DOHA: The inaugural edition of Qatar Foundation (QF)-supported World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) will open in the presence of QF Chairperson H H Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned today.
The three-day event will open with a plenary session on "Global Education: Working together for sustainable achievements".
Irina Bokova, Director-General, UNESCO will be the Guest of Honour. Dr Abdulla bin Ali Al Thani, Chairman of WISE and Vice President of Education, QF will address the opening session. Nima Abu-Wardeh, prominent journalist and BBC presenter will be the master of ceremony.
Thought leaders from all four comers of the world will share experiences and will reflect on cutting-edge developments in innovation for learning at the inaugural edition of WISE.
A host of leading International influencers will address the WISE Summit and share their wealth of experience and vision. Qatar Foundation and the WISE organizers believe that the presence of international influences at the event would take the three-day event to the world stage.
The presence of Biz Stone, Co-founder of Twitter, will spotlight technology's profound impact on education.
Gerhard Schroder, former German Chancellor and a major force on the world's political stage for nearly a decade, will address the theme of Sustainability and the role of education in formulating a globally sustainable culture.
Over 90 world-class experts will discuss key international findings and debate international partnership opportunities with the goal of empowering communities and people across the world, especially those in isolated and war-torn regions.
With five plenary sessions and five sets of breakout sessions featuring 19 different topics planned, all delegates will have an opportunity to explore their areas of interest.
The programme has been designed to achieve concrete resolutions and scalable results on a range of topics, which will enable participants to share and generate new ideas, best practices and experimental programmes across the educational sphere.
"WISE is a global, groundbreaking collaborative platform initiated by the Qatar Foundation.
It seeks to monitor 21st century challenges and their impact on education With over thousand leading education stakeholders, opinion leaders and decision-makers from diverse disciplines from more than 120 countries coming down in Doha-WISE endeavours to propose visionary thinking on education and offer new ways of addressing current global challenges", Dr Abdulla bin Ali Al Thani said yesterday.
Qatar Petroleum (QP) is the Gold Sponsor of the first edition of the summit, while Microsoft (Qatar) is the Silver Sponsor of the three-day event.
Dr Abdulla bin Ali Al Thani, Chairman of WISE and Vice President of Education, Qatar Foundation said: "The support of Qatar Petroleum is important to WISE as it demonstrates the drive of major national energy corporation to help support important international initiatives.
WISE is about bringing together people to help shape in a concrete and holistic manner educational models that will meet the challenges faced by our global modern society and we are pleased to have the commitment of Qatar Petroleum."
The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy and Industry and Qatar Petroleum Chairman and Managing Director, H E Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah commented: "Qatar Petroleum as the leading energy national corporation is proud to sponsor such an innovative and international event as WISE. Our involvement in WISE allows us to contribute to a sustainable Global Education vision for the 21st century.".
The Emir attaches great importance to education and considers it as an absolute right and an essential pillar for sustainable development.
This was clearly emphasised in the Qatar National Vision 2030 that considers human development as the foundation to prepare a capable and qualified generation to contribute to the development process.
QP has always encouraged initiatives that help attain advanced knowledge for human development and welfare, the Minister added.
Microsoft's Country General Manager Mohammad Hammoudi commented: "To sponsor the World Innovation Summit for Education Innovation is for us a unique opportunity to contribute to a meaningful global initiative that will help shape new thinking on global education models. Sponsoring WISE allows us to further reaffirm our pledge to develop innovative solutions to help people learn."
Microsoft takes a holistic and long-term approach to supporting education and is working closely with governments, educators, parents and students around the globe to develop IT solutions that will increase access to quality education and improve learning outcomes.
The company has made a comprehensive commitment to helping individuals, communities, and nations gain access to the technology tools, skills and innovation they need to realise their full potential, he said.
© The Peninsula 2009
