World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), a global initiative by Qatar Foundation’, dedicated to building the future of education through innovation, concluded a successful three-day summit with a range of virtual, in-person and hybrid sessions, as part of the Summit’s first-ever hybrid edition.
Global audiences shared invaluable exchange of knowledge and dialogue with more than 200 sessions over three days with around a thousand people from 117 different nationalities attending in person and more than 10,000 virtually that included education leaders, policymakers, innovators, practitioners and media persons.
A global reference in new approaches to education, WISE Summit 2021 successfully achieved its goal to lend a voice to a ‘muted’ generation that has borne the brunt of the biggest disruption to education in recent history, yet remains conspicuously absent from global discussions on how to build back better.
The first plenary session, titled ‘Big Shock, Big Reforms’, looked at ideas that emerge from major shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be a powerful catalyst for innovation. Thought leaders including Founding Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Marc Brackett; Journalist and Documentary Filmmaker, Zhou Yijun; Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education and Chief Innovation Officer for the Government of Sierra Leone, David Moinina Sengeh; and Research Consultant, Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, Sidharth Santhosh, explored the impact of technology on long-expected reforms in education, reshaped student-teacher relationships, and the wider societal implications of education reform.
In the presence of Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation, the 2021 WISE Awards winners came together for the ‘Post-pandemic Pillars of Education: Designing and Funding New Approaches to Learning’ plenary to shed light on their work is defining the education landscape of tomorrow. Speakers included 18-year-old Google Developer Expert for Machine Learning and Advisory Software Engineer at IBM, Tanmay Bakshi; Senior Fellow and Co-Director at the Center for Universal Education, Brookings Institution, Emiliana Vegas; National Director, CAMFED Tanzania, Lydia Wilbard; and Co-Founder and President of NewGlobe, Shannon May.
“The work that is celebrated by the WISE Awards is vitally important, as each of our winners has built an effective, tested solution to a global educational challenge,” said Dr. Ameena Abdul-Majeed, Director of Programs and Chief Curator at WISE. “Their projects are already transforming lives and creating a pathway for others to follow. At this year’s Summit, we are not only congratulating our winners on their achievements, but also showcasing their innovation on a global stage. It is crucial that policymakers and civil society leaders look at those best practices as solutions for a greater impact on learners.” The WISE Studio hosted panels and chats, featuring experts from around the world, to discuss the future of edtech, student and teacher wellbeing, the relevance of higher education, and the importance of ethical leadership and learning ecosystems.
The 16-year-old innovator, author, STEM promoter and TIME Magazine’s ‘Kid of the Year’ 2020, Gitanjali Rao, led an insightful ‘Ask me Anything’ session on ‘Encouraging Girls to Embrace STEM Education’, inspiring girls and women to break free from biases, social norms and expectations standing in the way of their education quality.
In ‘Bareec: Fostering Positive Thinking and Well-being Through Extra-Curricular Activities’, Her Excellency Sheikha Intissar Al Sabah and Rokaya Hussain ran a masterclass which introduced the Bareec model — an education program that instills a culture of positivity through a set of simple, creative, and scientific activities for both inside and outside classrooms. The session identified the main elements that make this approach such a success and demonstrated how social emotional learning can be practically implemented in schools across the world to positively impact student behavior and achievements. In ‘Sustainable Development Goals and Human Rights: A Side-by-Side Commitment for the Making of a Better World’, Rector of the University of Edinburgh, Debora Kayembe, demonstrated the inherent link between the UN Sustainable Development Goals and human rights obligations as an avenue to address inequality and discrimination.
At the height of the pandemic, nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries had their education disrupted. Among them is a generation that routinely stands up to government inaction on climate change, rallies for social justice and equality, and voices a global discontent with the status quo in education. WISE 2021 extended a seat at the table to the young and underprivileged, recognizing the urgent need for inclusive dialogue that leads to workable, innovative and imaginative education models that serve learners worldwide.
In this spirit, WISE’s new Youth Studio, curated by a group of young changemakers in education, was inaugurated with several youth-led spotlight talks, panel discussions and fireside chats on topics such as climate action, citizenship education, edtech and girls’ education.
In the ‘Students, You Matter’ Spotlight Talk, discussions focused on how students can perform effectively in school while still trying to process and adapt to the changes caused by the pandemic. Associate Director, Simple Education Foundation, Prerna Kalra; Chief Programs Officer at Teach for Qatar, Khalid Yassin; and social media creators and influencers Linya Peng and Maha Yakoub were all part of the conversation, which looked at some changes students can make to enhance their day-to-day lives and use their skills in efficient ways in a post-pandemic world.
‘EdTech in the MENA Region: Addressing Both Basic and Recent Needs’, which ran in Arabic, looked at how edtech is transforming learning for students in the MENA region, which is characterized by a strong diversity of cultures and languages and is facing steep challenges in terms of learning outcomes, quality education, skills gaps and high unemployment rates. Head of Outreach at Teach for Qatar, Mohammed Al-Janahi; Head of Emerging Technology MICT Qatar, Eman Al-Kuwari; and Founder and CEO at Go My Code, Yahya Bouhlet, discussed how edtech is helping to address these challenges to change the acquisition of basic learning or the upskilling process.
Other sessions which took place in Arabic focused on the role of teachers and the challenges they are facing in today’s learning environment, including discussions on ‘How Arabic Teachers are Bridging the Youth Identity Gap’. Meanwhile, ‘UNICEF: Supporting Teachers Amid COVID-19: Preparedness and Training’ aimed to empower educators to navigate the obstacles presented by teaching in the context of the pandemic.
The WISE Prize for Education, which was established in 2011, is the first award of its kind to recognize an individual or a team for an outstanding contribution to education. Its objective is to give visibility to education heroes around the world who have dedicated their lives to alleviating global education challenges. The laureate is announced at the global biennial Summit’s Opening Plenary Session and receives the WISE Prize medal and $500,000 (USD).
The WISE Awards were given to six projects for their innovative and impactful approaches to pressing education matters. This year’s diverse pool of projects came from all over the world and tackled different education challenges, from literacy to edtech and social and emotional learning.
This year’s six winners were the Delhi Government’s Happiness Curriculum, creating time at school to develop mindfulness, critical thinking and other social and emotional skills; Taleemabad, a ‘city of education’ in Pakistan providing localized content using digital technologies; Trauma Informed Schools in Turkey to help young Syrian refugees and the community around them; Onetab, a solar-charged tablet developed by the UK and Nigeria-based company Onebillion to build literacy and numeracy schools in any country; ProFuturo Digital Education Program, from the Telefonica and la Caixa foundations, creating a digital education program in areas without connectivity; and Let’s All Learn to Read is an innovative model for developing literacy in Colombia and Panama.
WISE was established by the Qatar Foundation in 2009 under the leadership of its chairperson, Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser. WISE is an international, multi-sectoral platform for creative, evidence-based thinking, debate, and purposeful action in education. Through the biennial Summit, collaborative research and a range of on-going programs, WISE is a global reference in new approaches to education. WISE 2021 took place in Doha and online, on 7-9 December under the theme: ‘Generation Unmute: Reclaiming the Future Through Education’.
– SPECIAL REPORT