SETTING THE STAGE IN DUBAI FOR EDUCATION’S ‘DAVOS SUMMIT’
▶ World leaders and Olympic champions expected to attend Global Education and Skills Forum
It has been billed as the education equivalent of the Davos economic summit – and the sixth annual Global Education and Skills Forum promises to be the biggest and most explosive yet.
Less than 48 hours before the first speakers take to the podium, many zones of the conference centre at Atlantis, The Palm hotel on the Palm Jumeirah are still taking shape.
This event was very much still a work in progress on Thursday as an army of event staff worked around the clock to ensure all is ready for the big kickoff on Saturday.
A team of more than 150 people have been working for three weeks to build the GESF site, that sprawls across 15,000 square metres and will be the biggest in the event’s six-year history.
“What we’ve learnt from the past is that a big theme works well for the conference and this year we’ve chosen the future and how education may look in 2030,” said Vikas Pota, chief executive of the Varkey Foundation. It is a very real time, and parents are preparing for them, now.
“Our speakers will be talking about the future – celebrities, sports people, politicians and inspirational teachers.”
Key speakers at the 130 sessions include Al Gore, former vice president of the United States; Nicholas Sarkozy, former president of France; Jennifer Hudson, Oscar-winning actress and Grammy award-winning singer, and Sir Mo Farah, four-time Olympic Games gold medallist and sixtime World Champion in longdistance running.
“Our challenge has been to find the best storytellers among our speakers,” Mr Pota said.
“We have a huge youth voice at the event this year, who will speak on subjects that are relevant to them.
“There needs to be an exchange of ideas to build relationships and that’s something this conference does really well.
“Quite often it is the low-profile people you don’t expect it from who knock it out of the park with what they have to say.”
The highlight of the two-day event promises again to be the $1 million (Dh3.67m) Global Teacher Prize, but it will have to go some way to outdo the award’s spectacular entrance last year.
Then, the adventurer Bear Grylls parachuted into the ceremony with the trophy, before Canadian teacher Maggie MacDonnell was announced as the winner by astronaut Thomas Pesquet from the International Space Station.
This year’s announcement is a tightly guarded secret, as are some additional guests scheduled to appear on Sunday, who promise to liven up debates covering a wide range of topics.
A replica of the House of Commons will form a debating chamber in which discussions can unfold, while a mock UN assembly hall will host discussions by young people.
Held in a UN debate format, they will be covering subjects such as how to achieve an education for all, the mounting refugee crisis and the threat of cyber-attacks.
Modelled on the popular latenight television chat show Saturday Night Live, GESF Live will feature British comedian and impressionist Rory Bremner interviewing prominent guests from the worlds of politics, sport and entertainment.