 for development in growth in their countries. My name is Susan Siegel, and I will be moderating your session this morning. We have an amazing group of experts on the subject, and I'd just like to introduce them very, very quickly before I make my opening remarks. To my right, sadly, let me just say Lucy Molinar can't be here with us this morning. Those of you that had an opportunity to see her yesterday realized that in fact she doesn't have a voice. So we're sorry that she can't join us today. So to my left is Blas Oliveira Lorente. He's the Chief Executive Officer of the Latin American Adeco Group from Brazil. Seated across from me is Bruno Sanchez Andrade Núñez. He is the Chief Scientist from MacBox USA, and he's also a young global leader, and it's so exciting to have a young scientist on this panel. Seated diagonally across from me, we're honored to have Laurentio Marques de Albuquerque. Did I say that correctly? Pretty good. Thank you. President and General Manager of Latin America, of CA, and you live in Brazil and are Brazilian. Yes, I'm a Brazilian, I live in Brazil. And finally, on my right, we are really privileged this morning to have Fabi Prabhat Rajela. That's good enough. Okay. He's the Provost from Rensselaer Polytech Institute, and so we have a super panel that will be able to comment on many of the issues that we'll discuss this morning. So what really do we need to think about as we think about this topic? As I travel around Latin America and visit schools and meet people, I think one of the most important things that we need to focus on is engaging students very early in their academic careers. We need to incentivate learning and challenge students from the very beginning. Find ways to encourage students to explore and be innovative in their thinking. And like math, like science, and want to learn English, Spanish, Portuguese, be multilingual because today we live in a global world. Learning needs to be fun and it doesn't just imply memorization, which is how much of learning is still taught in Latin America. To do this, we need to train teachers, giving them the skills to be, to succeed, making them feel proud that they're a teacher. And the challenges that I think this represents are enormous and it requires new thinking on everybody's part. I think of it as a challenge because we need to create public-private partnerships but we also need to engage society, NGOs, and parents because one of the challenges many people have talked about in education, not just in Latin America but in every country is that education is a long-term proposition so we need to engage players that go well beyond one or two political terms. And finally, we need to think about new models. Carlos Rodriguez-Pastore in Peru started something called Inova Schools. Highly rep, you can replicate this in many different countries if we chose to. It's a school that's focused on the C's, C-minuses, and even D's, he's raising money for scholarships. And what it does is it starts in nursery years teaching children to speak English but it uses technology to leverage, it uses the Sol Khan Academy to actually engage children in math and science and teach them and encourage them to learn. And it uses technology so the teachers, it trains teachers, so the teachers can focus on children that are falling behind as opposed to constantly working from the middle and leaving children behind. This is an enormous opportunity as we look in the future. So what do we need to do? Well, hopefully we're gonna discuss a lot of that and this morning and create an environment, on how to create an environment that creates lifelong learning and employability and promotes science and technology. So with that, I'd like to go right to our questions and I'd like to start with Bruno. Could you talk a little bit about what we can do to improve science training in secondary education and how the region can foster the next generation? How can we make scientists and innovators out of this generation? Thank you, good morning everyone. I think to answer those, that question, I would like to highlight three points. One is that what is the value of science? What is the value of technology? Things very important to understand that science and technology underpins the innovation medium and long-term. Yesterday we had a session about driving innovation and education was really one of the outcomes of the working groups all over again in all tables we were working on. The value of science, and I'm talking about basic science like physics and research in these kind of fields. For example, in my case, I spent like six years doing astrophysics, doing basic research and I understand the value of that but also applied science and how you bridge that basic research to applied science which is what I'm doing now on MacBooks. So it is very important to understand the value of science for society, long-term. And that brings me to the second point which is the importance of role models, importance of having people that kids, students can look upon and say, I could do that. I had the pleasure to talk here in Latin America in a few countries and it's very welcoming to see how engaged the students are when they see someone who has chosen the path of science because they are motivated to do that and they see that it is possible to thrive. Now how you do that? There are few things we need to work on and if you look at the latest statistics that the OCDE about Latin America that are eight countries none of the countries surpass half the students in mathematical skills, minimum mathematical skills. We have, there is a lot to improve on but it's important to have these role models and to understand the value of science and technology in general. And then the last point I wanted to highlight before we can start with the rounds of questions afterwards is how you do that. I think one of the key points to do that and you highlighted that before is to shift from a memory-based education system where we train students to repeat what they are being taught into a process-based education. We're critical thinking, it's important. We're being able to describe, to understand to understand the problems and the challenges they're faced instead of just repeating what they've heard two weeks before. So going to a