The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), an initiative of Qatar Foundation (QF), has hosted its sixth regional forum, WISE@Paris, under the theme ‘Education Futures: Fostering Learning Societies.’
The two-day event, which concluded on Thursday, was held under the patronage of French President Emmanuel Macron.
WISE@Paris gathered over 800 local and international thought leaders, practitioners, innovators, and media representatives to discuss and foster the learning societies of today and tomorrow, with the forum also seeing the theme for the next edition of the WISE Summit – to be held in Doha in November – being unveiled.
On the first day of WISE@Paris, participants had the opportunity to create their own learning journey by joining discussions and interactive sessions around the future of learning at various venues in Paris.
These sessions were organised by WISE and its partners, including the Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), Education Above All, Sciences Po, and Pixis and Ashoka from Station F – the world’s largest startup campus.
The second day of the forum, held at Palais de Tokyo, featured an engaging set up of formats that allowed topics such as ‘Rethinking K-12 Education’, ‘Empowering Teachers and Education Leaders’, ‘Decrypting the Future of Work’, and ‘Cultivating Global Citizenship’, to be explored through a variety of interactive experiences and discussions.
Omran al-Kuwari, CEO, Qatar Foundation International, delivered the keynote speech on the second day of WISE@Paris.
“WISE is a response to the necessity of revitalising education and providing a global platform for the development of new ideas and solutions. It has evolved into a thriving global, multi-sectoral community, which continues to generate fruitful dialogue and productive partnerships,” al-Kuwari said.
“WISE@ events are local and regional education conferences that take place between WISE’s biennial global summits. The successful model of the WISE Summit has been adapted to create engagement activities that take place over one to two days, using the convening expertise of WISE and its access to a broad global community of experts in education. With the support of local partners, we have been able to take WISE on the road.”
Additional WISE@Paris speakers included Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock MBE, a space scientist and co-presenter of the BBC programme The Sky At Night, and Nicolas Sadirac, Founder of 42, a private, nonprofit and tuition-free computer programming school.
Stavros Yiannouka, CEO, WISE, said: “"We believe that our ideas about the future matter in education. Through these ideas we can proactively address the challenges and opportunities posed by emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and automation in the workplace.
"And we need to seize this moment to rethink what it means to be human. We are proud to announce that the theme for this year’s summit in November will be: UnLearn – ReLearn: What it Means to be Human.”
The biennial summit will be held on November 19-21, in Doha, Qatar, and will bring together a range of diverse stakeholders to explore and share ideas, and to collaborate toward creative action in education creative action in education.
Previous WISE@ events have been held in Accra, Beijing, Madrid, Tunis, and, most recently, New York during the UN Global Goals Week in September 2018.
These regional events are grounded in partnership with stakeholders to drive transformation in education with major change-makers and influencers, with the aim of generating tangible global educational impact.