Education

John Shawe-Taylor, UNESCO Chair in Artificial Intelligence (AI), is a professor at University College London (United Kingdom) where he is Director of the Centre for Computational Statistics and Machine Learning (CSML). His main research area is Statistical Learning Theory, but his contributions range from Neural Networks to Machine Learning to Graph Theory.

John Shawe-Taylor obtained a PhD in Mathematics at Royal Holloway, University of London in 1986. He subsequently completed an MSc in the Foundations of Advanced Information Technology at Imperial College. He has coordinated a number of European wide projects investigating the theory and practice of Machine Learning, including the NeuroCOLT projects, and is currently the scientific coordinator of a Framework VI Network of Excellence in Pattern Analysis, Statistical Modelling and Computational Learning (PASCAL).

Shazia A.F Rehman completed her master’s in economics from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, she is an alumni of Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University and Delhi Public School, Noida. She is currently working as a Change-Maker in Education fellow with the Government of Delhi and contributing to the digital interventions and innovation in Education in Delhi.

Shazia has been involved in public policy projects and research in the development sector and has experience in working with prominent institutions like the University of Oxford, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), Brookings India and the Centre for Advanced Studies in Policy Research (CASPR). She has gained international exposure while she was based in Kampala, Uganda to work on the research collaboration between the Uganda Revenue Authority (Ministry of Finance, Uganda) and the University of Oxford. Her research interests lie in the fields of development economics, public policy and governance. She endeavors to contribute to efficient policy formulation and implementation in India.

With a background in development economics and an MSc in local economic development at the London School of Economics, Sara Baiocco decided to focus her PhD on labour and the impact of digitalisation on employment.

Since September 2018, she is a researcher in the Jobs and Skills Unit of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS). At CEPS, Sara continues her policy-oriented research on skills, employment and working conditions in the continuously changing world of work.

Françoise Chombar is co-founder and CEO of Melexis. Melexis designs and develops innovative microelectronic solutions for the automotive industry, and is also growing in the smart appliance, home automation, industrial and medical equipment sectors. Françoise Chombar is a member of the board of directors of Umicore, a global materials technology and recycling group. She is also a member of the board of directors of Soitec, an international semiconductor materials manufacturer.

Françoise Chombar is chairwoman of the STEM platform, an advisory board of the Flemish Government that encourages young people to follow a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics) education. Françoise Chombar was mentor for 17 years of the SOFIA network, a coaching, networking and training program for female entrepreneurs and women in management. As a ‘STEMinist’, she advocates more STEM and more inclusiveness and gender balance. That commitment is driven by her deep belief in its positive social impact.

In 2012, Françoise Chombar received the title of Honorary Ambassador for Applied Linguistics from UGent. She won the Vlerick Award in 2016 and the Global Prize for Women Entrepreneurs in 2018. That year she was also elected ICT Personality of the Year by Datanews and appointed Science Fellow at the VUB. In July 2019, she received the Honorary Sign of the Flemish Community.

Since 2015, Björn Macauter has been working as General Manager at Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs. He holds a master’s degree in Applied Economic Sciences, a degree in International Politics and a master’s degree in Public Management. He started his career at Amnesty International Flanders as coordinator of political affairs. At the Regional Economic and Social Consultation Committee Mechelen, he experienced the strength as well as the pitfalls of intersectoral cooperation.

In 2012, he took up the challenge of developing LAScentrum, a training centre for welding techniques, into a self-supporting social enterprise. In less than 3 years, he succeeded in this goal by using his entrepreneurial skills and gathering the right people around him.

Within Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs he has paid a lot of attention to the further development of Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs as a networked organization, the effective deployment of voluntary experts, increasing the mutual transfer of knowledge between African and Belgian companies and entrepreneurs, and involving young people – the entrepreneurs of the future.

Saskia Van Uffelen has been working in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector for over 25 years. She has held national and international sales and marketing functions in leading companies such as Xerox, Compaq, HP, Arinso, Bull and Ericsson. As Corporate Vice President at GFI, she currently oversees the development of the BeNeLux region for this French ICT group.

In 2012, the Federal Minister of Economic Affairs appointed Saskia Van Uffelen as the ‘Digital Champion’ representing Belgium at the European Commission. To stimulate the roll-out of the Digital Agenda in Belgium, she sensitizes all parties involved in 5 areas: digital economy, digital government, digital infrastructure, digital security and digital skills.

