Across the globe, one of the biggest challenges counties face is rising inequality amongst their populations. Teach For All believes that educational inequity lies at the center of rising socio-economic divides and that transforming our education systems will enable millions of children to have a better future. Over the last 35 years the organization has built an international movement for education equity based on tens of thousands of young leaders committing their lives to education. This movement started in the US with Teach For America in 1988 and has spread to 62 countries, including Italy, where Teach For Italy was launched in 2020.
Across Italy and the US educational inequity is growing. Over the last 25 years both education systems have struggled to remain forces of social mobility, all this while the school system has had to take on ever more challenges and social problems once responsibility of the family structure or social services.
Reforming and strengthening public school systems is complex work, that lacks silver bullet solutions and requires multi-sectoral responses based on broad partnerships with educators, families, local communities, the private sector, and broader society, leveraging technology and best practices to improve learning.
The advent of AI and its fast development is raising questions and concerns in the international education community. While most experts agree that, at least temporarily, AI will increase economic inequality because of the impact on jobs and entire professions, some are starting to see it as an instrument to improve education systems, possibly benefitting marginalizes students the most. Some countries (Finland, Singapore etc) are embracing AI as an instrument of teaching and learning, leveraging its technology to free teachers’ time from admin and revision work to focus on tutoring students and improving the planning of their lessons. Other countries are banning the use of AI in schools and for students and are requiring teachers to monitor its usage.
This will be a discussion among educators, education experts, school principals and tech entrepreneurs about the role of AI in making our societies less unequal starting from education. Is AI a tool to leverage and embrace? How can educators actively engage with the tech sector to incentivize the development of socially responsible and helpful technologies? How can education prepare current generations of young people for the massive transition in the world of work that the world is about to witness? And finally, how can we make sure that Italy and Italian students, especially those from marginalized backgrounds, don’t lose out to AI but have the competences to succeed today and tomorrow?
Program:
18:00: Welcome & Introduction
18:05-18:50 Panel Discussion with Moderator & Speakers
18:50- 1915 Q&A Discussion
19:15-20:00 Cocktail Reception
Speakers:
- Welcome: Sergio Strozzi, Consul General of Italy in San Francisco
- Moderator & Introduction to the panel: Alberto Acito, Director INNOVIT
- Andrea Pastorelli, Founder and CEO of Teach for Italy
- Diego Piacentini, Founder, View Different
- Valentina Imbeni, La Scuola San Francisco, Reggio Emilia Approach
- Lama Nachman, Intel Senior Fellow, Director of Intelligent Systems Research Lab at Intel
- Miranda Nash, Group VP, Applications Development & Strategy at Oracle – AI for SaaS