Keynote Speakers

Dr Helen Beetham is a researcher, writer and consultant in digital education. She has edited a number of standard texts, including Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age (Routledge), and has published peer-reviewed articles on topics ranging from digital literacy to surveillance pedagogies, and from curriculum practice to feminist theories of technology.

Helen has advised universities in the UK, Europe, Africa and Australasia on their digital education strategies and has worked for international organisations such as the EU, UNICEF, UNESCO and the Commonwealth of Learning. Since 2004, she has played a leading role in Jisc programmes, building capacity for digital transformation in UK universities and helping to centre the student learning experience in that strategic work.

Her Digital Capabilities framework is widely used in the UK and beyond, including in universities, healthcare settings and libraries. She has developed and taught on Master’s programmes in digital education, including at the University of Manchester, where she now works. Since 2023, she has written the AI-critical Substack Imperfect Offerings.

Laureen Rwatirera Chivere is VP Talent Management and Chief Learning Officer at Prosus, where she leads AI adoption and talent development across a global group of technology businesses. She has led global L&D teams for many years and was the founding Chief Learning Officer at both ASML and Naspers, after earlier senior roles at EY, Mars, Levi Strauss and Investec. Originally from Zimbabwe, she built her career in South Africa and the Netherlands. She holds an Honours degree in Industrial and Organisational Psychology from the University of Cape Town and is currently doing her Executive MBA at VU Amsterdam. She is a mum of four sons and a keen sports fan.

With 40+ years in online learning, he literally 'wrote the book' on AI for Learning in 2001 (2nd edition 2024). As founder and CEO of Epic Group plc (floated and sold in 2005), investor and board member of Learning Pool (sold in 2021), also CogBooks (sold 2021), he has invested and advised on learning technology for private and public organisations. With experience in AI going back to his student days, he has focused entirely on AI since 2014, building product, consultancy, speaking and writing books. See less Donald Clark is a Learning Tech Entrepreneur, CEO, Author, Blogger, Podcaster and Speaker. He was CEO and one of the original founders of Epic Group plc, which established itself as the leading company in the UK online learning market, floated on the Stock Market in 1996 and sold in 2005. He has been involved at all levels of investment – angel, VC, growth, PE and IPO. As well as being the CEO of Wildfire an AI learning company, he also invests in, and advises, EdTech companies. An investor and board member of learning companies such as Cogbooks (sold in 2021 to Cambridge University) and Learning Pool (sold 2021 for $200 million), he was also on the Boards of City & Guilds, Learn Direct, University for Industry and the Brighton Dome and Festival. He has published 5 books; AI for Learning (1st & 2nd editions), Learning Experience Design, Learning Technology, Learning in the Metaverse, AI and Productivity. Alongside these he has completed a series of articles on over 350 learning theorists from the Greeks to the Geeks and over 40 podcasts derived from these articles in Great Minds on Learning. Donald has over 40 years' experience in online learning, adaptive learning and AI projects. He has designed, delivered and advised on online learning for many global, public and private organisations. His interest in AI started at Dartmouth College in the US, continued in Expert Systems in the 1990s and in adaptive learning company CogBooks in 2013, also Learning Pool. He founded the world's first AI content generation company in 2014 and has been involved in many AI for Learning projects. He came 28th on the TYTO Tech 'influencer' list and number two on the European 'EdTech influencer' list in November 2024. Awards An evangelist for the use of technology in learning, he has won many awards, including the first 'Outstanding Achievement in E-learning Award' and 'Best AIM Stock Market Company', 'Most Innovative Online Product', 'Best Online Learning Project' and 'JISC EdTech Award'. Neon Elephant Award from Will Thalheimer (2023), and Edufuturists Outstanding Achievement Award (2024). Author He is a well known author, with 5 published books, one in its second edition, also published in South Korea and China, as well as contributions to other books on AI. AI for Learning (2020) Learning Experience Design (2021) Learning Technology Learning and the Metaverse (2022) AI for Learning 2nd edition (2024) – also published in South Korea AI and Productivity (2025).

