Portal Pages

Name : Jim Knight
The keynote speaker
21st Century Skills for the Information Age.

Jim Knight was the longest serving Schools minister in the UK government led by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown; he also served as Rural Affairs minister and Employment minister.  He attended weekly Cabinet in the year running up to the 2010 General Election, and was made a Lord by the HM The Queen after that election.
Jim’s main policy interests are education, employment, skills and digital technology.  Having co-ordinated Ed Balls Leadership Campaign he is now Shadow Defray minister in the House of Lords.  He works as a consultant specializing in advising on the use of technology in education and employment; currently working with TSL Education, Alderwood Recruitment and Step-A International Ltd.  He is chair of the UK Online Foundation and HTI Education Trust, and is a trustee of the e-Learning Foundation, and Apps for Good .

Name : Dr. Steven Paine
Workplace : "Partnership for 21st Century Skills"
Keynote speaker

A consummate life-long educator, Dr. Paine has held numerous positions of leadership in the private and public sectors. Prior to joining P21, Paine served as Senior Advisor to the McGraw-Hill Education Research Foundation and as Vice President for CTB/McGraw-Hill.
From July, 2005 to January, 2011, Paine served as West Virginia's 25th School State Superintendent. Under his leadership, West Virginia was recognized for its 21st century learning program, Global21. Paine remained active in education policy discussions as past president and board member of the Council of Chief State School Officers, as a member of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF) Board of Directors and as a member of the National Assessment Governing Board and High School Readiness Commission.
Paine joined the West Virginia DOE in 2003 as the Deputy School State Superintendent after serving as Superintendent of Morgan County Schools. He also served as principal, assistant principal, teacher, and curriculum director. As a result of his work as principal, he was named a recipient of the prestigious Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award.
Paine received his master’s degree in educational administration and his doctorate in educational leadership and curriculum and instruction from West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV

Name : Baldev Singh
Workplace : Imagine Education UK
Trends in Technology, Learning Design and Implications for 21st Century Skill Development.

Dr. Baldev Singh currently heads the Strategic ICT Developments at Imagine Education Ltd. He was the head of ICT in large secondary school in Bristol (UK) and was the recipient of 2004 National Teaching Award for Innovation in Education UK. Baldev is involved in teacher training (both in the UK and overseas) and developing ICT training programs on behalf of the British Council. His work for the British Council Connecting Classroom Program in the last 7 years is primary in the Middle East region. Baldev was a national judge for the Teaching Awards (UK) and also is on the panel for the BETT (UK) and Education Awards which promote technology in education.
Baldev has been an invited keynote speaker at various international conferences where he shares his experience of global trends in education and implications for teaching and learning. He has been engaged in education reform /ICT projects and working with ministries of education in over 40 countries worldwide.
Baldev has been engaged in developing content for Microsoft Partners in learning to support their Innovative schools, Innovative Teachers and Pre-service programs. More recently, Baldev has been involved with Microsoft’s 21st Century Learning Design Program at both content and delivery level. Baldev has supported other organizations such as Promethean and British Airways to advice on their education and learning strategies.

Name : Barry McGaw
Workplace : University of Melbourne

Professor Barry McGaw is a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Melbourne and Chair of the Board of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. From 2006 to 2010 he was a Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne, in 2006-08 as Director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute and in 2009-10 as foundation Executive Director of the international Cisco, Intel, Microsoft Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project.
Prior to returning to Australia at the end of 2005, he was Director for Education at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He had earlier been Executive Director of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and Professor of Education at Murdoch University. He holds BSc, DipEd and BEd(Hons) degrees from the University of Queensland, EdM and PhD from the University of Illinois and an Honorary Doctorate of Education from Murdoch University.
His research interests are educational measurement and evaluation and curriculum.
Professor McGaw is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, the Australian Psychological Society, the Australian College of Educators and the International Academy of Education.

Name : Dr. Esther Care
Workplace : University of Melbourne
21st Century Competencies Across the Curriculum

Esther Care is an academic with expertise in literacy research, psycho-educational measurement, test and scale development, and education. With early experience as a qualified teacher and then psychologist, she has a diverse background in intervention provision in both mainstream and mental health settings. Recent and current research projects in which she is involved include mapping of literacy intervention strategies to competence levels, assessment programs designed to differentiate between cognitive and literacy skills in the early years, and design for large scale literacy assessment for education systems. She is the International Research Coordinator for the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills (ATC21S) project, and also the National Research Coordinator for the project in Australia. Esther Care recently led an AusAID sponsored comparison of curriculum of the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and the Australian State of New South Wales, and now leads a joint Assessment, Curriculum and Technologies Research Centre with the University of the Philippines. Esther publishes widely in psycho-educational journals and edited books on assessment, 21st century skills, and use of ICT in education.

