Asia’s response to COVID-19 education & training disruption

The pandemic has forced immediate adoption of available e-Learning solutions and a significant rethinking of the education and training fundamentals. In the education sector alone, more than 91% of the world’s student population is affected by school closures.

1.57 billion learners were forced out of school in 188 countries. While the global lockdown of education institutions has pushed educators to take immediate measures ensuring emergency education provision, its ripple effect is only beginning to be felt. A similar effect is experienced in the training world as well.

To meet the challenges of this accelerated transition, slow-paced and outmoded education and training models are hastily being replaced by new learning modalities which have come in first as quick fixes but have now the opportunity to become the new standards.

Live broadcasts, online learning, video based-learning, and virtual reality learning; the demand for education or learning technology is becoming more critical than ever. As such, new pedagogical and training techniques within the learning framework should align with the needs that the COVID-19 pandemic has forcefully uncovered.

In response to the changing landscape of teaching and learning and with a special emphasis on the challenges in Asia, LEARNTech Asia Conference 2020 seeks to provide up-to-date insights to support the learning sector. The event aims to analyze and provide concrete solutions to the shifts in the education and training paradigm by calling upon world experts in the field and by offering immediate scalable solutions and tangible strategies to grasp long term opportunities.

Conference Topics

Key Takeaways

• Insights, perspectives, and the latest trends for product development teams
• Learn new strategies by scaling effective teaching practices and frameworks
• Access to interactive sessions, workshops, and panels with thought leaders and industry experts

Who Should Attend?

Investors, angel investors, venture capitalists, traditional learning & training companies and professionals, tech entrepreneurs, and any entity providing education and training to employees or members. Educators and teachers, L&D professionals, policymakers, government agencies and relevant ministries, enrichment centers, learning communities, learning business owners, researchers, university students, pedagogists.

Speakers

Keynote Addresses and Panel Discussions

Petra Wiyakti Bodrogini is an ICT education specialist based in Jakarta, Indonesia, supporting development partners in implementing ICT in education programs.

In 2009 she was integral in Indonesia’s Distance Education Pilot and Developing Active Learning with ICT during her work with the Education Development Center on USAID’s Decentralized Basic Education 2 Project. In 2011 she started her consultancy and has worked with the World Bank, UNESCO, Asian Development Bank, and Indonesia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Mike Keppell is Pro Vice-Chancellor, Learning and Teaching, and Professor at Taylor’s University in Subang Jaya, Malaysia where he drives curriculum transformation, learning, teaching, and assessment at the University. He also leads the Centre for Future Learning (CFL) that is focused on holistic teaching and learning experiences for staff and students. His research focuses on learning spaces, personalized learning, educational technology, blended learning, assessment, and design.

Cheng Yin Cheong is an Emeritus Professor of Education and Senior Research Fellow at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). He was the President of the World Educational Research Association (WERA) from 2012-2014 and the Asia-Pacific Educational Research Association (APERA) from 2004-2008.

Yao Haogen is a senior education specialist at UNESCO-International Centre for Higher Education Innovation (ICHEI). Prior to that he served as an education specialist/economist at the Center on Chinese Education, the Earth Institute, and the UNICEF Headquarters and the Middle East & North Africa Regional Office.

Ye-Her heads SCALE-Global, a National University of Singapore business unit that develops multi-disciplinary youth and adult programs and explores the role of the university in lifelong education.

Ye-Her has worked at the intersection of business and government; facilitating conversations and creating value for both sides. She managed the executive education and alumni relations portfolios at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

Raymund Sison is dean of the College of Education at De La Salle University, Manila. He is a recipient of the national-level Outstanding Teacher award from the Metrobank Foundation, and the Outstanding Young Scientist award from the National Academy of Science and Technology of the Philippines.

Chutiporn Anutariya is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, School of Engineering and Technology (SET), and Associate Professor in the Department of Information & Communication Technologies at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand. She is a pioneer in MOOCs research and development in Thailand, which includes platforms & infrastructure, course creation, pedagogy, delivery, and leaners analytics.

Samson Tan is the Head of the Centre for Innovation in Learning at Singapore’s National Institute of Education (NIE). As a member of the Teaching and Learning Committee and IT Governance Committee at NIE, he drives learning innovations and shapes digital learning policies. Before joining NIE, Samson was responsible for the professional development of academic staff and pedagogical innovation at Republic Polytechnic (RP).

Chan Soon Seng is CEO of Teach For Malaysia, an independent, not-for-profit organization on a mission to give all children in Malaysia the opportunity to attain an excellent education. He envisions a holistic education system that not only develops students’ academics, but also their social, emotional, physical, spiritual, and leadership skills, in order to thrive in the 21st century.

Heather Fehring has held many academic and leadership positions throughout her career at RMIT University. Her passion as a learning and teaching scholar has been acknowledged by the ten teaching awards including a Carrick Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning in 2007. She is also the first woman to receive the VC Distinguished Teaching Award at RMIT University.

Albert Sangra is the director for the UNESCO Chair in Education and Technology for Social Change, Full Professor at the Open University of Catalonia, Department of Psychology and Education, and researcher at the Edul@b research group. He is the recipient of the 2015 Award for Excellence in eLearning from the World Education Congress. He has served as a consultant and trainer in several online and blended learning projects in Europe, America, Asia, and Australia, focusing on implementation strategies for the use of technology in teaching and learning.

Rachel Lim is the Director of Learning Experiences in Teach For All’s Global Learning Lab, where she builds virtual learning experiences. She began her career as a Teach for Malaysia Fellow, teaching English in a rural northern school in Kedah. Her experience led her to co-found MYReaders, a contextualized literacy program named that presently supports 6000 students across Malaysia.

