MidSummit

Arda is Learning Technologies Manager of Turkey’s biggest private bank Isbank. He is interested in digital learning solutions for effective and engaging learning experience. Arda believes that it is extremely important to utilize the opportunities provided by digital age in learning methods. He tries to apply this approach to all learning projects in which he is involved. The last project he led is IsVille, which is Isbank’s strategy game.

Throughout Arda's 12 year HR and corporate learning career, he has worked on e-learning, video learning, gamification and LMS projects. Arda currently coordinates technology-supported learning solutions strategy for over 24.000 employees of Isbank and shares his experiences and thoughts on technology and learning in his personal blog, he is also passionate about playing real-time strategy games.

Director of David Banes Access and Inclusion Services and formerly CEO, at the Qatar Assistive Technology and Accessibility Center, David has developed services ensuring the digital inclusion of disabled people. He works across Middle East and Europe to address how access is maintained during periods of technical and social change, seeking to build capacity, linking awareness, policy, technology development and the need for training.

With a background in special needs education and supporting digital inclusion in Europe, he supports emerging access ecosystems promoting cooperation between states, supports development of accesisble technology solutions and content.

Recent work includes a framework for contextualisation of access technology, transference of knowledge across communities and a policy framework to address the rights of people with a disability. His current activity includes educational support for refugees and the disruptive innovation upon the access industry.

Professor Harold Bekkering and his Action and Neurocognition Group are trying to unravel the complex processes that underlie human cooperation. Together, they are studying how we respond to one another, how we are able to learn from one another, and above all, how precisely all this is worked out in our brains.

Jessica Bell works as a developer for The Washington Post, primarily on front end and JavaScript projects. She holds a degree in International Relations from San Fransisco State and focused on international education exchange during her studies. After university, Jessica worked with the American Friends of theAlexander von Humboldt Foundation, running all things digital in the office including producing a blog on internationalization of education and post doctoral research. During her time there, Jessica taught herself to code and transitioned into becoming a full time web developer. Jessica now sits on the leadership teams for DC Tech Meetup and DCFemTech and is an active member of Women Who Code DC. She teaches at General Assembly throughout the year classes helping people learn the basics of code and web development. Her current side project is DC Tech Stories, a podcast about local tech workers, following their stories about what inspires their tech, and how they became technical workers.

Jamie Brook works as the eLearning Manager at Phonak Headquarters, where he provides technical input and support for eLearning projects using a range of creative, digital tools. He has over 7 years of professional experience creating 2D and 3D interactive media content for a variety of industries from the medical field to the oil and gas energy sector. In addition, Jamie has a keen interest and understanding of numerous aspects of user-interface, user-experience and developing interaction in training.

Professor Mark Brown is Ireland's first Chair in Digital Learning and Director of the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL). Prior to taking up this position at the start of 2014, Mark was Director of the National Centre for Teaching and Learning as well as Director of the Distance Education and Learning Futures Alliance (DELFA) at Massey University, New Zealand. In addition, Mark had responsibility for oversight of the Central Hub of Ako Aotearoa - National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence. 

Over the last decade, Mark has played key leadership roles in the implementation of several major university-wide digital learning and teaching initiatives, including the selection and enterprise-wide deployment of Moodle, the original design and development of the Mahara e-portfolio system, a major implementation of a rich media learning platform [Mediasite], and the first New Zealand university-wide implementation of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform [Open2Study].

Frank is currently dean of institute of Communication studies at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. He is involved in higher education since 1988 at a variety of (international) institutions and bodies for HE and vocational education in the Netherlands, such as the UNESCO-IHE (International Water Management Education for developing countries), Utrecht University, The Hague University of Applied Sciences. He is familiar with both consultancy and management roles at different management institutional/board levels. He is founder/director of MILLS Development, a management and consultancy firm for education and training.

Frank takes great interest in educational management and governance issues, educational development and innovation, quality assurance and human resource and team development in education.  Regarding educational development and innovation, his focus is always on the added value and meaning of talent focused education, from both a personal, societal and economical point of view.

He studied educational technology/pedagogy at Leiden University and Higher Management at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, after his initial teacher training in Amsterdam.

Read more about his views on transition in higher education here.