process-based education is gonna be key especially in technology because we are educating always for the future and what kids are learning now is not gonna be the technology they're gonna be using where they are in the workforce on their adults. So these three things, what is the value of science in society in general, the importance of role models and to shift to a process-based education system? I'm gonna ask, we'll come back to the three really important things but before I leave you, I just wanna ask you one more question, who is your role model? I have a few. Feynman is really one of them because he worked in so many things and he was able to work really in the high level. Richard Feynman is a very famous physicist but at the same time he was able to understand the value of life and the connection with other fellow humans. So he's one of my role models. There are many others but it is he's one of them. And when you're a role model, which I'm in a position sometimes to be when I speak, one of the best feedback I can get from students is what I got a few times in my hometown and other places which is, it's amazing that if you are there, it means I can be there too. This is very important. That's great. Thank you very much. Asersio. Tell me, do you think that technology can be a catalyst to boost education in Latin America? Well, good morning everyone. Before I ask this question, I think it's important to position the moment that we live today. So it's certainly what we call the, what we are living the digital economy. So the technology today is not helping the society or helping the citizens there. Technology is basically and is for sure driving the new behavior of the human being. It's not, you're not changing our behavior because of the technology, but technology is really driving it. So all of us here of course have one, two, three and the average three, but certainly some of you have much more than three smartphones or any kind of technology in your hands for sure. And then also in the average, each one of you have about 40 applications that you are helping to use in your life, independent on business, just for your life. So it's driving the read, we watch, we eat, we communicate to people, it's driving everything. And application is everything is driving the, I would say the future that is right now, actually. And at the same time, as representing the technology industry here, the companies are growing a lot and the, like I said, the growth rate of the digital economy is incredible. And at the same time, the growth rate in the education for people who's being prepared for this digital economy is not growing in the same rate. So of course that we have millions of people that are having access to study, they are growing, they are brilliant people to grow with new startup companies or with great ideas. But the industry, the technology industry needs today and we don't have it, the millions of programmers, architects, or people to work in this digital economy to provide even better applications to everyone. And so what to position that? So we have here too many things being provided and we would need to make much more people to come to work in this digital economy if they were ready to work. Why do I say that? Because this is for me two lines of thought that actually is a paradox because to provide these millions of people to work in this digital economy, the technology should be also be provided to all of them. So the technology should be also be in the hands of everyone, everywhere. So, and this is actually not happening today and how this technology could help and be actually the catalyst of this growth today. So, if we have the private companies like big banks, they are doing what we call the translation from Portuguese to English, but bankarization. So try to provide the bank services to everyone and great ideas like boats going to places that they do not have technology just to have access to the technology there. What would happen to the world if you could create the educationalization, I don't know, to provide technology for everyone. So this would be awesome. So I was born in Brazil in a small city, 10,000 habitants in the middle of nowhere. My dad has never studied before, but he moved to Sao Paulo to provide his children to study. Today I'm here as the president of American Company in Latin America, but every time that I go there and I visit my family that I have there and I see some of them still walking hours to go to school for three hours class, what would happen to these people, could happen to these people if they have access to technology, provide access to technology would make a huge, how many brilliant people do we have there, everywhere, so CA technology for example, last year we invested 50% of our social budget for projects in Chile, in Argentina, in Peru, or even in Colombia, in the basic of our projects, well, let's help institutions to provide access to technology to people. So of course there is nothing based on what the government and private companies could do to provide this to these people. So and for sure if people, everyone, everywhere could have access to technology, this would make a huge difference and technology for sure in this case would be the catalyst of education, no doubt at all about that. So if you were just adding a question to your question, if you were making government policy, do you think it would be a good investment to give every child in high school a tablet? As this is personal, because I'm a person who was born in a place that there's absolutely not even education, basic education or even technology, I had no doubt about that. And actually, if we are, when you provide technology to everyone, you are not giving these people, depending on the model, three hours of education per day, you are providing them 24 hours of education per day. So these people that's with six, seven years old, they would be awesome. They were not starting going to school at six or seven years old. They would start at much earlier and they could be like genius, brilliant people coming from everywhere and not even in Brazil. So Latin America, this could be a huge difference for the region. Thank you. I agree with that because we're increasing the gap between the rich and the poor because wealthy people