Leadership Summit Agenda

Education Ministers, Ministerial representatives, and policy-makers set out their vision and priorities for investing in national education systems across Asia to drive sustainable development within the region.

Digital transformation has far-reaching potential. True transformation is about people and it’s important to keep a human lens on the digital transformation of society at large. It’s even more important for education because of what is at stake. We need to recognize that the drivers for digital transformation are human.

We're committed to this at Microsoft more than ever and it is reflected in our vision. Microsoft’s original vision was a PC in every home. It was bold, but we have evolved and it’s not enough to have technology at our disposal – we must empower every learner, every educator, every human being to achieve more.

This session will focus on ‘What’s Next’ and explore issues of equity, opportunity and the role technology can play in accelerating learning for all.

There has never been a better time to reimagine the future of learning and teaching and Mr. Nelson will discuss these challenges and opportunities and provide examples of how Microsoft is supporting Education systems around the world to transform their systems.

In collaboration with Microsoft

 

As the education community moves beyond crisis response to ensure that learning never stops, it is vital to come back to the ‘why’ of education and partner with educators to enable their goals. Every student deserves equal access to education and to the technology that empowers learning now and in the future. Lenovo is excited to share how we are partnering with educational institutions to increase access and improve sustainability of education technology solutions.

In collaboration with Lenovo

Exploring the importance of addressing digital equity in education sustainably. Digital access and skill development are a pathway to long term equity and incredible human capital opportunities.

In collaboration with HP

Digital technology is today widely understood to be the most transformative creation by human beings and advancements in innovation are viewed as inevitably changing the way the world operates for the better. But this is a myopic view of humanity, the planet and the future. The next era of innovation requires a rejection of this imminent surrender to a dystopian digital future.

If the global pandemic has taught us any lessons, surely the most important is the need to recognise that in the next chapter of human awareness and development “the future is biological and not digital”. The next generation will need to desist the march of the algorithm and its capture of human societies. This will require bold innovations in education.

Chandran Nair will outline his views on why the future is biological and not digital, bringing together existential threats of climate change together with the future of work, the role of purposeful technology and food and security issues. He will outline why we need to move from our obsession with the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR4.0) to Insured Resilience 1.0 (IR1.0) based on the scientific reality that the future hinges on managing the biological realm of our existence.

Through this time of disruption, schools and their communities have demonstrated real resilience and determination to ensure that learning never stops. However, this time has also thrown up and exacerbated mental health and wellbeing issues experienced by both staff and students, with the long-term impacts on individuals remaining uncertain. As we look to build back better in education, this session will open up an honest conversation on critical areas of need within wellbeing in school communities, the role of technology in wellbeing, and how school leaders can position wellbeing as the cornerstone of all their decision-making.

Our esteemed panellists break down the current trends and challenges in Higher Education across the region and explore how senior leadership teams can prioritise effectively as they plan for the next five years.

The pandemic underlined the importance of being able to continuously evolve and adapt to meet the ever-changing demands of higher education. Migrating to the cloud can offer numerous benefits for higher education institutions – whether it’s removing the need to build data centres, reducing time spent supporting operations, streamlining processes for all stakeholders, and focusing instead on high-value projects and updates. Dr Maria Eliza Aguila, Professor and Dean at the University of the Philippines Manilla, will take you through the process of building a cloud-connected campus to better understand the challenges and considerations along the way, and share best practices for building your own future-proofed campus.

In collaboration with Instructure

In order to align Fairfield Methodist School’s desired student outcome of developing future-ready leaders with the Singapore Ministry of Education’s vision of self-directed, personalised, connected and human-centred education for students, we embarked on a technology integration plan to map out strategies and structures to guide us in achieving our goals.

One integral part of the plan is to support innovative teaching practices through the building of our school’s virtual campus. However, the increased use of online learning in a digital world poses novel challenges to students’ learning, especially in their ability to navigate in the murky cyberspace. A one-stop platform was needed to support our school’s technology plan.