Stephanie Butler is the Director of New Product Development at Turnitin, where she leads their international expansion of products to improve student writing. In 2014, Stephanie joined Turnitin after they acquired LightSide Labs, a machine learning research startup spun out of Carnegie Mellon University. At LightSide, Stephanie was employee #2 and head of product and design. Prior to moving into technology startups, Stephanie worked in publishing for several years, acting as editor on multiple university-level Rhetoric and Composition volumes, as well as Fodor's travel guide to New Zealand. She received her Bachelor’s degree in English from Harvard University and her Masters in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon.

Donald is an entrepreneur. He was the CEO of one of the leading companies in the UK e-learning market. And despite the fact that he is an investor, board-member and trustee of various organisations and has been involved in consulting and implementing online learning across sectors, he still describes himself as ‘free from the tyranny of employment’.

Donald has won many awards for the design and implementation of online learning. He is a regular speaker at national and international conferences on topics from AI to VR and a regular (and controversial!) blogger on online learning.

Bert’s professional life is all about competent people. He thinks, publishes, consults, designs and sets up learning and development projects for corporations. His areas of expertise include technology enhanced learning and leadership development.

Bert has been active in the field of corporate learning and e-learning for the last 15 years, first as instructor and course designer, later as project manager, consultant and business development manager. He worked at IBM Learning Development Europe where he was responsible for commercial e-learning development projects across Europe, and the management of the learning innovation initiatives. Five years ago he joined the Center for Creative Leadership where he is now a faculty and EMEA's IP & Innovation Lead. Bert wrote the book 'Homo Competens – Let’s talk about competent people in the network age', frequently speaks at conferences such as OEB and blogs.

Bert is currently a faculty member of the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) EMEA office. In his role he designs and develops customized leadership interventions and programs for clients. He is also the IP and Innovation Lead, making knowledge flow and orchestrating innovation initiatives.

Read more about his views on Leadership here.

Her professional journey (Institute of Tropical Medicine - Belgium, Athabasca University - Canada, The Open University – UK, and Women's gender equality movement - Belgium) immersed her in online and mobile learning from 1999 onward. She has set-up, coordinated and developed several online and mobile learning projects, always with a focus on participation and durability. These projects involved partners and individuals from both the Northern (Canada, United States, Italy, Belgium, Ireland, Germany, UK) and Southern regions (South-Africa, India, Peru, Morocco). As an avid enthusiast of open science, she is an active international speaker giving keynotes and guest lectures, as well as providing knowledge input (and consequently receiving lots of input) at seminars, SIGs and workshops.   

Enlightened by the first connectivist MOOCs, she has set up one of the first MOOCs on mobile learning, called MobiMOOC (2011 & 2012), enabling learners to realize their own project. In 2013 she decided to investigate FutureLearn MOOCs and specifically how individual learners with online learning experience self-direct their learning, which resulted in obtaining a PhD at the Open University in UK.

She has come to realize that there is no single solution for all. The diversity which is at the core of nature’s success, seems to be replicated by the diversity in learning preferences and ways to achieve learning success in humans. 

Dr Maren Deepwell is the Association for Learning Technology (ALT)’s Chief Executive. ALT is the UK's leading membership organisation in the learning technology field. Maren's work is focused on working with the ALT community, researchers, practitioners and policy makers and to provide overall leadership for the Association. She works to develop ALT's understanding of the community and ensures that ALT's work aligns with the demands of the rapidly developing learning landscape.

Yusuf is a Senior Fellow at the Institute For Statecraft and is head of Institutes' Communities Engagement programme. He understands different theological and cultural narratives that impact and drive the diversity of Muslim communities in UK. That is how he has managed to develop with Institutes' support exclusive engagement programmes for grassroots communities in the former industrial towns and cities of UK, to engage with British establishment especially the Armed forces which has enabled Muslim youths both male and female to develop their life skills, employability and leadership capacity.

Yusuf is currently researching ISIS propaganda and online radicalisation of Muslim youths globally in order to both counter and build resistance of young people through education platforms that help and teach how to discern untruth and analyse conspiracy theories from truth and reality. Yusuf believes and continues to advocate in such forum discussions, that it will take a huge and concerted effort on the part of the Western societies and educators to emancipate Muslims living in the West. A real effort needs to be made (and it is not yet being made) to inculcate in young Muslims a real understanding of Western modernity and secularism. This needs to be delivered through education platforms in order to counter their widespread and often acute sense of disenfranchisement.

