GOI launches Southeast Asia hub at the Integrated STEM Leadership Summit
November 21, 2022
In early November, the Global Opportunity Initiative (GOI) held its Southeast Asia launch at an energetic regional summit, which MIT’s Vijay Kumar likened to a “rock concert.” The launch marked a milestone in the GOI’s collaborative efforts to grow workforce opportunities worldwide.
GOI’s regional launch kicked off at the third Integrated STEM Leadership Summit, held in Manila, Philippines Nov. 3 – 5, 2022. The Summit convened regional and global leaders to grapple with the links between STEM education and careers in Southeast Asia.
“Helping people thrive in their careers is a key sustainability challenge,” said George Westerman, founder of the GOI and Senior Lecturer at MIT, during his Distinguished Lecture on the first day of the Summit. “Making families economically sustainable is critical to making communities, and the world, sustainable.”
The Integrated Stem Leadership Summit merged workforce and education topics across its three days. Day one focused on career paths and workforce needs, including a panel of top-level corporate executives as well as others with HR leaders, vocational education policymakers,and healthcare workforce experts. Days two and three then highlighted effective practices in STEM education around the region and the world. The dual design spurred speakers on either end of the educator-employer spectrum to bridge both perspectives in their discussions.
In addition to the many organizations that helped to organize the summit and share their insights, MIT speakers played a key role. In an opening day keynote, Westerman introduced the GOI to the regional leaders in attendance. He called for a “global community of organizations” that can help people navigate complex career paths, provide agile training for in-demand skills, and certify the skills people possess. “But to make this vision a reality, we need global collaborations like the GOI,” explained Westerman: “If MIT tries to do it alone, we will never have the impact we want. The impact will happen when we collaborate with hundreds of other organizations. Each group can focus on the people and challenges it cares most about while we share stories, learn from each other, and solve some tough challenges together. ”
Other members of MIT explored how to build the STEM workforce of the future. Cynthia Breazeal, MIT Professor of Media Arts and Sciences and Dean for Digital Learning, delivered a keynote message on using artificial intelligence (AI) to cultivate and augment creativity. “We need our young people to be prepared,” said Breazeal, “not only to be technically prepared but also creative and imaginative in how they apply many disciplines.”
Breazeal shared lessons from MIT’s FutureMakers, a collaboration with SureStart, to teach AI tech skills to students in middle school and high school. FutureMakers offers students six-week “Create-a-Thons,” which culminate in projects using AI. Breazeal also highlighted open resources for AI education: Day of AI and MIT’s RAISE Initiative, for which she serves as director.
Claudia Urrea, of MIT’s Jameel World Education Lab, described an award-winning program called Full STEAM Ahead. This program aims to create and share high quality resources to facilitate digital and non-digital learning in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM). Launched during the pandemic, it provides instructional materials and an open forum for users to share insights on innovative and humanistic solutions for the challenges of learning at a distance.
In another keynote message, Vijay Kumar, Senior Advisor to the VP for Open Learning at MIT, explored how educational innovations can meet future workforce and learning needs. “Every hard product is turning into an intelligent soft service,” said Kumar, explaining STEM workforce skills of the future. Later, he added that an individual now needs AI literacy “to be a productive participant in this new ecosystem of learning.”
According to Kumar, recent innovations—especially in digital learning, the science of learning, and open education—can help people develop emerging competences needed to participate in the workforce. These innovations, Kumar said, make it possible to “personalize” learning pathways, so people can get the competencies they need, whatever their educational preparation.
The Summit also brought together diverse speakers from across Southeast Asia and the world, who addressed topics ranging from women and STEM workforce readiness to science in government decision making. Other speakers at the Summit included Rafaelita M. Aldaba, Undersecretary for the Competitiveness and Innovation Group of the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry; Thomas Leblanc, Office of Education Director, USAID (United States Agency for International Development); Ethel Agnes P. Valenzuela, Center Director of SEAMEO (Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization) Secretariat; Jeff Huart, New York State Conference Director for Educational Projects and Initiatives, NAACP; and Lilibeth Aristorenas, Executive Director, Unilab Foundation. We will share insights from their talks in future articles about the event.
The GOI will expand their outreach by hosting a similar summit focused on the European region in March.
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