Microsoft Teams is deployed school-wide and has enabled our school to embark on a journey of digital transformation. Its technological affordances, coupled with our school’s framework and processes, had changed how teachers work, improving efficiency in administration and teaching and creating impact.

Two other strategies to empower students’ self-directed learning include the use of personal learning devices (PLD) as well as the blended learning (BL) approach.

What would these initiatives look like for younger learners? In the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, with Quarantined Orders (QO) and full Home-Based Learning (fHBL) in 2021, how can primary schools employ these two strategies to continue bringing students through seamless student-centric learning?

In this session, we will share our school’s experiences in embarking on a Personalised Device Learning Program (PDLP) to assess and refine our school’s customised framework on what makes successful student-centric learning for students, highlighting how we have been guided by blended learning principles.

In collaboration with Microsoft

The vast array of EdTech tools, approaches, and solutions available for educators to use in the classroom has provided an opportunity to overhaul long-established, more traditional methods of teaching & learning. Though what does effective teaching & learning look like in a post-pandemic world, and how can educators rationalise the role of different technologies in the classroom?

During this session, experts and leaders from different areas within the education technology ecosystem will tackle these questions, shining a light on pedagogical models and approaches at the cutting edge and discussing how technology can have a truly meaningful presence in the classroom.

The Higher Education sector has experienced intense disruption and observed many changes in student behaviour in recent years. In this session, we'll be interrogating what universities must do in order to succeed within this new landscape. This session will focus on the importance of lifelong learning, professional development, and adaptable or flexible approaches to learning, all of which come together to create the university of the future.

As the digital economy continues to evolve, business and government leaders are relying on education systems to produce graduates that can thrive in the workplace of the future, with technical AI knowledge being some of the most sought-after skills of all. However, as demand for greater digital literacy and technical skills among graduates grows, businesses are struggling to meet their needs. In Southeast Asia alone, nearly 70 percent of tech hiring managers say it takes more than three months to fill an open tech position, with only a small number of applicants possessing the necessary skills to secure a job offer.

In this session, we'll explore how Higher Education can foster the creative skills, along with the technical know-how, needed to prepare students for the workforce of the future. We’ll be discussing the best approach to helping graduates develop a full portfolio of skills for the future workplace, touching not only on the need for training in science, technology, engineering and maths, but also the importance of creative thinking and imagination in driving innovation.

In collaboration with Intel

Addressing teacher shortages is essential to reduce post pandemic inequity and to ensure all children can access high quality teaching and learning.

In 2014 the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) estimated over 68million teachers were needed by 2030 to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. However this was pre-pandemic. The pressing priority now is to ensure students who could not participate in learning due to the digital divide, now have an opportunity to catch up.

Both of these challenges can only be solved by increasing the number of qualified and digitally proficient teachers in schools, and by training them to successfully deliver 21st century teaching and learning in the classroom. Tes provides sustainable and accessible solutions that support educators in Asia to recruit and train the teachers of tomorrow.

In collaboration with Tes

As the Higher Education sector pivots in response to increased use of blended and hybrid learning, one thing is clear - flexibility is key. In this session we'll explore the rise in micro-credentials and innovative approaches to reimagining degrees, with a focus on how universities can begin to approach learning as an ongoing, 'stackable' process.

School closures have significantly hindered pre-pandemic efforts and initiatives to improve access to education across Asia. A recent report by UNICEF and UNESCO estimated that at least 28 percent, or 220 million pre-primary to upper secondary students in the region, are not being reached, with marginalised, hard-to-reach students from rural settings being disproportionately affected.

This panel discussion will unpack the nuanced challenges surrounding access to education, drawing on a range of initiatives and case study examples from across the region to highlight best practices for ensuring a high-quality, sustainable distance learning provision and equitable access to all students.

