PLE101
Opening Plenary OEB Global 2019
Date Thursday, Nov 28 Time – RoomPotsdam I and III
Amidst the emerging contours of the future, we are discovering learning. Learning as we have never known it before. Learning unleashed. Boundless learning. Learning without limits. We have moved beyond exploration to discovery. We see and experience what can happen. We feel the new, the imaginative, the unthinkable within our grasp. At the Opening Plenary of OEB 2019 we will be "discovering learning".
Iyad Rahwan
Founder of the Center for Humans & Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Associate Professor at the MIT Media Lab
Iyad Rahwan is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, where he founded the Center for Humans & Machines. He is also an Associate Professor of Media Arts & Sciences at the MIT Media Lab, where he leads the Scalable Cooperation group. A native of Aleppo, Syria, Rahwan holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is an affiliate faculty at the MIT Institute of Data, Systems and Society (IDSS), and member of the MIT Taskforce on the Work of the Future.
Wei Cui
Co-founder & Chief Scientist of Squirrel AI Learning
Dr. Wei Cui is a co-founder and Chief Scientist of Squirrel AI Learning by Yixue Group, the leading AI + adaptive education innovator at the forefront of AI revolution. Squirrel AI Learning has established more than 2, 300 learning centres in China within 5 years, and is included in the TOP 20 Chinese AI Unicorn Companies in 2019.
Dr. Cui led the development of Squirrel AI intelligent adaptive learning system, the pioneering AI-powered adaptive learning system for K-12 students in China, which has been proved to achieve a better effect at teaching than expert human-teachers in a series of certified human-vs-AI competitions.
Dr. Cui holds a PhD and was a postdoctoral fellow in artificial intelligence and algorithmic trading. He has published over 20 peer-reviewed academic papers and articles in areas of AI, agent-based modelling, complex adaptive system, quantitative finance and AI education.
Dr. Cui was awarded MIT Technology Review "35 Innovators Under 35 China” in 2018.
Audrey Watters
Freelance Writer, Education writer at Hack Education, independent scholar and author
Audrey Watters is a writer and independent scholar who focuses on education technology – its politics and its pedagogical implications. Although she was two chapters into her Comparative Literature dissertation, she decided to abandon academia, and she now happily fulfills the one job recommended to her by a junior high aptitude test: freelance writer.
She has written for The Baffler, The Atlantic, Vice, Edutopia, Hybrid Pedagogy, Inside Higher Ed, The School Library Journal, and elsewhere across the Web, but she is best known for her work on her own website Hack Education.
Audrey has given keynotes and presentations on education technology around the world and is the author of several books, including The Monsters of Education Technology, The Revenge of the Monsters of Education Technology, The Curse of the Monsters of Education Technology, The Monsters of Education Technology 4, and Claim Your Domain.
She is currently at work on her next book, Teaching Machines, which will be published by MIT Press. Audrey was a recipient of the Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship at Columbia University for the 2017–2018 academic year.
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Moderator
Donald H. Taylor
Chairman, Chair, Learning Technologies Conference Track
Donald H Taylor is a 25 year veteran of the learning, skills and human capital industries, with experience at every level from design and delivery to chairman of the board. He has been chairman of the Learning and Performance Institute since 2010.
A recognised commentator and organiser in the fields of workplace learning and learning technologies, Donald is passionately committed to helping develop the learning and development profession.
His background ranges from training delivery to director and vice-president positions in software companies. Donald has been a company director and shareholder for three companies through start up, growth and acquisition.
He is an influential writer and speaker in the fields of the professional development of L&D and of technology-supported learning. He was the 2007 recipient of the Colin Corder award for services to training and has chaired the Learning Technologies Conference since 2000. He also chairs the Learning and Skills Group, hosting its bi-weekly webinar programme, and edits Inside Learning Technologies Magazine. He is a graduate of Oxford University and in 2016 was awarded an honorary doctorate by Middlesex University in recognition of his work developing the L&D profession.