Kenneth Cukier is an award-winning writer and journalist. He is the Deputy Executive Editor of The Economist, following a 20-year career as a foreign correspondent in Europe, Asia and America, as well as its data editor and commentary editor.

His most recent book is “Framers” on the power of mental models and the limits of AI. His earlier book, “Big Data" was a NYT bestseller translated in over 20 languages, and sold over 2 million copies worldwide. It won the National Library of China’s Wenjin Book Award and was a finalist for the FT Business Book of the Year. Kenn is also the co-author of “Learning with Big Data: The Future of Education”.

Previously, Kenn was a research fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School, on the board of directors of Chatham House, and an associate fellow at Oxford’s Saïd Business School. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Financial Times and Foreign Affairs, among others. He has been a frequent commentator on CBS, CNN, NPR, the BBC and was a member of the World Economic Forum’s global council on data-driven development.

Kenn is a board director of The Open String Foundation, which provides classical instruments to underprivileged children globally. In 2007-2018 he was a director of International Bridges to Justice, which fosters legal rights in developing countries, and served on the board of advisors to the Daniel Pearl Foundation. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  

Kenn has given talks at the World Economic Forum, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, McKinsey & Co, Linklaters, Schroders, GE, IBM, Visa, Mastercard, NetApp, VMWare and Mishcon de Reya, among others. He has also spoken at the IMF, World Bank, US State Department, Council on Foreign Relations, Aspen Institute, Royal Statistical Society and the universities of Harvard, MIT, Oxford and Cambridge, among others. His TED Talk on data and AI has more than 2 million views.

President Gregory W. Fowler, PhD, is a visionary leader in global higher education, committed to advancing educational access for adult learners.

Now in his sixth year as president of University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC), he has led a comprehensive transformation of the university ecosystem, from recruiting and support services to course design, space utilization, partnerships, institutional effectiveness, and more. By leveraging artificial intelligence and data science, he is creating an institution that thrives in volatile markets. Under his leadership, UMGC emerged from the global pandemic and entered a period of robust growth, serving 100,000 learners in a single year for the first time. This expansion led to the opening of new national and overseas locations. Persistence and success increased as well, with the university granting a record 16,108 credentials in FY 24 and 19,330 in FY 25. Previously, as a board member and commissioner of the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE), Fowler co-chaired the team responsible for the future of post-pandemic remote postsecondary learning experiences. As a two-time Fulbright Senior Scholar, he assessed the impact of the Bologna Accords.

He currently serves on the governing board of the Presidents Forum, the ASU-GSV Higher Education Insights Board, the Executive Board of the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield Board of Directors.

Prior to his tenure at UMGC, he served as president of Southern New Hampshire University Global Campus and held senior positions at Western Governors University. A graduate of Morehouse College, Fowler was a Charles A. Dana Scholar at Duke University and has been a featured higher education leader at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, as well as completing leadership and negotiation training at Harvard’s Business School. He holds master's degrees from George Mason University and Western Governors University and a PhD from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo.

I am Dr. Serena Gonsalves-Fersch, Global Talent and Learning Leader, and the 2024 Colin Steed Award winner for Outstanding Contribution to Learning.

With a doctorate from Middlesex University on the future of learning and talent development in hyper-growth organizations, I have built and led key Talent functions and initiatives including L&D, performance management, succession planning, leadership development, talent identification, DEIB, and corporate universities.

Having been both a client-facing management consultant, and an internal head of Talent functions, I see myself as a consultative problem solver. I have extensive experience in creating, building, transforming, restructuring, managing, and leading Talent, Learning and Engagement strategies that are technology enhanced, business-value driven, and commercially minded. I build and thrive in dynamic environments where creativity and leadership drive impact, and ensure I take teams and organisations along on the journey.