can afford to give their three-year-olds an iPhone and people that don't have access to that can. And so it used to be when you read at six, you began to increase the gap. And now it's much, much earlier. I totally agree with you. How could Latin American universities partner with U.S. universities or global universities to bring students, let's say, to Rensselaer? But more importantly, it's one thing to make a partnership. It's another thing for the young people to have the skills to be able to succeed at a place like your university. What kind of skills and what kind of partnerships can really be developed? Well, good morning everyone. It's a pleasure to be here and to respond to your question, Susan. I think it's not just a question of partnership between Latin American universities and U.S. universities, but really it's a three-way partnership that you have to develop between universities and industry because I believe it's the industry that has a vested interest in really reducing the skills gap that we have talked about so far. So in a science and technology innovation-based society where innovations are really the driving engines for economic growth, companies are looking for trained talent. They're looking for talent with basic competence as well as with advanced skills. Basic competence that translates into a high school education where students have seen science and mathematics and then again, as the companies innovate, they're looking for talent at the higher level, people with tertiary degrees and diplomas in science and technology. Now, this is a challenge in this region where the number of high school educated individuals has lagged behind what has happened in other parts of the world. So you have, whereas the number in the United States is 89% in Chile, Brazil and Mexico, that number is roughly 69%, 41% and 33%, I believe. So this problem is even more dramatic or more dire when you start to think about stem-based education, science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Those fields, even though there are large enrollments of students in those fields, Latin American students have not performed at par with their peers internationally. Well less than 1% of Latin American students score in the highest levels in international science and mathematics proficiency tests. So this is a real serious problem for us and where does it all begin? I think it begins with poor teaching. Right, so that's something that we have to address as part of our partnerships. In South Korea, the top 5% of graduates go into teaching. That number is 10% in Finland and the top 30% in Singapore. If you look at Latin America, 33% of high school teachers in Brazil barely passed their high school certificate exams. In Mexico, 70% of teachers had difficulty with the national teachers examination. So this is an endemic problem that we have to address and I believe universities and industry can come together very effectively to overcome this. Industries can certainly partner with universities to set up teacher training programs and by that I don't mean simply basic skills being given to teachers. What I'm talking about are more sophisticated programs of the type where teachers go through academic training at universities, advanced training and then they have internship opportunities with industry that really motivates them, excites them, makes them a better teacher. They're able to communicate with their students more effectively because that is what you're really looking for is a teacher in the classroom who can motivate their student. There are other ways in which this can be done as well of course that you can create advanced programs for teachers at the universities where just in time knowledge can be imparted to them and this can be done on a continuing basis and your thoughts about technology make an important contribution in this arena as well because they don't really have to come to you necessarily for the education but could do this from where they're located themselves. I think the bridging the skills gap at the higher level where industry is looking for trained personnel to innovate in their companies I think that's a relatively easier problem to address. It's easier because as new material develops universities typically move quickly to translate that into course content they come up with new diplomas and degrees but I think packages of that could actually be used to bring up to speed the talent of the existing workforce within the organization and I think in this context things like blended learning, online learning it has a very important role to play. I think I'll just close my comments by saying that we cannot afford to neglect this. This is not an issue that we can neglect. Failure to bridge the skills gap can be very expensive for the corporate sector. There's a loss in morale of the existing workforce because people are overworked. Only the few individuals with the knowledge and they're required to deliver all the time. There's a decline in the quality of the products and keeping up with innovative advances if you don't keep up with innovative advances that your competitor is bringing to the field that this can be devastating to your business as well. Thank you very much for your comments which really leads in, Blas, to you. There is a skills gap that exists today. How significant is it? And when do we start training people to fill that future skills gap? Could you talk a little bit about that? Gracias. Bueno, yo como soy mi lengua materna ser española Language is Spanish and I believe that most of the present today are Spanish speakers. I will stay in Spanish to answer the questions. It's regarding the skills and the gaps we found and demand gaps generated in human capital. I believe that this is a reality in all countries. This is not necessarily an alarming topic to us. It's an existing situation in Latin America. We do believe the gaps are large. There are some recent studies have carried out and reviewed that have to do with human capital related to technologies and it basically stated that practically in all Latin American countries we're confronting a critical situation and specifically for Argentina which is a country that has invested greatly in economy but at the same time there's a gap of about 31% in which