Yusuf has Master’s degree (MSc) in ‘International Security and Global Governance from University of London.

Claudia Dowell despite every advantage of having an engineer for a father has been slow to come to the technology table. Since graduating from University College London in 1988 with an honours in Philosophy she has shaped a marketing career into ever senior roles within education and online learning in both for-profits and Universities. Fascinated by how collaborative technology is changing societies she feels that the time is perfect to proactively shape the next evolution in education through technology. Finally at the epicenter of the most exciting shift in education in centuries, made possible because of technology, she brings a singular optimism and driving ambition to ensure that technology is the motor behind thoughtful change.

Dr Harold Elletson is an International Communications Consultant and Senior Fellow of the Institute for Statecraft.

He is a founding director of the Africa Forum on Business, Investment and Security, a member of the steering committee of OEB, a member of the Organising Committee of eLearning Africa and a consultant to ICWE GmbH. He is also the editor of The eLearning Africa Report, which is published every year and contains a survey of ICT in education in Africa, a comprehensive country report outlining progress in ICT4E in every African country and a funding guide.

Dr Elletson was previously Director of the NATO Forum on Business and Security, which he created with support from the NATO Science Programme.

A former Member of the United Kingdom Parliament (from 1992-1997), he served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the early stages of the peace process and was also a member of the Select Committee on Environmental affairs. He served as a member of the Lancashire Education Authority (the Education Committee of Lancashire County Council) before being elected to Parliament where he represented the interests of schools and colleges in his constituency in discussions with Ministers and on the floor of the House of Commons. He is a Fellow of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme and of the Industry and Parliament Trust.

As a communications and public affairs specialist, he has advised many leading companies on aspects of their business in challenging markets, including BP in Azerbaijan and Alstom in Siberia. He has written widely on political and historical subjects and his first book, The General Against the Kremlin, was published by Little Brown. His journalism has been published in a variety of newspapers and magazines. Dr Elletson holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Bradford.

Karl Friðriksson is the chairman of the Icelandic Center for Future Studies and managing director of Human resources and marketing at the Innovation Center of Iceland. He has worked for decades in the fields of marketing and product development and future studies with emphases on scenario planning.

He has extensive experience in strategic planning, future studies and clusters for companies and municipalities, as well as applied benchmarking. He has authored a host of articles, books, lectures and publications in the field of management.

Dr. Mairéad Nic Giolla Mhichíl is currently a Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow, with the National Institute of Digital Learning in Dublin City University, researching Massive Open Online Courses and implementing the University's Strategic Initiative in this area.

She is a Fulbright Scholar with the University of Notre Dame in the USA and Senior Lecturer in Information Technology in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in DCU. Mairéad is involved in a number of European research projects as both PI and researcher. Her research interests are interdisciplinary and include technology in teaching and learning; policy implementation and organisational change in higher education.

Atish Gonsalves is a social technologist, entrepreneur and the Global Learning Director of the Humanitarian Leadership Academy based in London.

Prior to the Academy, Atish was the Executive Director of DisasterReady.org (in Los Angeles, USA) and has worked for many years with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) where he led the learning technology team. With a background in technology and human-computer interaction (HCI), Atish’s experience includes a combination of technology sector and humanitarian roles, having moved between the two sectors over the last 18 years. Atish is a global citizen, has lived in six countries (India, Australia, Switzerland, Hungary, US and UK) and has travelled to over 40 countries. Atish is a regular speaker at conferences and webinars on the role of technology-enhanced learning, and has published a number of articles and papers.

Danny joined Oracle in January 2013 with more than 15 years of experience managing vendor-led technology education programs. He was formerly the EMEA program leader at Learning@Cisco. He has worked with Ministries of Education around the world from Russia to Africa.

Danny’s global experience contributes to his passion for ensuring that young people develop the skills to become the leaders and entrepreneurs of the future. Danny looks after the Oracle Academy EMEA, as Senior Manager, is responsible for strategic initiatives & private-public partnerships,  works closely with the European Union Grand Coalition, and is board member of the European e-Skills Association, and is involved the ICT Foundation Body of Knowledge.

Valerie Hannon’s career spans leadership of education systems, research, teaching, and capacity building. She is now an established thought leader in the field of education innovation.