As a Fellow of the Learning and Performance Institute, an advisory board member to start-ups and think-tanks in L&D, a co-founder of Women in Learning & Leadership (WILL) and an industry speaker, I am passionate in both research and giveback to contribute to addressing the global skills gap, studying the relationships between humans and technology in future organisations, creating skills frameworks, and advancing learning and talent innovation.

My expertise also spans impactful and measurable organizational design and development, change management, and implementing talent and learning systems to future-proof workforces.

Patrik Hedljung is an AI Catalyst at Scania, where he drives the adoption of generative AI across the organisation. With a background in learning, development and leadership, he focuses on the human and organisational conditions needed to turn AI from an individual productivity tool into a shared capability and organisational change. His work explores how organisations can build agency, responsible experimentation and new ways of working in an AI-enabled future.

Aruj Khaliq is an award-winning intervention scientist, Artificial Intelligence and Sustainability governance specialist, and 30 Under 30–nominated educational leader whose work has created opportunities for over one million individuals across the Global South over the past 13+ years. A postgraduate scholar at the University of Oxford, she specialises in designing large-scale social interventions and policies at the intersection of AI governance, human agency, and sustainable development.

Aruj is the founder of ALIF, an executive advisor of Pakistan’s National Artificial Intelligence Task Force, and Head of Academics at Learning Alliance International. She has designed and led pioneering interventions including the world’s first systematic review on AI and Teacher Agency, a global comparative analysis of AI teacher-readiness policies, and advisory roles supporting governments and organisations in AI Literacy programme design and implementation. In sustainability education, she is the architect of Pakistan’s largest school-based intervention, ECO Schools, and the brains behind IB Ripple- the world’s first research journal for IB students. She has also contributed to influential global projects such as the Youth Support Programme (University of Warwick), Generation Justice (European Union), and Think–Educate–Aspire (University of Birmingham), advancing youth capability, digital equity, and pedagogical innovation.

In 2023, Aruj became the only Pakistani invited by UCL to present at UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, where she introduced the first Global South–driven theoretical framework on Whole School Approaches to Sustainability. Her authorial work appears in international venues, with a major Bloomsbury publication forthcoming in 2026. Her impact has been recognised by UNESCO Youth, UNDP, national and international media, and the International Baccalaureate. She currently divides her time between the UK and Pakistan while advancing research and policy in AI governance and sustainability interventions.

Michael Onyango is the founder of Africa’s Forgotten Bottom Millions (4BM), a transformative WhatsApp platform that reaches over 500,000 people weekly, providing young Africans across several countries with access to career opportunities through digital technology. Since 2016, 4BM has shared over 500,000 verified opportunities, including scholarships, fellowships, grants, and job offers, helping young people gain skills and build successful careers.
Michael has been at the forefront of economic empowerment, chanmpioning the use of frontier technoolgies, leading initiatives across interdisciplinary sectors within governments, NGOs, and the private sector in Africa and globally. He served as a key member of the Distributed Ledgers and Artificial Intelligence Taskforce under the Ministry of ICT, Kenya, and was formerly the Minister responsible for Communication, Information, and Technology in the County Government of Kisumu.
Currently, Michael is a Senior Skoll Foundation Fellow, an alumni Fellow in Social Innovation from the Rockefeller Foundation, and serves on the Advisory Board of the African Blockchain Institute. He actively works with young Africans, leveraging technology to drive impactful change. Michael has also played a significant role in shaping Kenya’s creative industries, including co-developing the roadmap for the sector in collaboration with IBM, positioning it as a catalyst for economic growth and outlining strategies to double its contribution to Kenya’s GDP.