In collaboration with Pearson

In collaboration with Pearson

As the education sector becomes more familiar with blended and hybrid approaches to learning, institutions are under pressure to quickly adapt to new technology. However, it's essential that senior leadership take a moment to pause and set out a gameplan for sustainable digital transformation, with a special focus on ensuring quality throughout the learner journey and providing a meaningful student experience whilst also balancing staff workload.

This K12 breakfast roundtable will gather K12 institution and system leaders from across Asia to discuss how data analytics can be harnessed to build a holistic picture of the whole learner, enabling educators to efficiently track and action progress throughout all aspects of a learner’s development.

Please note that this roundtable session is invite only.

In collaboration with Intellischool

Mobility, as part of the internationalisation process in Higher Education, has been well regarded as crucial for the learning and grooming of the socially and culturally minded global citizens. Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic and multiple disruptions of climate change, stagflation, traditional and non-traditional security threats question the role of Higher Education in addressing these emerging challenges. This session discusses how partners in Higher Education can be innovative, participatory, and inclusive in setting the goals and values for mobility while co-creating the mobility for sustainable learning and living.

This session presents the regional efforts of governments and partners in Higher Education including university leaders, students, alumni, private sectors as well as civil society in redefining the Common Space in Southeast Asian Higher Education.

The session highlights innovative mobility programmes co-created with partners in Higher Education, the inclusive and participatory process, and innovation, which have been prioritised as a way forward. The session shares the transformative Asian International Mobility for Students Programme (AIMS) which emphasises the value of international mobility for sustainable learning and living, with a greater focus on learning outcomes, competencies and credentials, and contribution to the sustainable development of the region.

The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of technology to support multiple instructional modalities and has changed how we view flexible content distribution and consumption. From changes to certificate and degree programs, unified communication challenges, enrollment drops and learning gaps, to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and cybersecurity, schools and universities around the globe are reinventing themselves to address the massive paradigm shift that will impact everyone for years to come. In this session, we will focus on the future of education and how hybrid work and hybrid learning are changing the primary & secondary (K-12) and post-secondary education landscape.

In collaboration with Zoom

In today’s increasingly diverse, borderless world, there is a growing need to provide culturally responsive, inclusive education for all students, irrespective of their identities, abilities, and backgrounds. One way to meet this need is by using theoretical frameworks to establish evidenced-based teaching and learning practices. In this session, we will i) examine key concepts related to culturally responsive and inclusive education, ii) discuss Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, and iii) explore ways to apply UDL to promote culturally responsive and inclusive practices in our classrooms. The end outcome is to nurture a culturally responsive, inclusive educational environment so that educators, students, and policymakers can actively participate in learning, grow and be agents of change.

 

Investment in EdTech in LMIC countries is growing rapidly, but we have not yet realised the potential of technology to improve learning outcomes at scale. This situation is a disservice to millions of children around the world who are not learning — in or out of school. Uncritical optimism or non-specific pessimism tend to dominate discussion of EdTech throughout the global education community. Both sides can draw on practical examples of EdTech usage that supports their positions. We need to move beyond this tendency towards binary argument and instead centralise the role of evidence in EdTech — generating and using robust and relevant evidence to drive better decision-making. Our challenge to the sector? Every group of decision-makers working in EdTech — governments, developers, implementers, researchers, funders, and teachers and school leaders — should become obsessed with asking and finding answers to five key questions.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, technological advances brought by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) had already disrupted the world of work. New sets of skills and competencies were in demand; jobs were lost, created, and reprofiled; and new pathways for commercial activities were unveiled. While the use of 4IR technologies have accelerated the creation of new opportunities (especially through remote working), the risk of job displacement for low-skilled workers, and routine and manual labor has also increased. Skills gaps continue to be high as in-demand skills across jobs change in the next five years. Lack of digital skills has become the key barrier for digital transformation for many sectors.

During this partner event, the Asian Development Bank will gather their developing member countries and partners to share their digital transformation initiatives and frameworks that are driving the 4IR in Asia.

