WaiTALK “AI in Education: from personalized programs to interconnected campuses” (at World Summit AI 2019)
Women in AI (www.womeninai.co), the first global community for women in Artificial Intelligence organized a panel session at World Summit AI on innovative practices in the field of Education and the impact of AI in the industry. The event and the mission of Women in AI have created a longstanding interest within the global AI-community. It embraced diversity as representatives of various startups, global enterprises, academia, and agencies filled the Yada Yada place at Taets Park location.
Through the history of times, education has always been the underlying foundation of economic growth, innovation, and societal advancements. What used to be a norm — filling a classroom with students who would follow a lecture and try to catch everything the professor says in their notebooks- is not working anymore. To have the maximum outcome for educational efforts, content needs not only to reflect the modern reality but also be personalized and tailored to the capabilities of students with different learning styles.
Dr. Cara Antoine, CMO & COO at Microsoft Netherlands who moderated the panel discussion, opened the track by saying “This week is the “Week for Accessibility” in the Netherlands and around the globe. I could not imagine a better time to talk about how we can leverage Artificial Intelligence for Education and explore how this technology will unlock limitless learning for persons of all abilities. With AI and other modern technologies, we will be able to enhance student-centered learning and transform classroom time through personalized experiences that help enable better learning outcomes, empowering every student on the planet to achieve more.”
With the application of Artificial Intelligence, educational institutions now can, on the one hand, analyze the learning patterns among their students — their level of knowledge, the ways in which they learn best, and on the other hand disrupt the ways in which their classroom content is developed, and processes are carried out.
Anna Nordell-Westling, Co-Founder and CMO of Sana Labs, revealed some insights on the industry — ” Currently, students learn approximately 70 percent of the curriculum each year, leading to the accumulation of knowledge gaps. By identifying and addressing these gaps, AI-based systems ensure that 100% of knowledge is constantly mastered.”
When answering the question about the areas of influence and impact of Artificial Intelligence & Robotics on learning and teaching, Maggie Feng, CEO of Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences said — “AI will transfer our teachers’ role. It will allow teachers to be more of an observer, a mentor, a coach. Imagine AI is taking over the knowledge transfer and students are learning at their own speed and following their own learning methods, then the teacher can focus more on emotional development of the children in the classroom. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?!”
Hanan Salam, PhD, Co-founder of Women in AI and a professor at emlyon Business School explained how the difference in gender doesn’t affect the way people learn — “AI can be helpful in tailoring education to the learning profiles but it is not gender-based. It is based on the individual capabilities of people to process information and their behavioral patterns. Women in AI welcomes both women and men to participate in our initiatives, AI workshops for professionals and bootcamps for youth, where we help AI-minds to reinvent themselves and innovate in the rapidly transforming AI ecosystem. That’s where we learn that the best way to boost the learning experience is by tailoring and personalizing it, and supporting it with social interaction.”
Tamar Neter-Gans, Founder of RobotWise, continued the discussion on social interaction and the role of Robotics in the field of Education, including the education of students with limited abilities, “RobotWise stands for ‘socializing through technology’. What we mean by this is that technology should contribute to socialization and thus lead to greater interaction between people and their better learning. At RobotWise participants discover their skills while playing with robots, where every level of intelligence is automatically addressed. The use of Educational Robotics becomes even more important when children or grown-ups are limited in their abilities. Whether it is due to mental health issues, such as dyslexia or autism, or physical impairments, robots can become assistants, mentors, and friends for life. I believe that everyone can learn to program and work with technology no matter the age, gender or background.”
For the foreseeable future, the world will require more experts to manage data, develop and train industry-specific AI systems, and conduct research. Especially, when it comes down to ethical design and application of robots and robotic systems. Though, the need for experts who understand technology spans across all industries, not only limited to fields of Robotics, Design, and Development. Therefore, learning is also important in an office environment as employees need to continue advancing their skills and knowledge.
Linda Frietman, Founder and CEO at IamProgrez, explained how Artificial Intelligence can easily advance individual’s learning journey, provide a fair match between available jobs and candidates in the market, and ensure ethical career promotion- “Educating future generations in digital dexterity — in the use of AI and Robotics — is in my opinion one of the most important challenges that we are facing today. It is also a great opportunity to apply AI for tuning our current systems of Education and Talent Assessment as AI helps to utilize professional possibilities based on the unique set of skills and strengths of each candidate, therefore adding fairness to decision-making. AI could also improve employee reskilling programs by tailoring educational plans and bridging existing knowledge gaps per individual profile. It could do so as well in the case of mentoring programs, establishing a better match of mentees with mentors based on the experiences of each.”
Our learning in the future will be done via computer learning and AI. However, the human touch is vital to preserve. A human being who is working along with the students and teaching them the ability to interact, think, take action, and understand the difference between good and bad choices.
At the end of the panel discussion, Anna Nordell-Westling provided her point of view on the “AI and Human” future, — “AI can really help us to excel in mastering skills but knowledge is what you need to retain on top. This can be done only via physical, social interaction. For example, exchanging ideas with each other, counseling and mentoring work, and actual discussions. I believe that we will always thrive from physical interaction with human beings even a hundred years from now. In a nutshell, it all comes down to combining AI and the human powers that we have.”
About Women in AI
Women in AI (WAI // www.womeninai.co) is a nonprofit do-tank working towards gender-inclusive AI that benefits global society. The global organization was founded in 2017 in Paris, France while its Dutch chapter was launched a year later, in 2018. Our mission is to increase female representation and participation in AI. We are a community-driven initiative bringing empowerment, knowledge and active collaboration via education, research, events, and blogging. Our network is 2500+ members from 90+ countries and it is continuously growing.
AI development throughout the years has been mostly led by men. Now, with AI advancing at a high pace and with the applications of AI raising ethical questions, there is a strong need to have both women and men participating alongside each other in building a sustainable, inclusive future. With Women in AI expanding rapidly across the globe, this could become the answer to the global community’s ethical quest for increasing AI fairness.
“Community is at the core of WAI. Our global platform empowers female AI-visionaries and practitioners by providing access to educational resources, networking opportunities, and hands-on support, while accelerating a community of global pioneers in the field of Artificial Intelligence. We welcome both women and men to participate in our events as we strongly believe that the non-biased future can be achieved only when we work on it together,” — presented Eve Logunova, Women in AI Ambassador in the Netherlands and the Host of the WaiTALK event.
www.womeninai.co — Join us in building the future of AI!
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