Posts Tagged ‘Dr. Abdullah bin Ali Al-Thani’

The second World Innovation Summit for Education took place in Doha, Qatar on December 7-9, 2010. Nearly 1300 dignitaries, thought leaders, disruptive ICT practitioners, program planners and policy makers were provided with a more focused program with deeper debates, better internet access, WISE web TV and WISE Twitter feeds to push out up live updates. This version included some interactive sessions with 2o Learner Voices of young men and women selected by WISE as leaders in development. Their voices were finally a more active part of the Summit, and should be expanded in as many sessions next year as possible, as they represented some of the most articulate, clear sources of feedback on the state of the art from the end-user perspective. Throughout the proceedings, delegates were capably assisted by a thoroughly professional army of WISE Logistics team members and Sheraton hotel hospitality staff who gracefully performed their supporting roles & duties. I particularly enjoyed meeting some friendly bomb-throwing "disruptive" educational anarchists representing  emerging or established ICT entitities. In particular Donald Clark, John Davitt, and  Tim Rylands provided persuasive perspectives (and ongoing sardonic, dry wit) of ways to achieve near-universal access through ...

I recently received notification of being invited to participate in the second installment of the Qatar Foundation’s hosting of the 2010 World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE). WISE is a three day global conversation with 1000 thought leaders about building concrete, innovative, and sustainable education practices for the world’s diverse learning communities in Doha, Qatar on December 7-9, 2010. WISE 2009 snapshot review Last year's event  was an ambitious beginning aimed at convening a representative cross section of professionals & practitioners to take an open-minded look at the  overall status of the world's efforts to provide educational access, quality, and meaning.  The Qatar Foundation and Summit attendees worked towards creating a balanced perspective between celebrating technological breakthroughs, the resilience of  the human spirit, & noteworthy  achievements with facing the realities of  unconscionable/unacceptable deficits of teaching/educational infrastructure, poverty, and inequalities that block access to the majority of the world's educational minorities  daily. For me, it was an opportunity to connect, listen, and share with other program leaders about the critical need to include people of all ages with disabilities into any educational reform calculations. Our voices were few, but clearly heard and important for those from other sectors of the K-20 system to appreciate that ...

The Qatar Foundation recently launched the first World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) in the capital city of Doha on November 16-18, 2009. Three years in the making, its overall objective is to take on the task improving/providing global access to education for citizens as a basic human right through promoting/scaling/replicating concrete initiatives that are sustainable, innovative, and inclusive.  Over 1000 educational professionals,practitioners, and media from 90 countries participated in this invitation-only Summit, that was competently assisted by a small army of over 200 logistical/support personnel and many volunteers from the Qatar Youth Foundation.  The Summit attempted to find common ground among the many competing and often contradicting issues between what constitutes best and available practices in both the emerging and developed world's educational systems. It will now become an annual event, whose agenda and true global impact will grow as concrete partnerships, collaborations, and opportunities to create systemic educational change are brought to the Qatar Foundation and the Royal family's attention. There was a decided focus on higher education (voices speaking out about poverty, gender bias, and disability were heard too) as being the key pathway to economic opportunity, global citizenship, and peaceful resolutions to social problems that have plagued humanity since the dawn of civilization.  It was a great honor and responsibility to ...