Valerie co-founded Innovation Unit (UK and Australia) and has supported education change programmes in numerous systems, including the UK, Europe, USA , Australia and Africa. She is a founding member and Co-Chair of the Global Education Leaders Partnership (GELP) supporting jurisdictions globally to scale their innovation and transform their systems.

Valerie is an expert adviser on education to the OECD, and a frequent contributor to the World Summit on Innovation in Education (WISE). She is a regular keynote speaker and facilitator at international conferences and workshops.  Earlier books include Learning A Living: radical innovation in education for work (Bloomsbury, 2012); and Redesigning Education: shaping learning systems around the globe (Booktrope, 2013) which she co-authored. Her new book THRIVE: schools reinvented for the real challenges we face is available from May 2017.

Kirsten Ingmar Heiss is the CEO of OpenCampus GmbH, a startup company with focus on education management and open adoption technology. Together with several German universities, OpenCampus has built the unique OpenCampus framework to manage education processes and next generation learning. Kirsten studied Medicine at the Technical University Munich and was working as a resident physician at the Institue of Human Genetics at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munich and as a stringer consultant for Gartner. As a consultant for the United Nations Development Programme and the Worldbank he conducted several education related projects in Eastern Europe before he founded OpenCampus GmbH.

Dr. Ari Jonsson is the president of Reykjavik University; a private non-profit university in Iceland that focuses on education, research and industry collaboration in the areas of technology, business and law.

Dr. Jonsson completed his doctoral degree in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1997, with focus on artificial intelligence and autonomous decision- making. He then joined NASA as a research scientist, working on the development of automated technology to improve the efficiency and reliability of spacecraft operations. During his tenure at NASA, he managed a number of research and development projects, contributing to missions such as the Deep Space One experimental spacecraft, the Mars exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity, and the operations of the International Space Station.

In 2007, Dr. Jonsson moved to Reykjavik University as the Dean of the School of Computer Science. In January 2010, he became the President of the university and has served in that role since then. Dr. Jonsson is active in policy development and has served for over seven years on the Icelandic Science and Technology Policy Council. 

Dr. Jonsson actively supports the innovation and entrepreneurship environment in Iceland. He is the Chairman of the Board for one startup and a board member for a few other companies.

Helen Keegan is a UK National Teaching Fellow, currently holding a dual role as Principal Project Lead for the Disruptive Media Learning Lab (University of Coventry) and Senior Lecturer/Researcher at the University of Salford, MediaCity UK.

Her expertise lies in curriculum innovation using mobile and participatory media, with a focus on creativity, interdisciplinarity and playful learning. She is particularly known for her work on alternate reality gaming, digital cultures and identities, and the interplay between formal and informal learning. Helen works across sciences and media arts, developing partnerships and creative approaches to learning and collaboration, both in the UK and overseas.

Read more about her views on Learning Places here.

Andrew Keen is one of the world’s best known and controversial commentators on the digital revolution.

He is the author of three books: Cult of the Amateur, Digital Vertigo and his current international hit The Internet Is Not The Answer which the London Sunday Times acclaimed as a "powerful, frightening read" and the Washington Post called "an enormously useful primer for those of us concerned that online life isn't as shiny as our digital avatars would like us to believe". 

He is executive director of the Silicon Valley innovation salonFutureCast, the host of the popular Internet chat show "Keen On", a Senior Fellow at CALinnovates,a columnist for CNN and a much acclaimed public speaker around the world. 

In 2015, he was named by GQ magazine in their list of the "100 Most Connected Men”.

Ben Nelson is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Minerva Project, a reinvented university experience for the brightest and most motivated students.

Prior to Minerva, Ben spent more than 10 years at Snapfish, where he served as CEO from 2005 to June 2010. He began his tenure as CEO by leading Snapfish’s sale to Hewlett Packard for $300M. Previously, Ben was president and CEO of Community Ventures, a network of locally branded portals for America’s communities.

Ben holds a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with honors. It was at Penn that Ben first realized his passion for reforming undergraduate education.