As a role model, Saskia Van Uffelen received various awards including ICT Woman of the Year (2011, Data News), Inspiring Woman in Science, Technology and Research (2013, Luxembourg), the Golden Spur for Economic Excellence (2016, Flanders) and the Etion Leadership Award 2019. In 2019, she was also nominated Belgian Manager of the Year.

Jennifer Groff is a research assistant and PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab and the MIT Education Arcade. Her research focuses on redesigning learning environments and experiences through learning technologies and system innovations.

Jennifer is a former teacher. For her innovative teaching in the classroom she was named a Microsoft Innovative Teacher Leader in 2005 and a Google Certified Teacher. She is the author of numerous frameworks on innovation in education systems, transformation, and design over educational reform, including the i5 framework and the ‘whole-mindedness’ pedagogical approach. Her current work is the LearningGraph, a platform that supports a universal model of learning progressions and standards to support learning technologies and education systems.

Jennifer Groff is the co-founder of the Centre for Curriculum Redesign, an international NGO dedicated to redesigning the general curricula for the 21st century. She was also the Vice President of Learning & Program Development for the Learning Games Network, a non-profit spin-off from the MIT Education Arcade.

Guido Schmidt-Traub is Executive Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a member of the Governing Council of Future Earth. He has served as climate change advisor to the Africa Progress Panel secretariat and was CEO of Paris-based CDC Climat Asset Management.

From 2008-2010 Guido was Director and Partner at South Pole Carbon Asset Management in Zurich, a leading developer of greenhouse gas emission reduction projects. Prior to managing the MDG Support Team at UNDP (2006-2008) he served as Policy Advisor and then as Associate Director of the UN Millennium Project in New York, which was tasked with developing a concrete action plan for the world to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Earlier Guido was Partner at IndexIT Scandinavia, a private equity fund for early-stage technology companies, and consultant at McKinsey & Company in Germany. He holds a PhD and a Masters in Economics, as well as a Masters in Physical Chemistry.

After obtaining his Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering from Beijing Institute of Technology, he studied further in Technical University of Graz (Austria), where he worked on radio wave propagation in satellite links and obtained his Doctor Degree of Technological Science in 1986.

From 1987 to 2006, he worked in Tsinghua University, Beijing, as a full professor in Electronic Engineering (1994), Head of the Department of Electronic Engineering (1997-1999), Director of the State Key Laboratory of Microwave and Digital Communication at Tsinghua University (1997-2004), Vice President (R&D) of Tsinghua University (1999-2006), Director of Chinese National Research Center for Information Science and Technology at Tsinghua University (2004-2006). He served as the President of Tianjin University from 2006 to 2011. He carried on as the President of Nankai University in 2011 and stepped down in 2018.

Ides Nicaise (KU Leuven) has a background in economics and works since 1989 as a research manager at HIVA (Research Institute for Work and Society), a multidisciplinary research institute of the University of Leuven (Belgium). He further specialised in social policy, more precisely the relationships between education, labour market policy and social inclusion in both developed and developing countries.

At the Department of Education Sciences at the University of Leuven, Ides Nicaise teaches ‘Economics of education’, ‘Lifelong learning and equal opportunities’ and ‘Education and Society’. Besides his professional activities, he is chairing the Belgian Combat Poverty Service.

Won Jung Byun is currently Senior Project Officer in the Section of Education for Sustainable Development(ESD) at UNESCO Headquarters. Won’s work at UNESCO is mainly focused on ESD policy, in particular on preparing for the new global framework on ESD for the period of 2020-2030 called ‘ESD for 2030’. The new ten year framework will be launched at UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development (May 2021, Berlin, Germany).

Before joining UNESCO, she has worked as executive director for the United Nations University’s programme Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development (RCE) Tongyeong, Republic of Korea since 2005 and co-founded Tongyeong Education Foundation for Sustainable Development and an education centre called Sejahtera Forest, to promote ESD at local, national and regional level. Won also served in various committees including as Regional Coordinator for 42 RCEs in Asia-Pacific in 2009-2014.

As the named inventor of 41 patents, computer scientist Nuria Oliver is well known for her work in computational models of human behaviour, human computer-interaction, intelligent user interfaces, mobile computing and big data for social good. She invests significant effort in outreach efforts to make technology more accessible to non-technical audiences and to inspire young people (girls in particular) to pursue a career in technology.

Nuria Oliver holds a PhD from the Media Lab at MIT. She is a Fellow of the European Association of Artificial Intelligence (EAAI) and of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a member of the Academia Europaea and the youngest female member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Engineering.

