 A very good afternoon and welcome to our session on reimagining education. My name is Nzinga Kundar. I'm a news anchor at the Public Broadcaster in South Africa, the SABC and it's my great pleasure to be a moderator in the session. Before the coronavirus pandemic, it was estimated that by 2030, more than half of the world's children and young people would not have the skills or qualifications necessary to participate in the emerging global workforce in a meaningful way. Due to the coronavirus pandemic related learning loss and students currently in school are estimated to face a $10 trillion reduction in lifetime earnings as there were over 188 countrywide school closures across the world impacting over 1.54 billion learners. At the same time though, the pandemic has brought to the forefront a number of skills that have become essential to employability. According to the world economics future of jobs report, innovation, creativity, technology use and design as well as critical thinking are among the top 10 skills required in the workplace by 2025. While these school closures present many challenges in terms of learning and childhood development, this context has also paved the way for innovation in public private collaboration dedicated to resetting education systems. There's an opportunity now to rethink what the education and schooling experience looks like and how these employability skills are developed among the next generation of talent. To discuss this and other issues I'm joined by a panel made up of his Excellency, Tariq Al Ghurk. He's the CEO of Dubai Cares in the United Arab Emirates. Henrietta H4, who's the Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF in the United States. And Suzanne Fortier, who's the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University in Canada. Just before we begin, please note that the panel will be followed by a more detailed discussion for forum members and partners on top link from quarter past two central European time. Thank you all so much for your time and insight and a warm welcome to our viewers from across the world joining us on this discussion. Henrietta, perhaps I'll begin with you. What emerging skills will be relevant for employability, entrepreneurship and broader social engagement going forward? Well, Enzinga, you have really come up with a very important list in just what you said. Children need foundational skills like learning to read and do simple mathematics, but they also need foundational skills that have to do with critical thinking and creativity and ways to solve problems because many of them are going to need to be entrepreneurs. And we need digital skills and we need some occupational skills. And you need to learn all of this while you're in secondary school because many children are not going on to tertiary education. So we have a big challenge as the world, but it's not going to be a challenge that we cannot accomplish. We have found that now in COVID that while half the world's children are unable to read a simple paragraph and understand it by the age of 10, that we now know that we need to have digital education for everyone, digital skills. And so we're hard at work on this as public private coalitions. So may I just pick up on your public private comment and let me give you a couple of examples. So we have with Microsoft and with the University of Cambridge a program called the Learning Passport and it's rolling out now in a number of countries. And it means that you can download your national educational curriculum in your own home language and continue learning wherever you are. Let's say you're a migrant or you're a refugee or you're just out of school and you're at home. But connectivity is essential to this. So under the Giga initiative with the International Telecommunications Union and Dubai Cares Tariq, we are trying to connect every school in the world to the internet. This will be essential. And it's going to be particularly important to make sure that we do not leave girls behind. There's another one that we have reached out to companies on, which is that we need hardware. We need devices. We need ways that children and young people can connect to get their schooling. And we need to have affordability so you can download these educational materials in a way that is affordable to you and your family and your situation. We also have a number of young people who want to contribute just as young people. They want to become community teachers. If they can read and write, this is the basic core that we need. We are short of teachers all around the world. So with that, we've got a number of public-private partnerships. With Ericsson, Microsoft, R, PwC, SAP, Sony, and Unilever, we are focusing on what are 21st century skills. And this is with WEF. I think this area has enormous possibilities. So maybe we can come back to what governments can do, what businesses can do. But this is going to be a big market. This is going to be a decade of discovery in digital learning. And it's an exciting opportunity for public and private partners. We're going to bring into the conversation. We know that most countries are in recession and wondering about economic recovery. Before we go to public and private partnerships, how can education 4.0 assist in this regard when it comes to economic recovery around the world? Education 4.0, we've been in talks with the WEF for the past two and a half or three years about prioritizing education. It is only global mechanisms such as the WEF or the G7 or the G20 who can really work on a global advocacy to make that change happen on a policy level, of course. But as we look towards the transition from pandemic response to recovery, education will be the key to unlocking opportunity and hope. However, the sad fact is that the finance available for education was decreasing even before the pandemic with severe consequences on children's learning and well-being, which now is even worse as a result of COVID. And if we don't act now to safeguard and preferably increase financing for education, of course, there will be a very real risk. We will fall even further behind. In my opinion, if we really want to be taking prioritization seriously with inclusiveness and resilience at the core, if we're talking about that way, in my opinion, we need to focus on five