we have countries such as Costa Rica that the gap was so close to 50%. So definitely these are real problems and we think about a different sector. There's another sector affecting several Latin American countries economy. Well, we already know there is a real problem related to the zone but surely this will become a severe problem for the upcoming four or five years because of the recent events that have taken place. For example, the hydrocarbons market in Mexico during the last year at the same time the exploitation of new wells in Brazil and also the agitation from the government to different areas to be explored and as a matter of fact there's another significant action the vaca muerta or dead cow effect in Argentina which is to be exploited in the upcoming three or four years and apparently we're talking about a reservoir volume which is actually very significant that we can actually address this in the country as one of the grandest reservoirs for Venezuela. I am not necessarily an expert but this is information of research. So this demand in capital, human capital gap exists in our country and this is a reality for ADECO as well as with the University of Seja in France. We have created an index which is an index that measures talent, global talent and it basically measures the capacity countries have in order for them to attract and retain human capital in these countries. This is actually a ranking in which we studied 103 countries which correspond to 87% of the world population and somewhere around 95% of our GDP worldwide. So in other words, this is actually a very significant sum and within this index, this talent index we can say that well not necessarily the countries in the zone are looking very good. We're also talking about very significant changes. The country that comes out the best in the ranking is Chile. If it's 31, for example, Costa Rica, they can change it. This is the Ministry of Spanama so we can go ahead and provide the adequate action. So from the medium halfway, but we're talking about the rest of the countries that are midway down. So we're actually talking about very dramatic data such as Bolivia, Venezuela and actually we were taking about the last advantages of our ranking testing with 103 countries and with other alarming actions such as in Bolivia we have more than 80 something percent. I think it's about 87 students per professor actually. I don't know if this is for high school or at least in the case of Venezuela they don't even provide the information to UNESCO. I mean, you can even imagine that these figures are actually very, we can imagine what figures are they referring. So this actually highlights a very important difference in the zone amongst the different countries especially for those on the Pacific area which have addressed themselves to different free trade agreements with the European Union, with United States, with China. They continue growing and developing at a rhythm that other countries have actually bet on their development and it's about assisting one and the other but I still don't believe they have models that are a little bit more popular. They still don't get to obtain progress and they still don't obtain progress in education in a similar rhythm. Any case, in any case, I do believe it's important for us to measure and understand which are these current gaps but at the same time it's also important for us to understand where are these gaps heading to. I think it was in 2010 the Secretary, the American Secretary of Education stated and I believe it's very important for us to highlight this the fact that in 2010 out of 10 professions amongst the most requested professions or the professions with grandest demand in the United States back in 2010 these are professions that did not exist back in 2004. So they're saying that the positions or professions mostly requested for in United States did not exist 10 years before. So if we're talking about comics and if we think about the data that I am not necessarily familiarized with but for example for the development of a video game you need about 200 technical profiles that before I can say that they definitely did not exist but if we go ahead and speak about not just a video game for all the movie or film then we're talking about 400 technical profiles in order for them to develop these type of products which are of a very high demand and as a matter of fact about 10 or 15 years ago these professions didn't even exist. So it is very important for us to work on these gaps it's very important for us to work on these demand skills but not just the current ones because we know that the current ones are not necessarily the ones that will exist for the future and just to conclude if there's any way in which we can intervene in what has to be done by governments and by different models well evidently I believe that the recipe is not an easy recipe but on the other hand evidently the recipe is not an easy one else wise we wouldn't find this situation but we've already spoken about some possible solutions some possible e-learning models and technology models in schools as a matter of fact I don't necessarily think this has to be at a high school level this has to be before it's something basic and it's something very complex in the zone it's not very easy for you to provide all of these tools in all countries especially the countries with larger populations but let me wrap up here, let me finish soon we need to focus on models we need to focus on high school education there are some countries that follow this model for example Brazil they have models for the promotion of school assistants but they still remain in the basic model without escalating high school education thank you very much that we've talked about a lot of different things but one of the things that you said very early on and it touches on I think what many of you said was that we're going from a memory based kind of teaching to a process based and to critical thinking and that touches, it's what you said it touches on your whole view on giving young people access to technology, it goes to math and science it goes to secondary education and filling the skills gap could someone comment, would anybody like to make a comment on this and give us your views as to how you get