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Salman Khan, Rose Luckin, Nassim Taleb & Hadi Partovi, participants in the first Virtual EnlightED

Fundación Telefónica, IE University, Fundación Santillana and South Summit are organising the third event of enlightED Virtual Edition 2020, with a new digital, interactive format with a greater international dimension.

Fundación Telefónica, IE University, Fundación Santillana and South Summit reunite in order to organise enlightED Virtual Edition 2020, the debate on post-Covid Education, with a new virtual, interactive format and a greater international dimension,

The third edition of the international conference on education, technology and innovation, will bring together, from 19 to 23 October, the most prominent international experts and thinkers to share solutions to the challenges that Covid-19 has posed for learning and work in our societies, and to draw practical conclusions from the great debate on Education in the post-Covid world.

With a 5-day programme, it will bring together more than 40 experts from around the world who will interact with those attending, creating a discussion about the major issues at the moment with a focus on: the lessons learned by mankind during this crisis, the innovations in corporate learning, the opportunities and risks facing K12 education, the new models of higher education and the challenges for EdTech.

The virtual conference will take place from 16:00 to 20:30 Spanish time, and can be followed at the website enlightED.education where they will be streaming, coordinated from a central studio, presentations from various countries around the world, workshops from IE University's Wow Room, round tables from the Fundación Telefónica Space Auditorium, educational experiences and the enlightED Awards.

World-class thinkers to reinvent education in a digital world

Speakers who have already confirmed their participation in enlightED Virtual Edition 2020 include Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, a non-profit organization that provides free online education in 36 languages and which earned him the 2019 Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation ; Nassim Taleb, essayist, researcher and mathematician, member of the New York University Institute of Mathematical Sciences; Rose Luckin, Professor at University College London, specialising in the use of AI in learning; Hadi Partovi, entrepreneur, investor, and CEO of Code.org, a nonprofit organization that offers programming instruction worldwide; Andreas Schleicher, German statistician and researcher and current director of Education at the OECD; Mona Mourshed, founder and CEO of Generation.org; Fernando Reimers, Director of the Global Initiative for Innovation in Education at Harvard University; Rebecca Winthrop, co-director of the Universal Education Centre at the Think Tank Brookings Institution; and Axel Rivas, Director of the Education School at San Andres University.

Alongside them will be the heads of the promoting organisations, José María Álvarez-Pallete, Executive Chairman of Telefónica; Santiago Iñiguez, Chairman of IE University; César Alierta, Executive Chairman of Fundación Telefónica; María Benjumea, founder and CEO of South Summit; and Ignacio Polanco Moreno, Chairman of Fundación Santillana.

“We have the present in common so that we can build a future for everyone.”
José María Álvarez-Pallete, Chairman of Telefónica

José María Álvarez-Pallete, Chairman of Telefónica, believes that "we are facing an unprecedented economic and social challenge, which requires immediate adaptation to the new digital world; we need a new social contract. The need to reformulate education and training is paramount in order to respond to the needs of the employment market. Therefore, now more than ever, society needs to have all the human and material resources possible so that no one is left behind in this accelerated technological paradigm. It is a collective task and responsibility. We have the present in common so that we can build a future for everyone.”

María Benjumea, founder of South Summit, adds, “many people are already talking about a 'COVID effect' on education, where learning habits have changed forever. We have seen that this is one of the sectors that has faced the greatest challenge and is undergoing the greatest transformation in the face of this situation, needing to adapt to the current environment in record time. At this time, more than ever, we must promote innovation in education as the basis for the future of our society.”

“In this new digital environment, education is transformed into "liquid" learning which combines training in the real world with that of the virtual world, face-to-face and online classes, live connection and distance work. We are changing the structures of the world we live in and we cannot ignore the transformative power of education and technology to improve productivity and boost job creation," says Santiago Íñiguez de Onzoño, chairman of the IE University.

Ignacio Polanco Moreno, Chairman of Fundación Santillana, explains “Our expectations for EnlightEd 2020 are very high given the impact of COVID19 on Latin American schools. Distance education, the digital divide, ensuring the acquisition of essential learning, social-emotional skills, family involvement and exploitation of data in a virtual situation are going to be on the agenda for the next decade. We believe that EnlightEd should be a starting point.”

Best Practices Corner

This year, one of the most important new features, the Best Practices Corner has been created with the aim of acknowledging the best practices in digital education initiated as a result of the confinement due to Covid-19. An Evaluation Committee will select the best in the school, university and corporate arenas to be featured virtually at enlightED Virtual 2020. Registration is now open for entries until 14 September.

enlightED Awards

Once again, the enlightED Awards seek to identify and promote the best entrepreneurial ideas in the world of education, innovation and edTech, based on their innovative character, significant effect and scalability.

The chosen initiatives will have international visibility at enlightED and will be vying for first place in the competition and the winning spot in the Startup Competition of South Summit 2020. The application period for the enlightED Awards is open until 23 August.

For the 2019 enlightED Awards, more than 580 entries were received, of which 60% were international projects from 73 different countries.

IE - REINVENTING HIGHER EDUCATION