Thanks to the donation of key collaborative technologies from Cisco and TELUS, Free The Children has gained new capabilities and mobility for its staff to help achieve their mission of empowering youth to be active global and local citizens.

Free The Children’s co-founders, Craig and Marc Kielburger, are well-known for their dynamic organization, which has inspired a generation into service, and their ability to make strong connections with youth, governments and leaders around the world.

These meaningful connections are critical to the success of Free The Children, as demanding schedules can make it difficult for the co-founders to stay connected. From global employee meetings and speaking engagements to reporting from the field, Cisco TelePresence and Jabber Video will enable Craig, Marc and the entire Free The Children team to make direct, live, face-to-face connections with anyone from anywhere in the world.

TelePresence technology has already begun to revolutionize the way Free The Children and its regional offices operate. From training, to interviews, to information sessions, the technology has helped drastically reduce travel costs to the organization and has also improved relations between Free The Children’s regional office staff and staff based in Toronto.

It has enabled all staff to make connections with colleagues spread across the country in a way that is not possible through email and traditional telephone lines. Free The Children has also used the collaboration technology extensively in providing professional development to regional staff following their initial training period in Toronto and, as a result, has improved programming provided to clients and stakeholders across the globe.

"This is a very dynamic organization full of young people that understand the powerful capacity of technology to help change the world. By enabling this team with technology, we’re allowing them to work as they want, when they want and where they want. We’re proud to help create a new avenue for Free The Children to inspire thousands of youth across the country and around the world," said Tony Krueck, vice-president of Business Products and Services at TELUS.

Collaboration Solutions in Action

Cisco and TELUS have joined together to provide collaborative technology solutions to Free The Children. Six Cisco TelePresence EX90 units, WebEx Telepresence and Jabber Video have been deployed and are being utilized by the organization.

Cisco TelePresence technology creates a live, face-to-face communication experience over the TELUS network that empowers participants to collaborate like never before.

Cisco TelePresence solutions help people meet, share content, create high-quality video recordings and events, consult with experts and deliver powerful personalized services, all using the power of the network for an immersive in-person experience.

WebEx Telepresence, a cloud-based service, is an application that extends the reach of telepresence. WebEx Telepresence works with a compatible PC or Mac and a webcam or Cisco TelePresence PrecisionHD camera to provide high-definition video communications to more people, on more devices, from more places.

WebEx Telepresence can connect to telepresence systems, resulting in a wider community of colleagues, partners, and business customers.

Cisco’s donation to Free The Children is part of its larger corporate social responsibility efforts to leverage technology to multiply impact and improve lives across the focus areas of education, health care and economic empowerment. Other projects include Connecting Sichaun, Jordan Healthcare Initiative and the 21st Century Schools Initiative.

"Cisco TelePresence technology will revolutionize the way we interact with our staff, offices and youth around the world. We are truly thankful to Cisco and TELUS for their support and generosity and for helping us leverage technology to stay better connected as an organization and create programs with a truly global reach," said Marc Kielburger, Co-founder, Free The Children.