there in Latin America how do we do this in tomorrow? well we need to do it today not tomorrow so I can only comment that the barrier to access knowledge is getting low and low through technology mostly so even though it is true we should also address the divide in urban rural which is a huge challenge to give access to technology in the rural areas when you have access to technology having access to the knowledge is easy and in many cases like Coursera, Khan Academy even Wikipedia gives you access to start making this thought process of critical thinking and to the point that Blas was saying before none of the tools I used today in my work I studied them in my education it's only because I learned how to think how to process, how to learn is what I'm able to shift to that so when we are educating for a future where the top ten jobs and do not exist today this is why we need to focus on them on critical thinking also because critical thinking is gonna allow us to maximize them what some people call the social elevator where people with less access to wealth can change and have a better outcome even though they didn't have the opportunities that other students with more income could have access why because this critical thinking is inherent to you not to the knowledge that you are given when you learn to learn you don't have basically limits of what you could learn thank you may I just add to that that I think that critical thinking today is even more important than it was a few years back I mean the internet is the new library but you know before a book or a journal got into the library it went through a peer review process what was in those books or journals was validated by somebody so you could take that to the bank that information you could take to the bank and say that this is verifiable information when you have access to the web like you do today as we have spoken about where you start learning at age one or two you're bringing up information on the web you're picking up that there is that has to be a way where you are taught to think critically as to whether that information that you're receiving does that make sense the validity of information is that much more important today so critical thinking is I had an early access technology so I had my honeymoon for example this person in Mauritius Island and I went there and never heard about it before but it was a suggestion of the travel agency I went there I discovered there that there was a a little duck that has been extinguished years ago called do-do and I bought one little gift and I gave it to my nephew a nephew that I love him six years old I said, hey this is for you I thought that he was, oh little duck this is beautiful he said, oh isn't this do-do, uncle? how do you know that? I thought that it has been extinguished like in the twelve years, two hundred years ago how do you know that? so he knew that I was going to Mauritius Island he probably had access Google it learn everything this is unbelievable this is unbelievable what happens to people when they have access to information and they learn, oh today I see my two years old daughter trying to, and she sees some advertiser things like that and she tries to oh let me move here so this is what will, it scares me what will happen to her she's six or seven so again, so what do we need to do today? it's tough the iPad is the appliance what is inside of it is the application, what it calls software and software is he writing human behavior software is rewriting the way of thinking software is rewriting the way we communicate, the way we buy, the way we do everything and and that's, and software can rewrite the educational system so I think this is the main thought that I have in my mind do you have any comment on that? well a little bit along the lines evidently one of the ways in order for us to obtain progress I mean traditionally speaking especially in our times we worked in cognitive schemes I believe that cognitive schemes I mean it's not necessary for us to continue working on them as we've stated before the information is available on the internet so for this reason we need to go ahead and teach youth groups that they need to no longer memorize they need to provide this information they need to learn how to search for this information out on the internet and we need to focus greatly on profiles social, emotional and cultural profiles in a greatly manner in comparison to these cognitive skills that we usually start working with thank you very much so before we start taking questions to the audience we have one question from Carolina Faro from Facebook and I'm going to read it in Spanish in Peru professors for public education are demanded to have master's degrees they also have annual testings or examinations as it goes to the skill gap and I was wondering what you think about training teachers on an annual basis and forcing them to take exams to make sure that their skills are where they need to be I think you touched a little bit on that in your remarks but you would like to take this question well I can I can certainly offer this that exams are just one mechanism for determining the quality of teaching certainly you want to make sure that a teacher who's in front of your student your child is appropriately qualified you don't want somebody who's never had mathematics and in their own college education up in front of a class trying to teach high school students mathematics that certainly is a is a requirement but how frequently you do it whether you have to do it once a year we have experience with attorneys and with medical doctors certification having to take your qualifying exams your license exams all over again maybe it's a good idea just to see whether you've kept up with the skills perhaps it's also a good idea to help them it's very important and we raise the point of of the need to make sure that those who educate have the skills to do that and the material so to that point helping making these materials more available and focusing on those who have the most problems to provide them with the tools they need so not only for the students technology for the students but also for the educators which are the enables for the more wider audience and helping teachers learn what I think we've all learned