The 3rd International Conference on e-Learning "Optimizing and Empowering Online Education" 23-24 November 2011, Bandung, Indonesia Democratising Education Through Open Education Resources (OER): The Commonwealth Experience by Professor Asha Kanwar, Commonwealth of Learning // SLIDE 1 It is an honour to be invited to the ICel 2011 Conference on ‘Optimizing and Empowering Online Education’. I am very grateful to the organizers for giving me this opportunity to bring to you some perspectives on how Open Education Resources (OER) can be harnessed to democratize education by increasing access, improving quality, cutting costs and reaching the unreached. // SLIDE 2 I represent the Commonwealth of Learning, an intergovernmental body, established by Commonwealth Heads of Government and located in Vancouver, Canada with an office in Delhi. Our motto is ‘learning for development’. // SLIDE 3 We work in 54 Commonwealth Member States in all the regions of the globe as you can see from this map, and most of my examples will be from these countries.