Meet the OEB25 Speakers: Keynote Yong Zhao

Professor Zhao is a Foundation Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas and a globally recognised scholar on education, globalisation, and technology. He is the author of nearly 40 books, and has worked with schools around the world to design innovative models of learning. We are pleased to welcome him to the keynote stage at OEB25.

What was your first thought about this year’s conference theme “Humanity in the Intelligent Age: Empathy, Responsibility, and the Duty of Care”?

I think you mean the Artificial Intelligent Age as AI has become increasingly powerful and can already outperform a large percentage of humans in numerous jobs. You could also mean that we have arrived at an age that demands humans to become more intelligent because of the rapid development of AI. Whatever you mean, human beings need to be empathetic, responsible and perform more duty of care is a fact. In the 21st Century, human beings still have not learned to care for each other, as evidenced by the numerous human conflicts, including wars and genocides all over the world, neither has human beings learned to take care of the natural environment that provides support for their lives. For a better future, human beings must change their mindset about other human beings and Mother Nature. Education systems and institutions must change from meritocracy to human interdependence.

If you could look into the year 2045, what do you envision learning will be driven by?

It depends on whether or how much current education leaders and educators are courageous to make changes, whether they are willing to invent the future instead of keeping fixing the past. If changes could happen, I think in 2045, human learning will largely be driven by a combination of humans and AI-driven technological tools. Human learners would co-evolve with AI, and the human teachers or adults would serve as humans in the loop in the process. Learning would be personalised, focused on finding and solving problems, and driven by the purpose to build human interdependence.

Which learning technology has recently impressed you?

Of course, Artificial Intelligence technologies are extremely impressive, despite the various problems and issues such as hallucination and biases. But I am not impressed with how AI is used in schools.

Which book should everyone read?

I am not a believer that there is one book that everyone should read. In education, I’d recommend one of my books, What Works May Hurt: Side Effects in Education, published by Teachers College Press, which presents the contradictions of educational outcomes and practices based on data.

What was your most significant learning experience?

I have had many significant learning experiences. One of them is reading the book The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, And The Attack On America’s Public Schools by Berliner and Biddle. The book taught me how to think about evidence and data.

Which question is asked too rarely when we talk about learning?

What is the cost of learning is perhaps the question we ask too rarely when we talk about learning and education. All learning has a cost, time, energy, and the lost opportunity to learn other things when one chooses to learn one. We must consider, for example, when you spend time and energy learning one skill or a subject, you are unable to spend the same time learning other things, but other things you are not learning might be more important.

What would be the title of your autobiography?

I just wrote a biographical book and an article. I used Improbable Probabilities for both.

What are you looking forward to the most at this year’s OEB?

I am looking forward to sharing my thinking about education with and learning from all the participants.


Thank you, Yong! Yong Zhao will be speaking at one of the OEB25 Friday Plenaries.


Professor Yong Zhao has authored numerous influential books and articles. You can explore his work at: https://zhaolearning.com/

Written for OEB 2025.