at home that they can learn from their students how to use technology we all learn from our young children let's take some questions from the audience and there are microphones if someone has a question back here and I know who you are but if you could identify yourself that would be great so let's start with this David over here Good morning to everyone I'm Esteban Bullrich I'm the Minister of Education of the City of Buenos Aires I'm also a YGL like Bruno I had a comment and a question the comment is we haven't mentioned values and I think a big part of education today should be trying to make better human beings because we have a lot of engineers that have gone to the dark side and have made the world a worse place to live and I'm not going to go into names but so I think my question would be what place do each one of you give to a more holistic education including the spirit of the kids making them more resilient and to do that you have to go for the mind you have to go to the body but also for the spirit and the values of those kids so I wanted to hear from each one of you what place do you give to that could you start with that? yeah I'll say this is especially me that I'm not from educational area and technology industry that is you have a great heart no I do so that's why when you start speaking I start thinking about something and the experience that I just shared with you so my my parents they never had access to any kind of study so they just learned how to read and write and if I but I am so proud of them I am so proud of them because they never had education but they had the wisdom to coach and to give the right instructions and education at home to his children so if I am someone today is not exactly because I had access to technology or I had access to education but I had something much more special it was someone teaching me how to be a great human being if without that technology is dead I agree with you so it's certainly a terrific point that you mentioned and we cannot lose that it's not the way to transform the technology just give an iPad to someone and forget about school you can never do that to anyone so provide access to technology to help them to be someone better and faster and to discover the brilliant people that we have around Latin America every country, everywhere, every city but we can never forget on how to teach these people to be a great human being so it's an excellent point just as far that came into my mind as a personal experience right so I think this is a very interesting question because clearly one of the things I have noted in my own career it's a 24 year career at Transylvania Polytechnic Institute that the student that we are receiving at the front end is also changing we are predominantly an engineering institution almost 58% of our students are engineers but at the same time the student that is coming in today is different they have a social conscience they want to do certain things with their lives that I think a few years ago was not the case so as an institution you have to adjust and our motto, our motto going forward is that we want to put in our students an intellectual agility a multicultural sophistication and a global view this is what we work with all of our programs are designed with this in mind and it's no longer just about teaching in the classroom it is a continuum of education that you practice that goes from the classroom into the residence halls where support exists both from the professors as well as residence life professionals they tag and team with individuals in their own class they form clubs they pursue activities precisely of the type that you speak about Spot on yes totally education is about values and it's about tools and values is what is going to give you the the capacity to decide how to use those tools and I think that in science and technology it's easier to bring those values in part because science is universal so the values of we are here together in the common environment for example it's is brought when you start studying biology or nature or physics but values is also important at a very small level to care about your community how you can help in that take quick to care about your country to help it because it's the one who is investing in you is helping you to be educated so I agree with you that values is is a very important part of the case and nothing else to add is truly the same my name is Andrew Wilson from Santo Domingo this is directed to Bruno what about your education allowed you to go from heart science to entrepreneurism is there any insight about your education educational experience to make that path possible thank you it is difficult it is very difficult because we tend to frame we tend to frame education and those who chose the path of basic education are framed as that those who choose for example in my case to do rocket science they are rocket scientists and when they try to look for a job it's like we don't need a rocket scientist it happened to me I could not change from my old work to my new work and I I thought I had value to that my skills were useful but it's very difficult the answer is that it's very difficult but it is possible and those who are making that path is again going back to the role models that you can do that you can use your skills probably I'm not using my knowledge of plasma physics but I'm using my skills to to tackle a new problems on on mapbox so yeah the answer is that it is difficult something we should work on for the public in general to to see the value of of science and technology which is how I started them my my remarks today back here Hello I'm Leandro Pizarro and I'm a global shaper from the Córdoba hub in Argentina and I had in the last couple years I had the opportunity to talk in front of high school teachers and tell things about native digitals millennials and how the top market is changing and this new way of learning online learning etc and they they told me yes we know we agree with you we see these problems but we had to we had curricula to follow and we had to do these things that are prepared in the program and we had this task to achieve on the other hand I have participated in the IT sectorial table with the minister of education in Córdoba and he was saying yes we are