steps. And I believe Henrietta will agree with me, but maybe the order will change. But first, we have to agree to collaborate not only on the ground level, but even on a global level. On a ground level, a lot of efforts has been done. We need to do more. But on a global level, the global mechanisms, the UN agencies need to collaborate much more. And that will take me to the second step. And after they collaborate, then we should have a global plan. We should have a global agenda. We should streamline our efforts to reach that goal. So that's the second step. And once these two happen, we come to the third step, which is mobilizing resources, which is funding. Let's not forget, we have a lot of global platforms there raising funds from the same donors. And there's a lot of duplication happening. We have to work on that as well. And once we have the funds, the fourth step would be to establish the partnerships, where we're looking into including and bringing new allies to the table, many in the private sector, of course, but also bilateral donors and academia. And the fifth step would be once we work with those partners, we will have to work together to innovate, innovate, innovate, which will eventually be plugged into the global agenda. So looking at different platforms that has been formed post COVID or during COVID lockdown, we have education cannot wait COVID response. We have global positive for education COVID accelerated the grounds. We have UNICEF and Generation Unlimited's increased emphasis on access to connectivity. And Henrietta just mentioned it, that is through GEDA. We have UNESCO's Global Education Coalition for COVID-19 response. And there's the launch of Save Our Future campaign by the Education Commission. We have to look into all these responses. They're working really hard looking into different ways on how we can take the conversation further. Previously, post COVID and now, sorry, pre COVID and now, of course, post COVID. I'm going to park there and have an interactive session and then maybe I'll come back to a few other points. You're mute. Both Henrietta and Tariq have spoken about prioritizing certain things. What are the new skills priorities emerging within university education as you see it? Yes. Thank you. Bonjour, Zinger. I'd like to bring you one year ago and take you on a tour of what the university looked like in 2020 at the beginning. What you'd see, of course, is traditional classrooms, but you'd see also flip-cross classrooms. You'd see workshop and entrepreneurship, innovation, hackathon. You'd see students involved in community projects involved in international activities. You would see, of course, also all sorts of various projects launched by students. So what you would see is that, in fact, universities have evolved over the years. I've reimagined themselves and very much in response to society and individuals' priorities in terms of skills. What is clear is that students come to university for an education that's far broader than gaining a deep knowledge in a particular area of expertise. They come to develop all sorts of abilities and capacity and they're very much aligned with the skills that we see are needed in the workplace. They come to increase their capacity for leadership, for networking. They want also, of course, to be aware of the global environment, their citizens of the world. So that's very important to them. They want to hone their creativity and their innovation. Of course, the digital is a given. When they come to university, and I think Henrietta made the point how important it is for students to learn that in high schools, because when they come to university, they are really very, very digitally savvy. And in fact, I would say that they lead us in terms of getting ourselves more up to date on the digital front. So what is important to realize is that in realizing and attaining all of these skills, universities can't do it alone. We need partners out there. We have students who are involved in, for example, work learning initiatives. So they work integrated learning, so they go into the business sector to part of their time at universities. They're involving community projects. And as I mentioned, they want to be involved not only at the local level, but at the global level. And we can't do that if we're alone. Of course, we need to do that with partners all over the world, but also in every sector. This is what university looked like last year. Of course, we've had to imagine ourselves with the pandemic. And so what we've seen is many of those opportunities that we want to offer our students. In fact, that students want have had to be transformed online. And that is very much happening too. And in the conversation, I might say a few words about what a university might look like next year when we meet in Davos with all we've learned in this pandemic. I want to go back to Henrietta then when we speak about was transform reset. The opportunity that COVID has given us despite the intense tragedy there to reset to close gaps because of the acceleration of digitalization of work, the acceleration rather of digitalization. How do we make sure that when there is a reset, it's an inclusive one. It doesn't leave people behind, particularly women and girls and people in developing countries. So, Zynga, you're onto the right subject. This new opportunity for all of us has to be inclusive. It has to be able to reach every child everywhere in the world so that they have a chance to go to university with Suzanne. So how do we do that? We've got to connect them. If we can have a laser focus on connecting every school, every learner, every teacher to the Internet, we have a chance for digital online learning. And as a world, technology now lets us do this. I mean, we have a once in a generation opportunity here that we just must not miss. So the content is now rapidly forming. And there are going to be a lot of content providers who can help to contextualize education and learning for every country, but every country must be ready for it so that there is a possibility of digital curriculum. So you need to connect every school in the world to the Internet. We are hoping to do so, as Tariq said, through Generation Unlimited and the Giga initiatives. We think we can do this in the next three to four years with lower