Connecting to KAIST, the Global 'Non-Face-to-Face Education Experts' Hub

KAIST Holds Online International Forum on Education in the Post-Corona Era

On the 26th, a day before the return to in-person classes for 11th graders, 9th graders, and 1st and 2nd graders in elementary school, a teacher at Sindong Elementary School in Seocho-gu, Seoul, is placing name tags on desks spaced one seat apart on both sides as a social distancing measure in a 2nd-grade classroom. (Unrelated to the article) / Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Junho Hwang] An online international forum exploring the future of non-face-to-face online education, which has emerged due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), will be held at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).

KAIST announced on the 17th that it will hold the "2nd Global Strategy Institute - International Forum 2020 (GSI?IF2020)" on the 5th floor of the Jeong Geun-mo Conference Hall in the Academic and Cultural Center (E9) at its Daejeon headquarters from 9 a.m. on the 24th. The event will be broadcast live on the KAIST YouTube channel, KTV channel, and Naver TV. Anyone can participate for free by accessing any of these video channels.

This forum is the second one held by GSI following the first in April, with the theme "Future Prospects of Education in the Rise of a Non-Face-to-Face Society in the Post-COVID Era." According to UNESCO, as of the end of April this year, approximately 158 million students worldwide, accounting for 91% of all students, received home-based classes due to COVID-19 school closures. The education sector is the field undergoing the most rapid shift to non-face-to-face methods after COVID-19.

KAIST invited 15 education experts working in international organizations, think tanks, and global companies, including Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera, a pioneer of first-generation online open courses, and Ben Nelson, founder and CEO of Minerva Schools, known as the "university without a campus," to the forum.

In his congratulatory speech, Jeff Maggioncalda will present the current status of universities' transition to online learning under the theme "Digital Transformation of Higher Education, COVID-19 and Beyond," and propose measures to strengthen digital innovation in higher education.

In the forum's first session, CEO Ben Nelson will speak on digital education reform measures for nurturing creative talents in the post-COVID era. Paul Kim, Chief Technology Officer and Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University, will analyze how educational challenges triggered by COVID-19 manifest differently in developed and developing countries. Phil Baty, Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) of THE, a university ranking organization, will present prospects for establishing new directions in educational innovation.

Additionally, Anthony Salcito, Vice President of Microsoft Education, Professor Taeok Lee of KAIST's Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and Jae-won Kim, CEO of AI-based remote coding education company ELICE, will participate in the discussions.

The second session will focus on efforts to bridge the socio-economic digital divide in the post-COVID era. Sangwook Kang, Director General of the Future Talent Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Science and ICT, will participate as a keynote speaker, addressing issues such as the decline in class quality and digital divide highlighted by online school openings.

Rebecca Winthrop, Co-Director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution in the U.S., Soo-in Lee, CEO of Enuma, the grand prize-winning company of the Global Learning XPRIZE, a software competition aimed at eradicating child illiteracy worldwide, Ham Mukasa Mulira, Chairman of Uganda Online University, and Sadia Zahidi, Managing Director of the World Economic Forum (WEF), will also participate.

Kim Jeong-ho, Director of GSI and overall coordinator of the forum, stated, "KAIST, as a leader in innovating university education in Korea, has prepared this forum to address educational agendas in the non-face-to-face era accelerated by COVID-19 together with the international community."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.