In 2018 she was named Engineer of the Year by the Professional Association of Telecommunication Engineers of Spain and she received an honorary doctorate from the University Miguel Hernandez.

Gunay Kazimzade is a PhD student in Computer Science at TU Berlin, an award-winning Doctoral Researcher on Artifical Intelligence and a TEDx speaker. She is the founder of TechCentrum, a knowledge exchange platform in Emerging Technologies focusing on Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data. She also managed a number of social projects focused on computer science education, training over 3000 women and children in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Gunay is working at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, the German Internet Institute. This institute investigates the current changes in all aspects of society occurring in response to digitalisation. The goal is to develop a comprehensive understanding of these changes based on rigorous academic analysis and to offer informed strategies to address them at a political and economic level.

Eszter Salamon is the Director of Parents International. Whereas she was originally trained as a teacher and practiced this profession for a number of years, she later became an economist and obtained a PhD in education leadership, with a special focus on parental engagement. In 1989, Eszter started dealing with children’s rights. Over the past 22 years, she has specialized in students’ rights and parents’ rights. For over a decade, she has been involved in international education and social topics, primarily focusing on the role, engagement and competences of parents.

Pedro De Bruyckere (PhD) is the co-author of several books in Dutch on youth and education. He is also a frequent speaker on education topics at international events, one of his strongest points being that he is funny when explaining serious stuff. Pedro co-wrote the popular books Urban Myths about Learning and Education and More Urban Myths with Paul Kirschner and Casper Hulshof. He is also an avid blogger on new research in education.

Chandrika Bahadur is the Director of the SDG Academy. Previously she was President of SDSN Association from 2016 to 2020. Chandrika has led the education programs at UN SDSN since its inception. From 2008-2011, she was advisor to the Chairman and Managing Director at Reliance Industries, where she helped set up Reliance Foundation, a non-profit philanthropic foundation focusing on areas of education, health, rural development, and urban renewal.

From 2001-2008, Chandrika worked with the United Nations in different roles. In her last assignment, she was a Policy Advisor at UNDP’s Bureau for Development Policy in New York, working in Africa to help Ministries of Finance and Planning align their strategies to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), across 20 countries. From 2003-2006, she was part of the leadership team of the UN Millennium Project, an advisory group convened by the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to recommend strategies for the MDGs. From 2001-2002 she worked on trade and HIV and AIDS programs at the United Nations. She has prior teaching experience at Harvard and Columbia universities.

Chandrika holds a Masters degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and a BA (Honours) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.

Padmanabhan Seshaiyer (PADHU) serves as an Associate Dean at George Mason University, Virginia (USA). His research interests are in the broad areas of Computational Mathematics, Scientific Computing, STEM Education, Design and Systems Thinking, Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development Goals. During the last decade, he has initiated and directed a variety of educational programs including faculty development, post-graduate, graduate and undergraduate research, K-12 outreach, teacher professional development, and enrichment programs to foster the interest of students and teachers in STEM at all levels.

He is also actively involved in multiple global STEM collaborative projects involving the SDG 2030 and training programs that engage students, teachers and faculty from over 20 countries. He has won several prestigious awards for his contributions to teaching and research and holds affiliate faculty positions in multiple institutions including Arizona State University (USA), the Nelson Mandela African Institute for Science and Technology (Tanzania) and Advanced Teachers Training College (Suriname). In April 2019, he was selected as one of the “Figures that Matter” for his contributions to Academia and Society and was awarded an honorary doctorate by Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Abdul Samad Ibrahim is Deputy Director at the State-of-the-Art Electronic Media Production Centre (EMPC) of the world’s largest Distance Learning Institution – the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).

As a senior educational technologist, he has worked with distinction in the field of educational technology for over 30 years. His work covers digitalisation of education from the development of e-content to delivery and management using multi-channels harnessing the best practices, including OERS and MOOCs.

He has incorporated behaviour change rooted in the evolution and revolution of Distance Learning through satellite-based applications to new media for training and development in collaboration with Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). Due to his eminence, he was voted for a full term as a member of the Board of Management of the Indira Gandhi National Open University.

Special mention should be made of his research on education in postmodern societies with a focus on fast-developing continents such as Africa. In this research, he highlighted the need for education to become circular, moving from the advancements of development and progress through an informative engagement with science and technology back to being embedded in one’s mother community.