Prof. Richard Powers is an internationally recognized e-learning expert, teacher educator, and instructional designer at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, where he develops innovative approaches to digital, inclusive, and intercultural education across five universities.
As Germany's eTwinning Ambassador for Initial Teacher Education, he trains teacher educators throughout Europe and teaches Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Project-Based Learning with eTwinning and Erasmus+, and Instructional Design for Digital Accessibility.
His work increasingly focuses on artificial intelligence in education, preparing future teachers to use AI critically, ethically, and pedagogically. He integrates the European Commission's AI literacy framework and the competencies underpinning the OECD's forthcoming PISA 2029 assessment of Media and Artificial Intelligence Literacy into teacher education, exploring how AI can transform teaching without losing the essential human dimensions of learning.
Prof. Powers received the University of Stuttgart's 2022 Teaching Award for Excellence and the 2023 European eTwinning Award for Initial Teacher Education.
His international work includes faculty development and collaborative projects with universities in Ukraine, Malta, Palestine, Lebanon, and Namibia, focusing on AI, inclusive education, and innovative learning design.

Mairéad Pratschke is an independent researcher, author and advisor working at the intersection of AI strategy, ethical governance, and human-centred design. With over 25 years of experience in digital education and learning innovation, she focuses on learning systems design that prioritises pedagogical alignment and human development.

She is the author of Generative AI and Education: Digital Pedagogies, Teaching Innovation and Learning Design (Springer, 2024); New Horizons for Higher Education: Teaching and Learning with Generative AI (National Digital Education Leadership Network, 2025); ‘From Consumers to Designers: Strategic Pathways for European Higher Education in the AI Age’ (Journal of Digital Politics, 2025); and – most recently – a chapter in the Foundational Frameworks section of the new Handbook of Generative AI in Education: Integrating Research into Practice (Springer, 2026), entitled ‘From AI Tools to AI Systems: Designing Pedagogical Systems for Learning’.

In Generative AI and Education she introduced the term ‘the new hybrid’ to describe a future of human-AI collaboration rather than replacement, and she is the originator of the Generativism, TPAIK, Context Framework and Agentic Community of Inquiry (ACoI) frameworks for designing learning in and for that future.

Mairéad is a Visiting Professor at the LSE Data Science Institute (2024-27)and serves on the External Advisory Board of the US National Science Foundation-funded AI Institute for Adult Learning & Online Education (AI-ALOE) at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). She also sits on the Expert Review Panel for the Workforce Development Applied Research Fund (2026-27) of Singapore's Skills & Workforce Development Agency (formerly SkillsFuture Singapore), which is run in collaboration with Singapore's Ministry of Education and Ministry of Manpower.

Mairéad is a regular keynote speaker internationally on AI and education. She works with educational institutions, national government agencies, policy bodies and learning organisations on how to prepare for the AI-driven future, helping them turn research into decisions they can trust.

Website: maireadpratschke.com

Dr Lani Watson is fascinated by questions. She is a philosopher and Honorary Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and formerly a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. She has spent nearly two decades studying the art and science of questioning working in schools and courtrooms, hospitals and press rooms, and in the heart of Silicon Valley. Across all her research, she has drawn one conclusion: questions are powerful. And if we learn to use them, we can harness their power for good. Her book Q: The Hidden Power of Questions in a World That Wants Answers was published in August 2026 by Penguin (and is now available in German). Learn more about Dr Watson's work and take part in the research at her website: www.philosophyofquestions.com

Annasofie Wædeled-Møller is Head of Education at Greenland Business School – Niuernermik Ilinniarfik in Nuuk, Greenland. Her work is centred on the role of educational institutions and educators in a digital age, and on the transition from educator-centred to learner- and practice-centred education.
Her perspective is shaped by her work in Greenland and by extensive experience with the Danish and Swedish Defence. Defence taught her that capability is collective; Greenland sharpened her understanding of community as an orientation, not just a resource.
A central question in her work is how education can reclaim and take responsibility for its formative role, and what this means for educational institutions and educators in a digital age. Her work draws on Reflective Practice-Based Learning, Self-Determination Theory, psychological safety, transformative learning and Bildung.