.

This renewed focus on education really felt like going back to our roots this past year—now with an additional infused focus on digital equity. To bring as much value as possible, we focused on what we were hearing from parents and teachers—those on the frontlines of the shift to remote learning and how education must address challenges both digitally and physically. With the examples that my colleagues set and the invaluable insights of parents and educators, we were able to maximize our impact when it was needed most. We also learned more about the digital divide and how we must continue to help create an inclusive set of learning tools, technology, training and access to bridge the gaps.

I’m grateful for the lessons learned, and I can’t wait to see what we can do next.