Archana Iyer leads the cross-network initiative at the Global Learning Lab at Teach For All to understand how we best enable students to be leaders who shape a better future for themselves. Previously, Archana led the development of Firki — a bilingual, open-source training platform for teachers in low-resource, high-need communities in India.

Nico Fos is a Filipino language and literature teacher in Xavier School San Juan, Philippines. He is also an Apple Learning Leader and EdTech coach who conducts workshops on the integration of technology in the curriculum. As one of the Philippines’ experts in Online Distance Learning, he is leading the shift towards different learning modalities under the new normal.

Sreyleap Taing is a 2018 fellow of Teach For Cambodia. She is teaching Biology and English at Toul Prasat Sen Sok high school in Cambodia. Sreyleap has developed seven online classes, including the new course “Global Climate Change” and during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sreyleap has reached over 122 students through virtual learning.

Mary Burns is a senior expert in teacher professional development, online learning, instruction, curriculum development, and educational technology. She conceptualizes and designs programs and trains staff for universities, ministries of education, foundations, and donor agencies. Her work has traversed every level of the education system, from policy development to program design and implementation to directly supporting teachers in classrooms.

Nguyen Ngoc Vu is vice president of Hoa Sen University and chairman of STESOL, an Association of Vietnam Universities and Colleges. He has 12 years of experience building and consulting ICT integration into project-based teaching and English language teaching in Vietnam. He is also leading an e-learning team to produce digital content at the Education Quality Training Support Center of Vietnam Association of Universities and Colleges.

Heather Simpson is the Chief Program Officer of Room to Read, an organization that believes World Change Starts with Educated Children. With over 20 years of international development experience at major nonprofit organizations including Save the Children, Heather has managed large-scale projects to increase access to quality educational opportunities for disadvantaged children around the world.

Neil Selwyn is a distinguished research professor in the Faculty of Education, Monash University. He has researched the use of digital technology in education for over 25 years. He is currently working on projects relating to AI and education, the datafication of education, and the changing nature of teachers’ work in the digital age.

Maria Spies is Co-Founder and Managing Director of HolonIQ, an education market intelligence platform with the world’s most sophisticated education market datasets. She has worked with EdTech start-ups and founders to support their growth and led research projects about the future of learning, such as Global EdTech Landscape and Higher Education Digital Transformation. She has worked in public and private higher education for over 20 years in Asia and Australia specializing in transforming education through technology, driving innovation in curriculum, teaching, and the student experience in over 50 countries.

Anshul Sonak is the Senior Director – Global AI Readiness, at INTEL Corporation. He manages Intel’s worldwide AI readiness programs for education & skilling, future of work, and policy initiatives to democratize AI and other emerging tech skills in partnership with governments, academia & civil society organizations. He is passionate about innovation for sustainable and inclusive development, AI readiness for development, youth empowerment, education transformation.

Gog Soon Joo is the Chief Futurist, Chief Research Officer, and Chief Skills Officer at the SkillsFuture Singapore Agency, and has held a number of posts in the Singapore government. She leads teams that identify global trends impacting business, jobs, and skills. Soon-Joo and her team work with local and international partners to prototype solutions in the areas of future of work, future of learning, and future skills.

Vincent Quah works with educators and students, research scientists, and non-for-profit personnel in leveraging AWS Cloud services to save costs, accelerate innovation, and increase organizational agility that better serve their missions. Based in Singapore, Quah has worked in senior roles across the education and learning sectors, life sciences and healthcare industries, as well as high-performance computing projects across the Asia-Pacific region.

David Yeo drives the vision of ZilLearn as a platform transforming learning with networks instead of classrooms, and of education as being truly collaborative and expansive. His vision is to empower people and communities by making learning widely available. This is done by leveraging technologies to create scalable, accessible and adaptable learning. He was the first overseas scholar in learning technologies from the Singapore military where he conceptualized and rolled out the organization-wide digitization of training which helped the defense ministry win the Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise (MAKE) Award.

Eric Hawkinson is a learning futurist, tinkering with and designing technologies that may better inform the future of teaching and learning. Eric is president and research coordinator of MAVR, a research group working in immersive technologies for teaching and learning, and more specifically, augmented and virtual realities in language learning. His day job is at the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies where he teaches courses and conducts research on issues related to technology in tourism and education.

Janine Teo is the CEO of Solve Education!, an education technology not-for-profit with the mission of delivering quality education to everyone, focusing on the BOP (Bottom of Pyramid) demographic. She is the first Asian to receive the International Intellectual Benefits to Society Award by Mensa International.

Eric Tsui joined Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) in 1989 after years of academic research in automated knowledge acquisition, natural language processing, case-based reasoning and knowledge engineering tools. His research strengths include cloud-based business innovation and knowledge services. He joined Hong Kong Polytechnic University and was the Leader of the Master of Science in Knowledge Management degree program.

Chandni Chopra is the Director of Schools at Simple Education Foundation, Chandni leads the design and execution of all school processes and structures. At Teach For India she was a Program Manager who transformed the journey of students and put them on a path of leadership. She believes in the power of children to inspire change and lead their own lives; all they need is a platform to identify their untapped potential.

Kim Flintoff is the Learning Futures Advisor at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, where he develops innovative solutions to address the challenges of the future of learning and teaching. He is also a founding member of the ShapingEDU community and continues as Neighbourhood Mayor for the Connect Education and the Workforce of the Future group.

Andreas Schleicher is Director for Education and Skills, and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

He oversees the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), and the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), which create a global platform for policy-makers, researchers and educators to innovate and transform educational policies and practices.