Fourth Revolution in Education – Prepare or Despair

 A ‘Fourth Revolution’ is already underway across the world, and it promises to be a spectacular reimagining of traditional education systems. This need for reimagining was caused the devastating COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted the rapid globalising of the economies of the world, spurred by advancements in transportation and communication.

  However, the advancements – heavily influenced by Artificial Intelligence and its offshoots – have also raised ethical questions, raising existential dilemmas over liberal values. The discussions at this conference over two days on June 18-19, 2022, in New Delhi, India will involve internationally-reputed personalities, institutions, and decision-makers, physically present or in virtual mode.

It will focus on an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven cyberspace, coupled with the devastating impact of the pandemic that has impacted globalisation and accelerated the overhauling long-cherished education systems.The pandemic’s impact, that curtailed easy travel and trade – cornerstones of globalisation – has accelerated the processes of the Fourth Revolution in overhauling long-cherished education systems. 

 This transformation offers learners from varied strata of society breath-taking access to personalised tuition and digital educational material. The pandemic, it must be acknowledged, forced international educational institutions and systems to accept – long before they were ready – online platforms to impart teaching and learning from the sanctuary of their own homes. It caused a rethinking of the Third Education Revolution, which promoted mass teaching methods and took the shape of continuous learning. The first two education revolutions had previously brought major changes to the structure of educational institutions and teaching, as well as learning approaches. 

The transformations were also conditioned by major changes in economic and other geopolitical shifts. Often, there was a direct link in expansion of the education systems and their inclusivity to the needs of labour – in the prevailing economic conditions. This will cause the disruption of jobs. Even as vast sections of predominantly ageing populations in the great economies turn to assistance from cyberspace and its byproducts in robotics, powered by AI, the fear is growing of great job losses and resultant, crushing poverty in the developing world.  

There is, however, a gentler vision that envisages a future where people and machines coexist; and indeed work toward the benefit of humanity from effective partnerships. It is indeed imaginable, that new kinds of jobs will emerge for humans that may not be conceivable today. It is, however, equally evident that this revolution needs to be shaped to promote humanistic societal values.

This conference aims to stimulate the imagination to seek ways to become an agent and not the captive of civilisational changes that shape future generations.

PROGRAMME

DAY ONE

 INAUGURAL SESSION

1000 hrs to 1100 hrs

Welcome Address: Mr. Moses Manoharan, Chair, Global Dialogue Forum

Special Address: India’s World Class Potential in Education: Mr. S. Ramadorai, Chair, Club of Rome – India, former Adviser to the Prime Minister in the National Council on Skill Development

Keynote Address: Hon’ble former Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Mr. K.J. Alphons, Member of Parliament

Note of Thanks:  Ms. Nisha Ramdas, Managing Editor, Global Dialogue Review

 SESSION I

1115 hrs to 1245 hrs

Shaping the World Order through Education

Chair – Mr. Salman Khurshid, former External Affairs Minister of India, Senior Advocate of Supreme Court of India, former Law Minister of India, prominent educationist, taught law at Oxford University, UK

Speaker – Lt. General Sunil Srivastava, AVSM, VSM** (Retd), Director, Centre for Joint for Warfare Studies (CENJOWS)

Speaker – Mr. Shreyas Jayasimha, founder, Aarna Law (India) and practiced in domestic and international dispute resolution, a range of issues including space law, technology and nuclear law

Speaker – Tan Sri Dato Professor Joseph Adaikalam, Executive Chairman, Binary University, Selangor, Malaysia. It is a specialist university for Management, IT and Entrepreneurship

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LUNCH – 1245 hrs to 1345 hrs

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SESSION II

1400 hrs to 1530 hrs

Education’s Fourth Revolution and Artificial Intelligence 

Chair – Dr. Ranjan Bose, Director, Indraprastha Institute  of Information Technology, New Delhi

Speaker – Mr. Abhimanyu Raja, Managing Director, Janyu Technologies, Mumbai.

Speaker – Brigadier R. Putarjunam, Additional Director General, Army Educational Corps

Speaker – Mr. Mathew Johnston, Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment

Speaker – Dr. Rajeev Tyagi, Principal, Mount Carmel School, Dwarka, New Delhi

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TEA – 1530 hrs to 1600 hrs

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SESSION III

1615 hrs to 1745 hrs

AI-Driven Education and Sustainable Development Goals

Chair – Lt. General Arun Sahni, UYSM, SM, VSM (Retd), Director General, Club of Rome – India, former GOC, South Western Command, Distinguished Fellow, Global Dialogue Forum

Speaker – Dr. Ashok Khosla, Chair, Development Alternatives, Trustee, Club of Rome – India

Speaker – Dr. Ameeta Wattal, Chair and Executive Director, Education, Innovations and Training, DLF Foundation

Speaker – Mr. Pranav Gupta, Managing Director, Print Publishing, Frontlist

Speaker  – Mr. Pierrick Fillon-Ashida, First Counsellor, Head of Research and Innovation Sector, Delegation of the European Union to India

DAY I CONCLUDES 

DAY II

SESSION IV

0930 hrs to 1145 hrs

Ensuring Gender Equity through Education

Chair – Professor Kavita Sharma, former President, South Asian University of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)

Speaker: Ms. Charu Modi, Chancellor, K.K. Modi University, a scion of a leading Indian industrialist family, she is an eminent educator. She is Executive Director, Indofil Industries Limited, Promoter and Shareholder, K.K. Modi Group, and Vice Chair and CEO, Modi Academic International Institute

Speaker – Dr. Lailufar Yasmin, Professor, Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh

Speaker – Dr. Babli Moitra Saraf, Principal, Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi

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LUNCH  – 1200 hrs to 1300 hrs
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 VALEDICTORY  ADDRESS

1315 hrs to 1445 hrs

Education’s Fourth Revolution – Maintaining Standards to prepare  India for a Global Role by Professor Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chair, All India Council on Technical Education

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HIGH TEA
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