Name : Jorma Kauppinen
Workplace : The Finnish National Board of Education
Curriculum Reform in Finland

Mr. Jorma Kauppinen is Director for General Education at the Finnish National Board of Education, responsible for developing general education in Finland. FNBE is a state agency working for the Ministry of Education and Culture; Mr. Kauppinen has earlier in his career been Teacher of history and social studies, Headmaster at the Upper Secondary Education and Head of the Unit at the FNBE. ( see larger biography)

Name : Dr. Ibrahim Halloun
Workplace : International Arab Baccalaureate (IAB)
International Arab Baccalaureate
Education for Success in Life

Ibrahim A. Halloun is Founder and Chair of the International Arab Baccalaureate (IAB), and tenured Professor of Physics and Education at Lebanese University (LU). In 1984, he earned a PhD in Physics / Education from Arizona State University, with a dissertation on modeling in Newtonian mechanics. He then joined LU, and held joint appointments at many institutions in Lebanon and abroad, including Arizona State University and UNESCO-Paris. He contributed to educational reform in many countries around the world.
Through classroom-based research, and in collaboration with many researchers and educators around the world, Prof. Halloun has developed, among others, Modeling Theory in science education and Profile Shaping Education (PSE). PSE is a generic pedagogical framework for student and teacher education developed, in part, under the auspices of Educational Research Center (ERC) in Lebanon. The framework is being deployed at ERC in the development of: (a) IAB (b) various curriculum materials, (c) authentic assessment tools, and (d) professional development programs for in-service and pre-service teachers in all fields and at all grade levels.

Name : Prakash Nair
Workplace : Fielding Nair International
School Design for the Creative Age

Prakash Nair is the President of Fielding Nair International, the world’s leading international architectural firm for innovative schools. FNI has consultations in 43 countries on 6 continents. Prakash is a futurist, a visionary planner, architect and one of the world’s leading change agents in education and school design. He is the recipient of several international awards including the prestigious CEFPI Macconnell Award, the top honor worldwide for school design.
He has written extensively in leading international journals such as Education Week, School Planning and Management and Editorial, about school design and ICT. He is also the author of the landmark publication, The Language of School Design which he co-authored with Randall Fielding. His new book on School Design will be published this year by Harvard Education Press. Prakash has been interviewed many times by print, radio and television media and is a regular speaker/keynote presenter at international education conferences.

Name : Noel Simpson
Workplace: Australian Curriculum Studies Association
An Australian View of Competencies for the 21st Century

Noel Simpson is the Vice President of the Australian Curriculum Studies Association, the national professional association for school curriculum. Formerly he was a senior executive in the Federal Department of Education and held the position of Manager of Quality Schooling and Curriculum. Originally a secondary school teacher, Noel later became President of the Australian Council for Adult Literacy and acted as Executive Director of the UN International Literacy Year in Australia. He also served as Secretary to the Prime Minister’s Civics Expert Group and led the development of national education initiatives such as civics and citizenship education and values education. 

Name: Pro. Daniel Tan
Workplace: Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Beyond Education 2.0: Participative, Collaborative & Sustainable

Assoc. Prof Daniel Tan, as Director of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the Nanyang Technological University, led a team to develop and implement edveNTUre – eLearning campus eco-system. This environment, comprising a holistic approach towards system design, learning platform, server architecture, together with edUtorium – the staff development program and pedagogical design; as well as eUreka – an automated online project work management system that effectively manages the student processes of knowledge creation, discovery and transfer – has resulted in a high immersive and adoption rate, by both staff and students.
Awards received included Intelligent20 Award 2003, Honoree of CIO Asia100 Award 2004, EMC Best Practice Award 2004, ZDNet Asia Smart50 Award 2006, SiTF eLearning Organization of the Year 2006, APICTA 2007, ascilite Award 2008, Leadership Award for ‘Best in Project Work Management’ in the IMS Global Learning Impact Awards 2009, Blackboard Catalyst Award 2013 for Communications Strategy. A/Prof Tan was conferred The Public Administration Medal (Silver)/Singapore National Day Awards 2007, and the 2012 Global e-Learning Award for Excellence in eLearning in recognition of his leadership and contribution to the field of Education.