Tony O’Driscoll heads Strategic Leadership Solutions for Duke CE. In this role he leads global development of solutions focused on getting leaders ready for what’s next.  During his 18-year industry career, Tony held several leadership positions with Nortel Networks and IBM. He was a founding member of IBM Global Service’s Strategy and Change consulting practice. Prior to joining Duke CE, Tony served on the Faculty of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management. At Fuqua, Tony played a key role in redesigning the Cross Continent MBA (CCMBA) program and served as Executive Director of Fuqua’s Center for Technology Entertainment and Media (CTEM), a research center dedicated to understanding the strategic, structural, and business-model issues with these vibrant and volatile industry sectors.

His book “Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration”, examines the impact of the emerging immersive Internet on human capital strategy and practice. Tony also wrote “Achieving Desired Business Performance”, exploring the discipline of Human Performance Technology and how it can be integrated with Organization Design and Training and Development to create a more comprehensive and effective approach to building organization capability.

Tony writes a regular column for Training Magazine, focusing on identifying and implementing next-generation learning strategies and approaches that accelerate the development of Leadership Sense-Abilities.

Mike Olsen is Co-founder of Proctorio, an online proctoring company that uses machine learning technology to validate student activity and identities in computer-based learning environments. Dubbed an “Artful Hacker” by PC Magazine and named one of “Arizona’s 35 Entrepreneurs Under 35” by the Arizona Republic, Mike is a leader in creating educational technology that protects student privacy while increasing the value of online degrees. As Lead Research Software Engineer for ASU Online, Mike helped develop one of the world’s premiere online educational systems. Having graduated from Arizona State University with degrees in Aeronautics and Software Engineering, Mike has a reputation for disrupting old paradigms and increasing student success in digital classrooms.

Dr Elvira Perez Vallejos is a Senior Research Fellow at Horizon Institute for Digital Economy Research, the University of Nottingham (School of Computer Science). She is also a Fellow Researcher at the Institute of Mental Health where she has co-founded a youth-led research group aiming to improve mental, spiritual and physical well-being among children and young people. Dr Perez is passionate about designing new interventions to promote digital citizenship as well as youth engagement in political and civic matters. Her research usually includes co-production and creative elements (e.g., drama or dancing) to ensure interventions are engaging and learning effortless. Recently, she has managed the development and coordination of the UnBias Youth Juries and conducted a comparative study involving more than 200 young people to assess the efficacy of the youth juries. She is currently developing an Open Educational Resource to facilitate the delivery of the youth juries.

Dr. Larry Ragan has served since 2012 as a Co-Director for the Center for Online Innovation in Learning at Penn State, where he helps direct the center's mission of research, scholarship, technology innovation, and leadership development programming. Dr. Ragan has been a part of the creation and management of Penn State World Campus since its inception in 1998, serving as Director for Instructional Design and Development and Director of Faculty Development.

 Since 2009, Dr. Ragan has served as Co-Director of the Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL). In partnership with the leadership at the Online Learning Consortium (formerly Sloan-C), IELOL addresses the operational and strategic leadership of the design, development, and preparation of the next-generation of leadership in online learning. Dr. Ragan previously served as founding Co-director and faculty of the EDUCAUSE Learning Technology Leadership program. He is active in the design and delivery of international leadership development institutes, and in 2011, was recognized as a Sloan-C Faculty Fellow.

Paola Rattu works as instructional designer at the Phonak headquarters, where she provides consultation and support services in instructional design, strategies, assessment, technology and distributed learning to audiological trainers worldwide.

Her professional background as instructional designer in academia and as teacher and her extensive education in social sciences help Paola to appraise learning and development from a global perspective, taking into consideration both the trainers’ and trainees’ expectations and the wider socio-economic contexts where the learning is taking place.

She’s passionate about andragogy, social geography and Franco-Italian cooking.

Professor Sahin is the founding rector of MEF University since March 2013. He started his academic career in 1988 as a Research Fellow in the Department of Surveying Techniques at Istanbul Technical University. In 2002, he became a tenured Professor in the Department of Surveying Techniques at Istanbul Technical University and served as the Rector of Istanbul Technical University 2008 and 2012. 

MEF University opened to students in 2014, is a non-profit foundation university situated in the European side of Istanbul in the growing financial and commercial hub of the city. 

Professor Sahin’s vision was for MEF University to be unique from other universities based on a Flipped Learning/Flipped Classroom approach. Undeterred by feedback regarding the Flipped Learning from seasoned academics, and convinced that the Flipped Learning approach was the right approach for millennial students, Professor Sahin trialed the approach with both professors and students in focus groups.

