{"id":16019,"date":"2025-11-24T21:53:05","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T19:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/?p=16019"},"modified":"2025-11-25T11:49:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T09:49:04","slug":"meet-the-oeb25-speakers-keynote-aruj-khaliq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oeb.global\/oeb-insights\/meet-the-oeb25-speakers-keynote-aruj-khaliq\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the OEB25 Speakers: Keynote Aruj\u00a0Khaliq"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We are delighted to welcome Aruj Khaliq as a keynote speaker for the OEB Annual Plenary Debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Founder and AI Policy Advisor, Aruj works at the intersection of technology, ethics and public policy. Her research at the University of Oxford examines how intelligent systems influence human agency, while her advisory work in Pakistan supports the development of AI-ready education frameworks that safeguard what makes us human.

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What was your first thought about this year\u2019s conference theme \u201cHumanity in the Intelligent Age: Empathy, Responsibility, and the Duty of Care\u201d?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

My first thought was that this theme \u2014 \u201cHumanity in the Intelligent Age: Empathy, Responsibility, and the Duty of Care\u201d \u2014 perfectly captures the moral and intellectual frontier my own work inhabits while raising pertinent questions around intelligent machines and their subsequent impact on our shared humanity. Drawing from my most recent research that I carried out at the University of Oxford, AI and human agency, I explored how technology can either expand or erode our capacity to act with empathy and moral intent. One of the significant results included highlighting the thinking machine paradox (as I liked to call it). Zooming back to the OEB25 theme, it constantly reminds me that intelligence, no matter how advanced, must remain accountable to the human condition.
Back home in Pakistan, through my work in academia and governance, and particularly in my AI advisory role with country\u2019s Ministry of Planning and Development, I\u2019ve led these questions to move from theory to policy. Whether drafting educational frameworks, advising on AI governance, or rethinking how schools prepare young people for the future, the same dilemma persists: how do we ensure that progress remains humane? So my first thought about this year\u2019s theme was that it is not just timely \u2014 it is necessary. In an age of intelligent systems, our truest measure of progress is not how smart our technologies become, but how steadfastly we preserve empathy, responsibility, and care in the systems we build. Thus, it boils down to us \u2013 humans \u2013 guarding our humanity.

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If you could look into the year 2045, what do you envision learning will be driven by?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If I look into 2045, I believe learning will be driven by what I call augmented humanity \u2014 futures where technology doesn\u2019t replace us, but amplifies our capacity to think, empathise, and act with purpose. My exposure to academia and policy spheres constantly reminds me that the real question isn\u2019t how intelligent machines can become, but how humane we can remain. So by 2045, I imagine classrooms where AI becomes the mirror of our empathy, not the measure of our intelligence \u2014 where learning is no longer about answers, but about conscience. That, I think, is the true evolution of education in the intelligent age.

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Which learning technology has recently impressed you?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The learning technology that\u2019s impressed me most recently is AI-enabled reading glasses for differently-abled children. What moves me is that they don\u2019t make learning faster \u2014 they make it fairer. They give children the independence to read on their own, transforming assistance into agency. For me, this innovation proves a simple truth: the smartest technologies are those that make us more human.

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Which book should everyone read?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If I could recommend one book everyone should read, it would be 1984 by George Orwell. Long before artificial intelligence, Orwell foresaw the dangers of a world where truth is programmed and empathy is obsolete. To me, 1984 is more than a warning \u2014 it\u2019s a reminder that in the intelligent age, the most radical act of progress is to remain human.

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What was your most significant learning experience?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As an intervention scientist and avid problem-solver, I am trained to inherently look for solutions for social causes. My most significant experience came from when I designed, led and successfully ECO Schools \u2013 which was Pakistan\u2019s biggest nation-wide intervention focused on sustainability education. It taught me invaluable lessons for it helped me to actually use my Oxfordian qualification in a real-life setting.

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Which question is asked too rarely when we talk about learning?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I think the question we rarely ask is: \u201cAre we teaching people how to care?\u201d We talk about innovation, assessment, and digital transformation \u2014 but we seldom ask how education shapes empathy, humility, and moral courage.

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What would be the title of your autobiography?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I think I\u2019d call it \u201cClouds in My Kaleidoscope.\u201d It captures how I\u2019ve come to see life \u2014 not as a fixed picture, but as shifting patterns of colour, light, and meaning. The clouds represent uncertainty, movement, and change; the kaleidoscope, the way perspective transforms everything we see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n



Thank you, Aruj! Aruj Khaliq<\/a> will be speaking at the OEB25 Annual Debate “This House believes that catering to shorter attention spans is dumbing down education<\/a><\/mark>” on Thursday, 4 December.

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Join Aruj at #OEB2025!<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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We are delighted to welcome Aruj Khaliq as a keynote speaker for the OEB Annual Plenary Debate. A Founder and AI Policy Advisor, Aruj works at the intersection of technology, ethics and public policy. Her research at the University of Oxford examines how intelligent systems influence human agency, while her advisory work in Pakistan supports […]<\/p>\n

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