A tuition free international
online mentoring programme
Unlock the potential of open education in achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)
Years
Continents
Countries
Projects
Participants
HAVE YOU
heard the news
Werner Westermann receives funding for K-12 Open Textbook in Civics and Citizenship
We are delighted to report that the project by Werner Westermann, who servers as OE4BW hub coordinator, received funding by CC Open Education Platform Funds 2023. The project with community members in Chile, supports the development of a K-12 Open Textbook in...
Global movements in open education
We are glad that Hub Education 5 coordinated by Subha Das Mollick organised a fruitful 2nd group meeting attended by 17 participants (some also from the other Hubs); the meeting was enriched by a presentation by Dr Jako Olivier on global movements in open education....
OE4BW presented to Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the Minister of External Affairs of India
We are proud that Mitja Jermol the UNESCO Chair and initiator of OE4BW, presented the Open Education for a Better World (OE4BW) mentoring program to Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the Minister of External Affairs of India. The meeting is held in scope of the international...
HOW
it works
The programme enrolls mentees from all over the world to, under a guidance of internationally recognized mentors, develop and implement OERs based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The process is person focused, led by the mentee and supported by the mentor through dialogue. Mentee owns the process and takes the main responsibilitiy for defining his/her needs for gaining from the mentoring relationship what is intended.
The role of the mentor is to help the mentee find their own solutions. Mentoring relationship is unique, based on the mentee’s individual needs and the mentor’s area of expertise.
Find more information about the programme in the following articles:
T. Urbančič, A. Polajnar, and M. Jermol, “Open education for a better world: a mentoring programme fostering design and reuse of open educational resources for sustainable development goals,” Open praxis, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 1–18, 2019, [Online]. Available: doi:10.5944/openpraxis.11.4.1026
Click on banners and explore the videos from past events to get basic knowledge, practical advice and hands-on experience:
WHO ARE
the initiators
The initiators developed the international online mentoring programme Open Education for a Better World (OE4BW), which has been designed to unlock the potential of Open Education in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Initiators also manage the programme, which provides an innovative approach to building Open Educational Resources, connecting developers of educational materials with experts volunteering as mentors.

Tanja Urbančič
Tanja Urbančič is Dean of School of Engineering and Management at the University of Nova Gorica, where she teaches knowledge management, coordinates students’ projects and acts as a supervisor at the undergraduate and graduate level. She also works as a researcher in the Centre for Information Technologies and Applied Mathematics.

Mitja Jermol
Mitja Jermol is holder of UNESCO Chair on Open Technologies for Open Educational Resources and Open Learning and head of the Centre for Knowledge Transfer in Information Technologies (CT3) at Jožef Stefan Institute. He has been doing research and development on artificial intelligence, cybernetics, cognitive systems and e-learning.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP THROUGH
expertise & guidance
KNOWLEDGE IS SPREAD
all around the world
Hub leaders regionally coordinate developers and mentors in designing their OERs. Hubs are responsible for well-defined organizational tasks while following the methodology developed by the OE4BW Initiators and closely cooperating with them.
In 2022/23, the work is organized into 10 Hubs. The cooperation was initiated with Hub Youth, coordinated by Ervin Pfeifer; Hub Africa, coordinated by Gino Fransman; Hub Displaced persons, coordinated by Fawzi Baroud and Ajita Deshmukh; Hub Computing, coordinated by Edmundo Tovar; Hub Sustainability, coordinated by Samantha Ahern; Hub Education 1 coordinated by Tel Amiel and Werner Westerman; Hub Education 2, coordinated by Lucy Tallents, Hub Education 3, coordinated by Ajita Deshmukh, Hub Education 4, coordinated by Madhavi Dharankar and Hub Education 5, coordinated by Subha das Mollick.
We are grateful to hub coordinators involved in previous years, Igor Lesko; Vasudha Kamat and Jayashree Shinde, Jenni Hayman, Naomi Wahls, Mojca Drevenšek andJennryn Wetzler, Sameer Sahasrabudhe and Marija Komatar.
We are thankful for their generous cooperation enabling the OE4BW mentoring program to spread worldwide.

EDMUNDO TOVAR
Professor, Technical University of Madrid
HUB COMPUTING

Subha Das Mollick
Independent media teacher & filmmaker
HUB EDUCATION 5

Gino Fransman
Project Leader, Nelson Mandela University
HUB AFRICA

Tel Amiel
UNESCO Chair in Distance Education
HUB EDUCATION 1

Werner Westermann
Library of National Congress of Chile
HUB EDUCATION 1

Fawzi Baroud
Assistant Vice President for IT · Notre Dame University, Louaize (NDU)
HUB DISPLACED PERSONS

Madhavi Dharankar
SWAYAM COORDINATOR SNDT WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY
HUB EDUCATION 4

SAMANTHA AHERN
Faculty Learning Technology Lead (Bartlett) at UCL
HUB SUSTAINABILITY

Ajita Deshmukh
Assistant Professor, MIT ADT University
HUB EDUCATION 3/HUB DISPLACED PERSONS

REKHA CHAVHAN
SNDT Women's University
HUB EDUCATION 2

ERVIN PFEIFER
Jožef Stefan Institute
HUB YOUTH
GIVE CREDIT WHERE
credit is due

Veronika Dolar
PROJECT MANAGER

Anja Polajnar
SENIOR ASSISTANT TO PROJECT MANAGER
We gratefully acknowledge the help of numerous mentors who volunteered to help OE4BW project developers via online consultations, investing a lot of their time and expertise. Without their generous contribution, the program OE4BW would not be possible!
Contact
Jožef Stefan Institute
Centre for Knowledge Transfer in
Information Technologies (CT3)
Jamova 39, SI-1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia
email: anja.polajnar@ijs.si