satellites and fiber optic cable and connecting schools. And that will be very important. But we've also got to be sure that we give training to teachers. And if we can train the teachers to Suzanne's point, it means that they can teach their students. Right now, the young are leading most of us, and they pick up the digital skills so quickly. And yet they need to know what they are for. The digital connectivity must be a place of learning, an Internet of good things. So girls and women, Nzinga, you know this. We are often behind in both the amount of time that we spend on the Internet, our access and ownership of things like cell phones connectivity. So we need to change this. We need to reach everyone. And with Generation Equality, we have a big partnership that is now gathering that's public and private, and it is around access for girls and women. So everyone, please come join us in this. We need to have the power of women. And there's some wonderful examples. South Africa's Techno Girls is really exciting. And Nzinga, I'm sure that you are familiar with it. But it gives girls a chance to dream and hope in the digital sphere. Sorry, that's something that's quite close to what Dubai cares about and is working on inclusion, digital inclusion of people who have been perhaps left behind before. Well, Nzinga, I mean, Henrietta summed it all. I mean, we're working, hopefully, we know the digital divide that has happened due to COVID. And without having a global approach to follow this issue, Suzanne mentioned the issues at a higher level in universities. Henrietta mentioned what's happening globally. And if we don't have unity at the global level to tackle this issue, I've mentioned maybe five or six other initiatives from different global mechanisms. If we don't make this a reality, instead of just mentioning that we're going ahead with an initiative, we don't work towards the goals of each one of those initiatives and linking them together to have a streamlined effort to this on a global agenda, it will be very difficult. So when it comes to digital connectivity and specific, if we achieve what each mechanism wants to achieve, if we get the right funding, if we get the right allies, if we get, as I mentioned earlier, if we get the G7, the G20, the World Economic Forum, all in place, bringing the private sector. Look, the private sector has to be at the table losing them. They have to be at the table, because the skills of today will determine the future of work of tomorrow. And vice versa, you won't be able to be in compliance with the future jobs if you don't have the right skills of today. Today's youth, it's kind of weird, because today's youth, should we work on today's youth for the future jobs? Or should we instill that in the education system at an early stage? Look, there is no right or wrong answer. Both answers are correct. If we work on the youth today, we will solve the problem, but not fully, but if we instill it in the future, and that's where early child development comes in. But we are working very closely with UNICEF and UNESCO on the digital component. We are taking a lead. We have been unanimously approved by Education Cannot Waits High-Level Steering Group, which is the board for Dubai case to take a lead on a global UN declaration on connectivity. We are working closely with UNICEF and UNESCO to achieve that. We will hopefully announce the declaration end of this year at Expo 2020 Dubai. We, as Dubai carers, have an education summit happening in December, end of this year at Expo Dubai. It's an in-person summit. We will mention a lot of things. One day we are going to cover the youth skills in the future jobs, another day on innovation, another day on financing and education. But you can see that the digital connectivity is a must. Ask how children have the right to education globally. Today, post COVID, children have, children and youth, they have to have the right to connectivity. We can't, you know, you see, we were solving a big problem, which is access in the past. Girls not having access, disabled children not having access. And we started, or ethnic minorities, and we started putting some measures on how to increase enrollment rates. Now, when COVID happened and when we stuck to the digital side of education, we said, oh, we're going to solve the problem. Now we can let everyone come in through technology and bandwidth and internet. But what we realized, there is no bandwidth in rural areas. There is no technology. And if there is, it will be low bandwidth and low tech. So there are so many issues in Zynga that's going to happen. And hopefully, by bringing the private sector, the business to the table, it will take effort and time from the three entities that I've mentioned, the G7, G20 and the web. The web introduced us to JA worldwide. They will play a big role into engaging the private sector as well. And we hope if we get all of this right, we will hopefully start putting the first bricks for the change. And hopefully, we will reshape skinning and education by 2030. I'm very keen on that. And I see it happening. Suzanne, I still want to come to your future and your vision of what university will look like. But I thought it would be a good time to take some of the questions that are coming in the chat. One of them is from Janet Longmore. And she says, we can connect all schools. However, what about those who are not in the education system? The most marginalized? How do we connect them to learning? And how do we explore alternative ways of delivering learning? Whoever would like to answer that, I think quite briefly because there are a few other questions and comments that I'd like to bring in before we go back to looking at the future as well. Would anybody like to tackle that question about how to connect people to learning and explore alternative ways to deliver learning? I think Henrietta has a good answer to that. I thought this was too, Suzanne. So please forgive me. So the Giga Initiative is mapping every school in a country. And we now have work done in about 16 countries. And there's another 16 on deck. So if you know where the schools are, there is usually a community school that if you can connect that school and you have a community teacher, it can be one of the young people. It can be somebody who's not trained fully as a