5 March 2024, Manila, Philippines – As part of its advocacy and capacity building efforts and aligned with its goal to accelerate the adoption of Open RAN in university-level courses, and upskill the telecommunications workforce in the Philippines and Indo-Pacific Region, the Asia Open RAN Academy and Rakuten Symphony, Inc. have officially announced its partnership that makes AORA courses available on Rakuten Symphony’s Learning Hub.
With Rakuten Symphony, Inc. as a major industry partner of AORA since the beginning, the company has offered its learning platform to host AORA’s courses on Open RAN. AORA Chairperson Vincent “Achie” Atienza says, “With the testing and proof-of-concept (POC) phase completed, the time is ripe for this official announcement that AORA courses will continue to be hosted on Symworld, Rakuten Symphony’s Learning Hub.”
AORA courses were developed by highly qualified course creators who come from academe and industry who have proven experience and track record in their fields of expertise. The courses are designed to advance the goal of AORA towards an open, interoperable, reliable, and secure internet and vibrant digital ecosystem through increased cooperation, competition, and choice. Curriculum standards are aligned to Open RAN, 3GPP2, ITU3, and IEEE4, among others.
Mahesh Kasar, SVP at Rakuten Symphony said that this partnership signifies the company’s support for Open RAN technology as a key driver in digital transformation. According to Kasar, “This new era of telecommunications will enable those who can gain requisite skills to strive in the workplace. We’re excited to have Rakuten Symphony Learning Hub at the center of the educational courses offered through Asia O-RAN Academy.”
Both Atienza and Kasar welcome this partnership as a big step toward academe, government, and industry cooperation in Open RAN. On the government side, the Advanced Science and Technology Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-ASTI) provided cloud resources in their computing infrastructure during the POC stage, and commits to continuing its support for the initiative.
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About AORA
AORA, a United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded initiative that is based in the Philippines but with a scope that covers the Indo-Pacific Region, is an alliance of academic, government, professional organizations, and industry stakeholders. AORA aims to build the workforce capacity needed to advance an open, interoperable, reliable, and secure Internet to enable a vibrant digital economy through the promotion, advocacy, and deployment of Open Radio Access Network (RAN) standards and solutions, which will lead to increased cooperation, competition, and choice.
About Rakuten Symphony, Inc.
Rakuten Symphony is reimagining telecom, changing supply chain norms, and disrupting outmoded thinking that threatens the industry’s pursuit of rapid innovation and growth. Based on proven modern infrastructure practices, its open interface platforms make it possible to launch and operate advanced mobile services in a fraction of the time and cost of conventional approaches, with no compromise to network quality or security. Rakuten Symphony has headquarters in Japan and local presence in the United States, Singapore, India, Europe, and the Middle East Africa region.