Discover the full event agenda here.

Hear from AWS on their latest EdTech Innovations.

In collaboration with AWS

A study by NUS Office of Risk Management and Compliance together with Institute of Public Understanding of Risk examined the risk factors of Undergraduate students across ASEAN. In this session, Dr Janson Yap presents its findings and explores how you can empower your students to succeed.

The education ecosystem landscape is changed in post-pandemic times. Reimagine Education is a key initiative for educators to rethink and shape the Future of Education. As part of the research, the worries and anxieties of undergraduates was conducted. These insights help educators to understand the important drivers for our future graduates to be successful and meaningful.

Under the right circumstances, technology can enable innovation to happen anywhere. Individual schools can become incubation grounds for system-wide development and improvement. What is needed is a digital transformation framework that can adapt to individual schools and classrooms that can fast-track the journey to an effective and modern teaching and learning system.

In collaboration with HP

With the immense impact to not only the delivery of education, but also the workforce, industries and economies, institutions globally are actively transforming.

This is a unique opportunity to hear from leaders who have been at the forefront of innovation, not only in their institutions, but for national projects.

In collaboration with Microsoft

Increased digital transformation and new approaches to learning have broken down borders between universities all over the world. With students now expected to enter the workforce as global citizens, how can we ensure that our university culture becomes truly international and takes advantage of these new opportunities for global collaboration? This session will explore effective examples of global collaboration from leaders in the sector.

The past two and a half years have emphasised a real need for schools to provide ongoing training and support for all of their staff – both those working within the classroom and in the office – so that they can consolidate and build on the range of digital skills acquired during the pandemic, empowering them to continuously hone and innovate their strategies for school management and teaching & learning delivery.

This session brings together school leaders, training experts, and researchers from a range of settings across the region to discuss and identify the key components of building and scaling a successful digital upskilling strategy, ensuring that your school’s staff are a driving force for your overall long-term digital strategy.

Asia is recognized globally as a technological force, yet many digital jobs in the region go unfilled because too few workers have the necessary data and tech skills. And the pressure to fill jobs will only continue to grow: In 2021, LinkedIn reported that the top three fastest growing job categories in Southeast Asia were digital content, data analyst, and software technology. In this session, you’ll learn how Intel® Skills for Innovation (Intel® SFI) can help bridge this skills gap to better prepare the next generation of workers. Intel SFI resources support educators in Asia in helping their students develop the mindsets and skillsets needed to thrive in our technology-driven world. You’ll see examples demonstrating how students learn through the use of technology, applying technical skills to real-world scenarios in engaging activities that integrate with existing curriculum.

In collaboration with Intel

Hyflex classroom is the future of education and what are technology consideration institutions must consider to set it up to make classroom more effective between educators and students

The use of hyflex instruction provides unique challenges for educators who must utilize technology to deliver the same teaching expectations both on ground and online. Institutions must find the right balance between technology and pedagogy that can deliver the best user experience and positive learner outcomes. Higher education institutions are now re-evaluating their value by investing in tools to guarantee student success.

In collaboration with Lenovo.

Cultivating technopreneurs through university’s entrepreneurship programmes create new industries and increase new vitality into a nation’s economy. Programmes supporting start-ups in universities include: (1) entrepreneurship education for academics, researchers and students; (2) programmes for start-ups from ideation to scaling up business ventures; and (3) supports to alumni and entrepreneurs through university incubators. In this session, we will be sharing on programmes, approaches and factors that supports start-ups from universities.

With students becoming increasingly aware and concerned with global issues such as the climate crisis, how can education and organisations best prepare students for tackling these challenges of today and tomorrow? This panel brings together experts and school leaders from the region to share their innovative approaches to developing students as global citizens, highlighting how global citizenship can equip students with the tools and skills that are key to thriving in a disruptive, increasingly globalised, and climate-conscious future of working and living.