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No internet, no education, says Vickie Robinson

The pandemic accelerated the shift to digital. But that left behind those offline, widening the digital access gap — with big implications for education.

Vickie Robinson, general manager of Microsoft's Airband Initiative, recalls how she dealt with school closing as a mother.

Having in-home connectivity helped her children transition from middle to high school with some sense of normalcy. But two-thirds of school-aged kids around the world didn't have that opportunity, she says during a Global Stage livestream conversation.


What's more, offline kids mostly come from marginalized backgrounds, which for Robinson makes the case for closing the digital access gap even more urgent.

More from Global Stage

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How do we ensure AI is safe, available to everyone, and enhancing productivity? It’s a big topic at this year’s UN General Assembly. That’s why GZERO’s Global Stage livestream brought together leading experts at the heart of the action for “Live from the United Nations: Securing our Digital Future,” an event produced in partnership between the Complex Risk Analytics Fund, or CRAF’d, and GZERO Media’s Global Stage series, sponsored by Microsoft.

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As the tense and politically charged 2025 Munich Security Conference draws to a close, GZERO’s Global Stage series presents a conversation about strained relationships between the US and Europe, Ukraine's path ahead, and rising threats in cyberspace.

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Are we in an era of "wrecking ball politics?"

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Watch our Global Stage live premiere from the Munich Security Conference

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Tune in on Saturday, February 14th at 12pm ET/6pm CET for the live premiere of our Global Stage from the 2026 Munich Security Conference, where our panel of experts takes aim at the latest global security challenges.

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At the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, GZERO’s Tony Maciulis spoke with Ariel Ekblaw, Founder of the Aurelia Institute, about how scaling up infrastructure in space could unlock transformative breakthroughs on Earth.