Find out more about the vision and methods at MEF University here.

Burak is a training specialist at Türkiye İş Bankası. He is highly enthusiastic about new technologies, social media and gaming. He designs video learning and e-learning courses. He has been part of several gamification and online learning projects for the last 5 years, and constantly looks for new learning methods for more engaging learning experience. As a result of this quest he has worked on the game project: IsVille.

Burak is also creator of a YouTube gaming channel which has nearly 75.000 subscribers. He currenty works for Turkey’s biggest private bank Isbank. He combined his 6 years of experience in evaluation of credit requests and financial analysis with the 5 years experience in design and development of technology based learning solution.

Roger Schank is one of the world's leading visionaries in artificial intelligence, learning theory, cognitive science, and the building of virtual learning environments. He is CEO of Socratic Arts, a company whose goal is to design and implement learning-by-doing, story-centered curricula in schools, universities, and corporations.

Read more about his critical view on traditional education here.

Dr. Andrew Shean focuses on the centralization of resources in collaboration with academic leaders to drive greater productivity in order to better position and deliver even HIGHER quality education through consistency of best practices in instructional design, innovative use of educational technology, and successful student outcomes.

He has been the Vice Provost of Curriculum and Innovation at Ashford University, where he was responsible for providing leadership, supervision, and direction for all academic and educational affairs of the University and related programs. Prior to assuming the position of Vice Provost, Dr. Shean was the Executive Dean of Ashford’s College of Education.

In 2014, Dr. Shean was selected to be one of six faculty that lead the Institute for Engaged Leadership in Online Education through Penn State World Campus in partnership with Sloan-C. This program is intended for a selective group of emerging leaders from online institutions.

In the earlier stages of his career, Dr. Shean helped lead the Poway Unified School District’s initiative to develop an online education program. He also served as a high school English teacher where he was named the 2009 District Teacher of the Year.

Dr. Shean currently serves on the board for Junior Achievement in San Diego and No Excuses University. He teaches in the doctoral programs at Brandman University and Alliant International University. Additionally, he serves on many dissertation committees and is highly involved in research and scholarship.

Dr. Shean earned his Doctorate of Educational Leadership and Management degree from Alliant International University. He holds an MA in Education and a BA in Sociology from the University of Northern Colorado.

P. Robert-Jan Simons graduated in Psychology (developmental and educational) at the University of Amsterdam in 1973 and worked as a researcher in the universities of Amsterdam, Nijmegen, Tilburg and Utrecht. His PHD on the role of concrete analogies in learning took place at Tilburg University (1981). From 1990 to 2001 Simons was professor of educational psychology at the University of Nijmegen, where he directed the Research Institute for Pedagogy and Education. From 2001 -2014 he had a chair at Utrecht University focusing on learning with ICT. From 2006 - 2010 he was dean of the IVLOS institute of Teacher training and education at Utrecht University. From 2010 – 2014 he was also director of the Netherlands School of Educational Management (NSO), an institute based in Amsterdam that educates school leaders. Since 2014 he became an independent consultant and researcher, directing his own company “Visie op leren (vision om learning)”. His main research topics are digital learning, feedback, peerfeedback, learning styles and organisational learning.

Willem Spee is currently the head of the National Board of Communication Studies. He has devoted his professional career to the advancement and innovation of professional education, both on community college and university level. He is driven by the idea that good and innovative professional education is an essential factor in socio-economic development and in the emancipation and empowerment of the professionals themselves.

It is his conviction that good professional education can only thrive in good professional teams in good organizations. This requires both personal and organizational leadership that is based on explicit core values and a strong relationship with the professional field, which demands constant content-, didactical and technological driven innovation.

Willem Spee has been involved in professional education in all sorts of roles, both as teacher, manager and consultant. Amongst others he was teacher at the Utrecht School of Journalism, board-member of one of the largest community colleges in the Netherlands, board member of CITO, one of the world’s leading educational test institutes and lately head of Communication Studies at the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences.

Read more about his views on transition in higher education here.

Else is a Project manager and instructional designer at SmartLearning, which provides online education in higher education in Denmark. She also has extensive experience as an online teacher in communication, and conduct workshops as speaker or facilitator.

