The 25th Elets World Education Summit (WES) and Awards, a two-day event organised by Elets Technomedia along with its premier DigitalLEARNING magazine, brought together educators, policymakers, and thought leaders to explore the future of innovations in education in the era of globalisation and fast-paced digitalisation.
The event, held at the Millennium Plaza Downtown, Dubai, concluded with great success.
Themed “Exploring the Next in Education”, the event featured a diverse lineup of speakers, interactive panel discussions, and presentations. Over 300 attendees from across Asia and the Middle East participated in the event to discuss the latest trends, technologies, and ideas to enhance educational practices for a future-ready education ecosystem.
Dr. Ravi Gupta, Founder, CEO, Elets Technomedia & Editor-in-Chief, DigitalLEARNING Magazine kicked off the summit on 20th March with his welcome address. “Education is rapidly evolving in today’s era of globalisation and AI-driven world. The latest trends and technologies like Chat GPT are said to be taking away our jobs in the future. In order to cope with such challenges, the social and employability skills of students must be given greater attention and must align with the contemporary requirements and standards,” he said.
Dr. Gupta added, “The 25th Elets World Education Summit is our endeavour to bring key policy-makers, education leaders, and industry experts on one platform to identify the challenges and innovative solutions for building a more profound and contemporary aligned education system in the world.”
“The World Education Summit is our endeavour to bring key policy makers, education leaders and industry experts on one platform to share the challenges and innovative solutions and to deliberate upon the next in education”, said @ravigupta1000#eletswes #WES2023 #Eletseducation pic.twitter.com/Wvh3HJk3u1
— digitalLEARNING (@dl_magazine) March 22, 2023
Over the course of two days, the conference covered a wide range of topics, including tech-led innovations, new-age curriculum, teacher training, inclusive education, agile leadership, and international collaboration, etc., highlighting the current challenges and best practices being embraced by premier schools and higher education institutions to stay relevant in today’s highly competitive age.
Moreover, the edtech leaders presented unique insights into cutting-edge solutions and services for the education sector.
Madhuri Sawant, Managing Director and Founder, Brainquartz, said, “Empowerment of teachers is crucial for the bright future of school education. Some of the factors affecting learning in today’s technological era are the availability of quality teachers, resistance to change and adaptation to technology, budget limitations to update technology frequently, no systems in place to utilise technology in the curriculum, etc. Moreover, there is also a lack of professional development programs for teachers.”
Kallol Mukherjee, Head – International Business, Aptech Ltd, said, ‘We as a company had realised the criticality of bridging the gap between employer and employee far back in 1986. We started giving greater emphasis on fostering skill sets of youth pertaining to computers and IT in India.”
From the higher education sector, notable speakers at the conference included Dr. Hamad Odhabi, Vice Chancellor for Administrative and Financial Affairs, Abu Dhabi University, Abu Dhabi, UAE; Dr. Nasser Al Muraqab, Chief Operating Officer (COO), University of Dubai, UAE; Dima Rachid Jamali, Dean of School of Business. University of Sharjah, UAE; Jan Horn, Managing Director, SAE Institute Dubai, Dubai, UAE, Prof. Abhilasha Singh, Vice President, Academic Affairs, The American University in the Emirates, Dubai, UAE; Dr. Christopher Abraham, CEO & Head, Sr. Vice President, SP Jain School of Global Management, Dubai, UAE, etc.
Kinnari Kotecha, Faculty Business Administration & Teacher Trainer, Ministry of Education, Dubai, UAE said, “Employability skills among fresh graduates is a global concern today. To equip our graduates with skills that make them job ready is challenging. Countries have been changing their curriculum system to give employability skills an equal weightage. Whether we talk about NEP 2020 or about the American curriculum, they have been focussing on employability.”
Dima Rachid Jamali, Dean of School of Business, University of Sharjah, UAE highlighted the need to make classroom learning engaging. “Today, we have access to google and everything, we need something that adds value to classroom learning instead of mere PowerPoint presentations and easy reading. The way of teaching needs complete redefinition and revisiting. It should be much more engaging, interactive, and fun,” she said.
Highlighting an interesting perspective on failure, Dr. Christopher Abraham, CEO & Head, Sr. Vice President, SP Jain School of Global Management, Dubai, UAE, said, “If we look at some of the greatest countries, a century of failure leads them to success. We need to develop a culture that celebrates failure. There is a culture in design thinking i.e fail fast, fail forward. We have to bring in the same kind of culture for higher education. Not everything that we take up will succeed. Right from Thomas Edison to Oprah Winfrey to Lionel Messi to Walt Disney– all of these people have failed multiple times.”
From the school education sector, notable speakers included Dr. Sheela Menon, Principal, Ambassador School, Dubai, UAE; Syed Ali Haider Rizvi, Principal, The Central School, Dubai, UAE; Allan Kjaer Andersen, Director, Chaman Bhartiya School; Jaya Menezes , Principal, Apple International School, Dubai, UAE; Abhilasha Singh, Principal, Shining Star International School, Abu Dhabi, UAE; Dr. Amrita Vohra, Director Principal, Elpro International School, Maharashtra, India; Atika Jain, Co-Director, Vanasthali Public School, Uttar Pradesh, India; Dr. Harshita Sharma, Founder-Director, Brainstorm International, Maharashtra, India, etc.
Dr. Harshita Sharma, Founder-Director, Brainstorm International, Maharashtra, India, highlighted, how assessment and evaluation processes are transforming with technology facilitating new ways to collect & analyse the data.
“Despite having much research on the assessment across the world and the adoption of technology, there are a lot of learning gaps. We all need to reflect on important things such as the purpose of assessment and the impact of assessment on the self-esteem and self-confidence of all types of learners coming from diverse backgrounds,” she added.
Talking about the agile leadership in the digital age, Jaya Menezes, Principal, Apple International School, Dubai, UAE, said, “As technology has taken center stage, the perspective of leadership in education has to be changed and it must take into account the recent trends and technological development shaping the education sector.”
The 25th Elets World Education Summit, the flagship knowledge exchange series by Elets Technomedia, received strong support as partners and exhibitors from leading organisations in the education industry, including Hikvision, Zenda, ExtraEdge, Technolex, Next Education, Emporium, Torrins, Matific, Canvas, Xebia, Wheebox, Sahodaya Schools Complex, Aptech, Apeejay Education, Jain (Deemed-to-be University), Razzamataz Theatre Schools, Assam down town University (AdtU), Brainquartz, One World International School, Global Indian International School, Institute of Advanced Research, IES University-Bhopal, Sri Sai University, Masa Trading FZE, Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD), etc.
The attendees explored diverse edtech solutions and services at the expo organised at the summit. The expo area buzzed with the exchange of ideas and networking.
The 25th Elets World Education Awards recognised and felicitated individuals/organisations under various categories for enhancing learning and teaching experiences. The aim of the coveted awards was to highlight and encourage future-ready innovations in education.
“We are thrilled with the success of the 25th Elets World Education Summit and hope that the conference has inspired attendees to continue their exemplary work in driving innovation in education and building a better future for all,” said Dr. Gupta.
The concept of WES was started way back in 2011 and the first edition was graced by Hon’ble Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. Earlier, Elets organised similar conferences in Thailand, Malaysia, the United States of America, China, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Tunisia, Bahrain, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
The WES is committed to promoting innovation & collaboration to build future-ready education ecosystem. Our goal is to create a meaningful and inspiring experience for all stakeholders, one that will contribute to the improvement of education on a global scale.