teacher. They can learn along with the students, but they become the guide. They become the helper so that you're in the most rural areas that Tariq is talking about or you're in the most marginalized communities. You can reach everyone. And that's the community of the moment in time we are in, where we have technologies such as lower satellites that can reach every community. But often a education minister does not know where all of their schools are, but now every school can be mapped. They can be connected. And we can do this as a world. I mean, our aim is that by 2030, 3.5 billion students will be connected. That's every child in the world. And that's the goal we have to have as a group. This is a big market for businesses, $350 billion market. So this is going to be a good area for holding hands together. And what the World Economic Forum offers us uniquely is a place for that partnership. So this is one we really need to get on. We can do this. And Tariq has been talking about some of the financial instruments. We need good investment. We need public-private investments so that governments want to do this, so that they can do it so it's affordable. And then we recruit the teachers and the young people and the students and the parents so that everyone has access. I'll add just one thing to what Anne-Rieta said. This was, I think, very important to what she shared with us. I would say that we need to create a community of learners. I don't think that technology will be able to reach everybody, but people can. And we can create a community of learners where, for example, students who are in high school can help those who haven't even started school yet or cannot start school. Students in universities can be in the communities globally and, again, be there with learners. Learners with learners, I think, is a way to ensure that everybody in the world will have access and maybe solve some of the problems that technology alone cannot solve at least right away. We've got some more questions coming in from the group. I know we don't have that much time before we go into the private session, but I'm hoping we can just bang out one or two answers. One is from Jodi Padilla, and they say NGOs are doing the same with most vulnerable groups. Private companies are focusing on training their human talent with technological skills. How can a learning space be created, giving the assurance to those trained that they'll be hired once they acquire that knowledge? With so many open and online courses available internationally, the economically active population of developing countries are not motivated to train due to the lack of labor supply in new areas. What's your recommendation in the face of this problem? That's a very big question, and we only have, say, a minute to answer it. I'd like to find out who is going to tackle it briefly. Suzanne? Very briefly. I think that a model that is being used in many countries is work-integrated learning. So while students are studying, they have an opportunity to also be part of a company, a firm, or a governmental agency so that they learn also on the workforce. They have an increased chance of being hired, because they do a great job there being seen in the action, and people realize how important it is to bring the new generation into the workforce. Henrietta? Could I add to that? They're also going to need to be entrepreneurs. They're going to need to create their own jobs. So what you said at the very beginning about needing creativity and problem solving, that's what they're going to need. Can I have 20 seconds or 10 maybe? What we have to have is an ecosystem. We have to build an ecosystem that whatever Suzanne said and whatever Henrietta said, builds into that ecosystem. And depending on that country, whether it's a developing country, or a developed nation, or rural or non-rural, you see what you want to stretch or minimize into that ecosystem, and you embed it through. And we have to put all the pillars that Suzanne and Henrietta did mention, and of course much more. All right. So a final question before we wrap up the public part of our discussion is from Secunda Besenjo. He says the global focus has shifted from enrollment to digitalization of schooling. Does this overwhelming response from COVID-19 shift the debate away from quality of education? And how do you find the balance there? Just want to find out who would like to tackle that question before we wrap up our session. The question was from whom again? And Zynga, the name? So let me begin with that. Quality of education is extremely important. With half of our children coming out of school unable to read and do basics of numeracy, we have addressed it. And we think that with online digital learning, we can address it. We're going to need measurements. I mentioned this would be a decade of discovery for digital and distance learning. I think we don't know yet all the best ways that a child's mind will learn. But machine learning and artificial intelligence will be our friends to try to make sure that we get quality learning. I think there's also something that Secunder mentions in here is skills. We need to give certification for skills that you learn online. Then a young person has a portable skill that they can use in any community. And if I may just close with one call to action. Tariq mentioned we were coming into the G7, the G20. We have IMF World Bank meetings. We as a community need to have a very succinct, motivating, simple, catchy emphasis and call to action on education. This is our moment. And as a community, we should gather around it. Thank you. Absolutely. I would just add portable qualification as well. Portable qualification and accreditation. I'll talk about what Henrietta said. Portable qualification and accreditation. So thank you so much to everybody for this discussion. I know we need to carry on, but we need to now move from the public session into the private session. And we're going to continue this discussion. Thank you all so much for your time and the people who are watching and sending in their questions. It is very appreciated. At this point, I'd like to invite the four members and partners to return to top link and join the private interactive discussion that will follow immediately after this. Thanks all so much for your time this afternoon.