doing this prototype this pilot project in one school in two schools about software teaching and that that kind of stuff my question is how can we build an scalable a model for education that we can apply these practices and I mean scalable that can reach a lot of schools thanks I would like to take this question maybe I'll take a shot at it so I think education you really have to let the people who are teaching feel as if they are making a difference so you cannot go in with a proposed model of your own and tell them that this is what works I think what they have to do is to embrace it on their own they have to see the value in doing what you're proposing that they do there is as much of a socialization content in education as there is delivery of material just raw material so really education is a coupling of the two it is the social aspect and it is the knowledge content part if you can put the tools in a format that actually makes the best use of technology in the flipped classroom is a terrific example of this that students actually do a little bit of their own before they come to classroom and rather than sitting in front of a teacher who will then give them a boring lecture they actually work on problems that actually help promote their critical learning critical thinking skills if the teacher sees an advantage in doing this then you have a win-win situation and I think this is really how it has to be cast scalability is an issue that has been tossed around a lot in recent times I think with the advent of MOOCs people have said that all problems will be addressed with MOOCs I'm a skeptic I'll admit it MOOCs have a place but I think they have an even bigger role to play as specially packaged online courses right on your residential campuses yes they get access to education in remote parts of the world but they are not necessarily the best way for a student to learn and develop good morning my name is Juliana Ramon I'm a global shaper from the santa domingo hub Dominican Republic Professor Hazella briefly commented on the cause-effect relationship between the teachers and the quality of education in Latin America in some of our countries particularly the case of the Dominican Republic teaching is no longer an aspiration it's no longer an aspirational profession from many reasons widening from salaries to the social consideration of profession would you think that the root of the problem might also be considered the lack of dignification of the profession in our countries no question no question about that I think uh... you asked Bruno the question as to who their role model was and if you had asked me that question I would have set my parents both of them are teachers and uh... they are the inspirational force that has brought me into this profession clearly I mean if you look at places like Finland or even South Korea the academic profession is richly rewarded and that really does help in bringing the best talent to the classroom you live in Brazil do you think that's the case in Brazil as well of course it is so of course it is and I think you need to take a I don't know years ahead to try to change it is so the importance of for me the importance of the teacher will be always high and high it's just everyone's adjusting to the new board as well as the teachers will be so if you don't have the real values coming from them at home and even the teachers must be there to give the real values and the good use of that if you just give the technology you will create various marketing intelligent monsters so you need to have the the power and the importance of the teacher there and they need to be motivated to do that as well so she's right so we have time for a few more questions let's take one back there and then we'll take one over here good morning hi my name is Alexander Bro from Sangage Learning I think we have heard a lot about tools and access and even value if it comes to education and I couldn't agree more to you know what has been said but don't we kind of underestimate or kind of forget a little bit a third element which is the actual content of learning I think we have looked into numerous projects of sponsored by governments and Geos and others to put iPads in the hand of kids and this is great they learn a lot they learn how to deal with an iPad they get digitally savvy and all that but what do they learn actually beyond that when they play with an iPad and we found that there is a dramatic lack of suitable content when you put these devices in the hands of children more children than for grown-ups because grown-ups tend to know at some point their way around to find free content somewhere so my question is A whether you agree to that and but this is more the question is do you see any specific trends in terms of demands of what type of content has to be provided specifically in the K to 12 area and beyond that as well and if you have come across any interesting models partnerships who produce these type of applications on contents which are run on these devices then what I want to do because we have eight minutes left is take two questions at the same time so could we take the one back here and maybe one more there and we'll answer all three questions at the same time Hi my name is Martin Aspillaga my company is technical education and K to 12 I'm from Peru and I'm also a young global leader as Esteban and Bruno my question just to be brief is there's been a Latin America is one of the regions where the private sector has had a very big role compared to other regions but today there's a whole discussion particularly in certain countries like Chile but also in Peru and other countries about the role of the private sector particularly the for-profit private sector and the government and the state and my question is if you see this as an opportunity to strike a new balance you know across the board between the public role and the private role or it is a a menace a threat to the development of education thank you and we'll take one more question this person's been having his hand up since the beginning yes my name is Oclever Rojas I am a program shaper for Jose Jose Costa Rica I would like for you to get into greater details related to gender disparity for technology and education Costa Rica for example between 350,000 