Hello, everyone. A very warm welcome to all the attendees of the Women Tech Global Conference. 2021. I'm delighted to be here with you today in the powerful mission to unite 100,000 women in tech from all over the world.A very warm welcome to all you women in tech as well. I would love to know which city and country you are from. So please type your responses in the chat. As for me, I'm joining from Luxembourg, a small country in the middle of France, Germany and Belgium. I would love to keep this session interactive. So please feel free to type your comments and questions as we go along. Very nice. I would li I it's really nice to see your interaction super. So despite the negativity around the COVID-19 pandemic, we must acknowledge that it has been a great contributor in bringing education, digital and entrepreneurship to the forefront. Here is my take on the big ideas of 2021 in education. These are ideas to work on further as they are here to stay idea. Number one, the role reversal and blurring of teacher and student. The concept of an eternal learner is back in vogue during the pandemic. When teachers were groping to quickly learn how to conduct classes remotely, the students often had to show them how to unmute, share a screen or post the class assignment on Microsoft teams or Google classroom or whatever other software they were using in countries where teachers have near authoritarian powers.

It made those lines blur. Sometimes the students were teaching and the teachers were learning. The concept of being an eternal learner focus on unlearning and lifelong learning, upgrading skills has been put back in the forefront idea to true blended learning will be the future of education, conducting the class in the same classroom style, using the white board of Zoom instead of the blackboard in the classroom is not really harnessing the true potential of blended learning with online.

The possibility of using the blended learning approach is immense. It gives students the opportunity to take control of their learning. It also gives teachers the opportunity to innovate and makes the subject interesting. The time in the traditional classroom can be used well as teachers and students have been using online learning, they are both realizing its potential. The pandemic has moved online learning beyond the pilot mode into implementation. So now lessons learned are being applied which will allow true blended learning to be the de facto education technique. With the 322 work week being suggested by Ashley Williams, a professor of Harvard Business School. Likely to be adopted in organizations. So 322 means three days at the workplace, two days, remote and two days rest schools might not be far behind to embrace this technique idea, three rethink physical spaces in schools with blended learning as the future of education, we have an opportunity to restructure the physical spaces in schools if and when the 3 to 2 Workweek model gets adopted in schools either in this form or in a variant, it will open up the possibility for rethinking the use of the physical classrooms, the canteens, gyms, playgrounds, labs inside the school premises, the time in person at school can be used more for application of learning to create projects, to share the learnings, to build stuff or show what has been built and spend less time on hearing lectures or learning about a topic, the classroom as we see it now in the mode of your one teacher desk up in front of a board and all the teachers in theater style is ideal for listening mode will change.

We can envisage more round tables with equipment and resources that allow building things more like a maker space, physical classrooms will then become innovation hubs and incubators of applied learning idea for spotlight on education and technology enabling education. Venture capitalists poured funding into tech start ups.

As COVID-19 shook up the market, we see investments almost tripled from January to July 2020 going up to 998 million US D and it was 310 million US D just a year ago. Tech was the most funded sector in 2020. We all possibly know about Whitehead Junior's sale to buy juice for 300 million US D. This and many more deals have brought the spotlight to education along with education, the technology enabling education, be it, collaboration platforms like Microsoft teams, Google classroom or content providers and also hardwares like laptop tablets, et cetera. All the teens who were using their mobile phones for researching to submit their homework realized that it would not fit the bill for online learning. So parents had to invest in devices for the Children when schools were not able to provide it to them. This brings me to another important point. Big idea. Number five policies to lessen the digital divide. The pandemic showed that the safe way to continue learning was behind a screen, having a device with an internet became a necessity. Increasing the digital divide. There were cases of students committing suicide like Aishwarya of Lady Shriram College Delhi in India, which prompted the women in tech organization to initiate a laptop funding drive for the students of the college who could not afford it. They were successful.

And there are several other such examples of grassroot level movements that were initiated to help bridge the digital divide. It now gives the opportunity to governments and policymakers to formulate and implement policies that will speed up the process of bridging this gap of the digital divide.

You would agree wi Fi is like oxygen and connecting to the world to learn through devices is a basic necessity for students. Idea. Six stem and entrepreneurship are the skills of the future. Each year or decade has its share of most sought after skills or profession of the future. The pandemic has shown the world that stem skills are timeless and key scientists, technology specialists, engineers and mathematicians coming up with models to predict the spread and prevention methods were clearly the professionals to look up to all households were looking to see the progress of vaccines or tracking whether the new virtual background feature has been enabled or looking for the app which allows home delivery of essentials for vulnerable groups.

The importance of knowing coding skills for Children was well highlighted during these times with the loss of jobs during the pandemic redefinition of what is essential and what is not entrepreneurship has taken a forefront. It has brought out the spirit of people to take upon themselves to start something that will solve the problem of society and help to sustain themselves. This skill of entrepreneurship has to be introduced into schools too. Idea. Number seven, geography is history. I remember this quote from when the internet had been adopted by the general public as it was possible to access things from a different region where one lived, didn't matter anymore. So geography became history, taking a plane and going somewhere is no longer an easy option.

