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WISE announces speakers for 2021 Global Summit; Young changemakers to take central stage

A diverse group of cutting-edge thinkers, innovators and youth-leaders in education will gather for the 2021 World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) Global Summit, which will take place on 7 to 9 December at Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC) in Doha.

WISE is an initiative of Qatar Foundation, dedicated to building the future of education through innovation. The Summit will feature key thought leaders who are resetting the education agenda in the wake of the pandemic. They include Marc Brackett, founding director of the Yale Centre for Emotional Intelligence; Debora Kayembe, a refugee, human rights lawyer, and the first African woman to be elected Rector of the University of Edinburgh; and Prof. Abhijit Banerjee, Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics and Co-Founder of the pioneering J-PAL at M.I.T.

Alongside more established figures, WISE will also put young people center stage at the Summit with a dedicated Youth Studio and live stream channel, featuring a program curated entirely by WISE’s group of young curators. Young changemakers featured at the Summit include: Gitanjali Rao, a 16-year-old entrepreneur and Time Magazine’s Top Young Innovator of the Year for 2020; Zuriel Oduwole, a 19-year-old filmmaker and advocate for girls’ education; Tanmay Bakshi a 17-year-old AI and Machine Learning expert and Software Engineer with IBM; and Kehkashan Basu, a 21-year-old activist for climate justice in education.

WISE will also engage with a diverse group of artists who are increasingly active in the field of education. Among them are concert pianist Malek Jandali, with his inspiring Pianos for Peace project which brings the arts to disadvantaged students; YouTuber and filmmaker Samy Chaffai; street and graffiti artist Akacha; and documentary filmmaker Mariam Al-Dhubhani.

As with previous editions of the Summit, the identity of the most recent WISE Prize for Education Laureate will be revealed during the opening session, and the six innovative WISE Awards winning projects will be celebrated during a special plenary session on day two. The Education Above All Foundation will also be holding a special plenary session on day three of the Summit, discussing progress towards its objective of getting to Zero Out of School Children (OOSC).

In what will be one of the first major international education conferences since the pandemic began, WISE will bring together a global community of education policymakers, thought leaders, practitioners, and entrepreneurs — both virtually and in-person — to explore the most pressing challenges in education.

The Summit will feature around 200 sessions of panels, fireside chats, talks, masterclasses and workshops, amongst others. Around 40 key sessions will be hybrid, available to all participants, those attending in-person, and virtually. Around 100 or so smaller group sessions will be available only to those Summit delegates who will be present in-person at the QNCC in Doha, offering them an immersive in-depth experience over the three days of the Summit. Finally, around 60 sessions will be fully virtual, available on a dedicated WISE platform, on the WISE website, and on social media, allowing participants to join the global conversations on the future of education. Many of the virtual sessions will be curated by a wide array of knowledge partner organizations such as Deloitte, Teach for All, UNESCO, UNICEF, Minerva, Brookings and the World Bank.

Some other notable WISE 2021 Summit speakers:

You can register to attend the Summit in-person at QNCC via this link: https://www.wise-qatar.orgise-2021/direct-registration/

You can also follow the Summit virtually by registering via this link: https://www.wise-qatar.org/wise-2021/registration-summit

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