to individuals are meaning that they do not work nor do they study about 81 percent of them are women in other words education is not getting in the same way to women or men and not even in salaries are so gender inequity and finally how come of all speakers there's not one that is a woman I think Lucy was going to be but she doesn't have a voice so that's why there's only men here and the moderator is a woman room and if you you don't have to comment on all three but we have like five more minutes so each of you get like a minute to comment on the questions the first item related to content I believe that evidently yes it is true like always in several initiatives we initiatives usually move forward faster but since I know that at least the main editorials in Latin America which are usually global editorials they're already working on this as a matter of fact I have some data from Brazil from the main editorials from textbooks they have more than 30 percent of their sales related to digital programs with which effectively yes there is a lack of content that we are currently working on and regarding Martin's question I believe if it doesn't I think it has to do with the public sector I believe that recently with the last presidential elections that took place last year in Chile well I think we haven't done much but at least with the selections flag or at least the critical item in which we had the best or the most reform has to do with the educational system the current Bachelet President and President Bachelet based her current campaign on the educational model and public education for Latin America and all other countries obviously this is crucial and important to education and there's nothing to be done if we don't work with the public sector and if we don't work with high school education so about content my experience is that helping in content happens through outreach in many cases for example in astronomy where astronomers create products to help educators bring that knowledge this is not a solution this is something that needs to be institutionalized and actually many countries what happens about content is that it's being driven by committees or even by regions that set those those content so yes I agree that we should focus also on the content on the content about that we educate on about the role of martin's question about the private sector there is a huge role I think I believe there's a huge role and in many ways one way would be to help access to technology to promote access and use of technology there are cases like for example one laptop per child that happened then the question is what is the impact of that so everyone has a laptop what what happens can we monitor if there is an improvement on education at least also there are new models for for-profit companies that can help education this is also the case of my company mapbox we we base our product in open source open data and we actually are very active into helping the community and helping educate we give ourselves for example when I came to Panama I gave one give web to NGOs and there is really a role in these new models of for-profit businesses okay and just to to finish about gender yes absolutely agree with with your question and actually it is not only education if you took a look at the statistics it changes also the statistics for math women tend to perform worse and when you look at the statistics of capacity to read and to understand text women perform better so it's not a systemic problem of education per se it's also culturally what we incentivize women to do that I'm sorry that I'm rushing people but I have someone telling me of two minutes so there's you well so quick comments only so content is extremely important so you give access they have access to the good things they they have access to the bad things as well so if they don't have devils and the right things being teached they have they become monsters with good and bad the role of the private sector so even in Peru for example we have invested a little in some institutions as a private corporate for sure let's not be it's because we have some kind of advantage to do that so it's a kind of win-win of course that if you have some agreement between government and private sector to make that a kind of obligation instead of just you have some benefits if you do it it would be much better and I run Latin America and CH technologies I have three senior leaders reporting to me one for Mexico it's one man one for Brazil it's another man one counter to each one of them the other 30 countries is a woman a Colombian woman because only a woman to have a village to handle all of that with greatly so that's my outstanding so quickly I think the content market is a big one and there are a number of educational companies that have actually undertaken developing content for iPads and laptops and so on and so forth both for secondary education as well as the market is moving into the tertiary education field as far as women is is concerned I think we cannot afford to leave 50% of the population behind if we are to make progress as a the women I mean this is contrary to your point women in science and engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute do better than men by a full 10 percentage points so if we can get women to come into science and technology they will outpace men that's a great way to end this panel I want to thank the panelists and I just want to conclude by saying I think we talked about some amazing concepts the value of education and science the importance of role models the idea of process based learning and critical thinking technology how we can change the world by bringing technology to very early age to all people we change the young people and their parents and their households as well the importance of values and how you need to learn them in school and at home and it's an important part of education stem and how important it is to prepare young people to really study stem and the skills gap and how I think we need to start to think about and fill it at a very very early age obviously we talked about teacher training and also making sure that they are appreciated by society so with that I'd like to give a very loud round of applause to our panelists thank you so much