Now, even as things are starting to open up with more remote jobs available, the access to learning possible from anywhere in the world. This court has more significance now than ever before. The meaning of student exchange programs will change. It will no longer mean a student from America coming to Europe for a semester to learn certain subjects. At a partner university, the universities can redefine the student exchange involve more students as the barrier of cost is no longer prevalent with online as the norm, they can design programs that will benefit a larger population of students. Moving beyond borders can be for both teachers and students truly harnessing the power of the global village that we live in. Big idea. Number eight health at the forefront, the pandemic has shown us that health has to be put on the forefront. Growing sales of immunity, boosters and alternative medicines. Offers of psychologists and professionals in the space of mental health are an indication of this trend. Educators, teachers students are all expected to focus on health, both physical and mental. There has been a strong focus to continue physical education lessons virtually or with safety measures inside the school. Increasing the staff of not only health and hygiene but mental health care specialists within the school has been a noticeable shift.

This trend is here to stay yoga breaks, focus on the physical and mental well being is here to stay in the education domain as well. Idea number nine schools redefining the value provided. There has been a huge trend of parents asking the schools to lower school fees in some countries like India, following the pandemic, schools have been challenged with fixed costs of vacant physical spaces plus investments they've needed to make in cloud spaces. In order to conduct online classes, they face the additional challenge of navigating the steep learning curve of its teachers on the parents' front, they felt that the education provided has not been equivalent to what a child gets in a physical school as they had to be there with the child during online class.

Plus, they're not really using the school building. So why should they continue to pay for the building fund, which is part of the school fees. This is a time for schools to redefine the value they provide to their customers, not only the students but the parents big idea. Number 10, growing respect for the teacher community, innovative teachers keeping the primary school students engaged with puppets or funny sounds are the most watched videos on social media. The teacher who wrote outside the school village walls where Children could sit physically distant and continue to learn. Made headlines.

Our teachers and educators are, the new influencers. Parents have gone on record to say that they now realize how hard a teacher's job is just after a few weeks of trying to home school their Children themselves. There is a growing respect for the teaching profession and guru Devo BVA meaning teacher is God is being widely accepted. In summary, the pandemic has shown us who the real heroes are not the great looking models or impeccably dressed film stars, but those tired people in uniform with swollen faces due to the mask who relentlessly carry out their duty as health care professionals, supermarket staff and cleaning workers.

Also not to forget are brave teachers and educators who quickly learned new skills and came up with innovative ways to keep the education listening uh going. Thank you so much for listening. I will be very happy to hear your comments and questions a little bit about me. I have been in the technology industry for more than 25 years working on implementing software solutions for fortune 500 clients across the world with different companies like IBM for 11 years, having been involved with education, especially in the area of technology for Children.

I set up workshop for me, a nonprofit organization through which we create the problem solvers of the future using coding skills. I started this eight years ago in Luxembourg with my then 12 year old son, I'm passionate about bringing more girls into technology and hence mentor girls in the Stem Scholars program with the New York Academy of Sciences, the Tech Novation Global App Development Challenge through ease that we have recently founded the European Association of Stem Educators.

We support teachers and educators with steam education which is crucial for the future. I will be very happy to connect with you on linkedin. So please feel free to connect on any of the social media handles that work for you. Thank you so much and I look forward to speaking to you and hearing your comments and questions and hopefully being able to answer them as well. Very nice. It is very nice that you all have liked. The fact that Wi Fi is like oxygen. Yeah, it is. It is really, I'm happy to see the lovely comments that you all have been giving. Thank you so much. Oh, great that you thought it was a good presentation. OK, I'm going to read it out for y'all. So Claude Dana, I'm not sure if I pronounced your name correctly mentioned great presentation. Um Regarding idea number seven to me, a student exchange is not only about learning the subject that a university has to offer. It's even more importantly about the experience of living in a different country, leaving the comfort zone and learning the skill of adapting to new environment, new language, new culture, et cetera. So in my opinion, it cannot really be replaced by online learning. Absolutely, you are correct.

But parts of it can still be just yesterday. I was in a conference where Boeing was mentioning how they changed their uh program where they were going into schools and telling them about stem and careers possible to completely virtual, thereby allowing not only students of their area but also across the world to be able to benefit from that technical knowledge.

So that in my opinion is something that we can harness because of online. Very interesting points. Happy to connect. We are building an application to make online lessons fun. Very nice. Thank you. Thank you so much everyone for joining and I look forward to continuing to be in touch with you. So feel free to reach out on linkedin or any of the social media platform and I will continue to keep the conversation going with you. Have a great rest of the conference everyone. Thank you. Bye bye.