Tryggvi is a project manager for Education Plaza, working with educators’ communities of practice to enhance professional development and develop innovative approaches to address educational issues.

He is also a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative and International Development Education. His dissertation research focuses on educational policy and decision makers’ use of foresight programs to support future-oriented long-term policy making.

Learn more about Tryggvi's views and work in our article here.

Arnfríður (Adda Rúna) Valdimarsdóttir is a Senior Adviser at the Icelandic Ministry for Education, Science and Culture. After a double degree in pedagogy (2000) and art & vocational education (2004) in Copenhagen, Danmark she worked as cultural consultant. She lived 13 years in Denmark but has been resident in Iceland since 2008. She worked for the Reykjavík City Department for Culture and Tourism and Department for education and youth as a project manager responsible for cultural innovative projects, such as Young People’s Constitution, Reykjavík Children’s Culture Festival, The Cultural Flag and the Biophilia Educational Project.
Arnfríður has been involved in the Biophilia Educational Project from the beginning, formulating the concept and managing the whole development of the program. In 2013 she started to work at the Ministry for Education, Science and Culture to co-manage the implementation of the Biophilia Education Project across the Nordic countries as part of Iceland´s Presidency in the Nordic Council of Ministers.

She has conducted seminars and lectured widely in Iceland and Scandinavia during the last years.

Tom Wambeke, Belgium, is graduated in Educational Sciences and holds a Master in Cultural Management. He is currently finalizing an Executive Business LEAD degree in Innovation at Stanford University.

 Before joining the International Training Centre of the ILO he was assistant Professor at the University of Leuven and innovation coach at Open Higher Education. He is currently Programme Manager of DELTA which specializes in providing sustainable learning solutions with the objective to generate impact and organizational change.

The unit he is leading has a double mandate: to strengthen the Centre’s in-house capacity to apply state-of-the art learning and knowledge sharing methods and technology, and to provide (e)-learning services to outside partners on a global scale. In this context he works closely together with UN agencies, development banks, international organisations, governments and NGO’s.

As a certified international facilitator (IAF) he’s actively involved in strategy facilitation, participatory knowledge sharing, networked learning and ICT4Development. This he combines with a passion for complexity adaptive thinking, foresight analysis and futures exploration.

Nell Watson is an engineer, entrepreneur, and futurist thinker who grew up in Northern Ireland. She has a longstanding interest in the philosophy of technology, and how extensions of human capacity drive emerging social trends.

Nell lectures globally on Machine Intelligence, AI philosophy, Human-Machine relations, and the Future of Human Society, serving as Associate Faculty at Singularity University.

She has had an unusual career, including teaching post-grad Computer Science at the age of 24, and later co-founding a successful Graffiti arts company. Her ability to bridge the world of technology and the Humanities makes it easy for her to translate complex subjects so that they can be clearly understood.

In 2010 Nell founded Poikos, a machine learning-driven ‘AI for for body measurement’. Nell’s patented technology ‘dematerialises’ the 3D body scanner, by providing accurate 3D scans of the body with only 2D camera hardware, such as that found within smartphones, or laptops. This may then be applied to a range of markets, such as mass customisation, and health.

Possessing a long-term mindset, Nell serves as Senior Advisor to The Future Society at Harvard, as well as serving as an advisory technologist to several startups, accelerators, and venture capital funds.

She is also Co-Founder of OpenEth, an ‘ethical explication engine’ that aims to crowdsource ethical heuristics for autonomous systems.

In her spare time Nell enjoys coding games, such as her startup life simulator, Founder Life. Founder Life attempts to teach the mindfulness and psychological habits necessary for entrepreneurs to consistently execute under pressure. She has also written two easily digestible books on philosophy – one for business leaders, and one aimed at children.

Audrey Watters is a writer who focuses on education technology. She has worked in the education field for almost twenty years: as a graduate student, college instructor, and program manager for an ed-tech non-profit. 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 Atlantic, Edutopia, Hybrid Pedagogy, MindShift, Inside Higher Ed, The School Library Journal, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere across the Web, in addition to her own website Hack Education. She is the author of several books, including The Monsters of Education Technology, The Revenge of the Monsters of Education Technology, and Claim Your Domain.

Read about her views on education here.