Topic: Education

Sonia Ben Jaafar

Experienced strategic leader with over 20 years of experience in educational development across Canada, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Dr. Ben Jaafar currently serves as the CEO of the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation for Education, one of the largest privately funded philanthropic education initiatives in the Arab world. A key focus of her expertise is promoting the use of rigorous evidence as a means of gaining insight into and collaborating on sustainable solutions to pressing educational challenges. She is committed to assisting key stakeholders in having a collective positive impact on education and enhancing livelihoods.

Her additional role as Chairperson of the Global Council on Sustainable Development Goals focuses on cultivating partnerships that contribute to achieving sustainable development goals with measurable impact in the education and talent ecosystems. During the course of her career, Dr. Ben Jaafar has worked on major educational development projects with organizations including the American Institute of Research, Ericsson, UNESCO, UNICEF, and War Child UK.

Prior to her appointment as CEO of Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation for Education, Dr. Ben Jaafar was Managing Director of EduEval, where she developed partnerships with governments, international agencies, non-profit organizations, and multinational corporations to promote evidence-based education decisions.

She holds a PhD in Educational Leadership from the University of Toronto, as well as a MA in Curriculum Studies. She utilizes her experience as well as her academic background to promote knowledge sharing and education for the greater good.

Ishan Gupta

Ishan Gupta is the Managing Director, Udacity, India. Udacity is democratizing education to make it affordable and accessible for people around the world. Headquartered in Silicon Valley with operations in China, Germany, India, and the UK, Udacity provides online education to millions of students in collaboration with top employers including Google, Facebook, AT&T, IBM Watson, Amazon Alexa, Mercedes, Didi Chuxing, FlipKart and more. Ishan’s role in Udacity as the Managing Director for India is to build a strong team, launch more India-focused courses and take the Indian business to new heights.

Ishan was until end of 2016, the Vice President (Business) at Paytm (India's largest mobile commerce company, valued at $6Bn). Before that, he was running EduKart in India, which he had founded in 2011. The company went on to become the largest education marketplace of India.

Ishan has earlier worked at Facebook as a growth manager for India and established a corporate development division for a telco services company.

With a philosophy, ‘good is the enemy of great’; Ishan’s passion about democratisation of education has allowed him to lead and contribute to various initiatives which have resulted in education being an equaliser.

He did his engineering from University of Delhi and MBA from Stanford University, California, USA. Besides that, Ishan has published a book on entrepreneurship titled “Make the Move- Demystifying Entrepreneurship” and has been invited to speak on topics of leadership, entrepreneurship and ed-tech at various prestigious venues in India and outside including TEDx, Stanford Graduate Business School, IITs (Delhi, Mumbai), IIM - Bangalore, ISB, India Conference at Harvard and many more.

Ishan frequently writes on topics pertaining to education, technology, entrepreneurship and business management for leading Indian publications like The Times of India, India Today, YourStory, Indian Express and more. Ishan has also been featured on prestigious global and Indian platforms like TechCrunch and The Economic Times among others.

For his contribution to education technology, Ishan has been featured twice on CNBC Young Turks in 2006 and 2018. Young Turks is one of CNBC - TV 18’s longest running shows for young entrepreneurs in India. He has also served as the chairperson of Education Technology Committee of Internet & Mobile Association of India.  

 

Graça Machel

Graça Machel DBE is a Mozambican politician and humanitarian.

She is the third wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela and the widow of Mozambican president Samora Machel. Graça Machel is the only person in history to have been first lady of two different African countries, serving as the First Lady of Mozambique from 1975 to 1986 and the First Lady of South Africa from 1998 to 1999.

She is an international advocate for women’s and children’s rights and in 2007 Graça Machel was made an honorary Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire at the request of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.  She has been a social and political activist for many decades.

She was a president of the Foundation for Community Development (FDC), a Mozambican not for profit organisation she founded in 1994. FDC makes grants to civil society organisations to strengthen communities, facilitate social and economic justice, and assist in the reconstruction and development of postwar Mozambique. In 1994, the Secretary General of the United Nations appointed Ms Machel as an independent expert to carry out an assessment of the impact of armed conflict on children. Her groundbreaking report, presented in 1996, established a new agenda for the comprehensive protection of children caught up in war, changing the policy and practice of governments, UN agencies, and international and national civil society.

Graça Machel has been particularly involved in The Elders' work on child marriage, including the founding of Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage.

Machel currently serves as the chair of The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH). She also serves as the chair of the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA) Eminent Advisory Board.

Over the years, Ms Machel has gained international recognition for her achievements. Her many awards include the Laureate of Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger from the Hunger Project in 1992 and the Nansen Medal in recognition of her contribution to the welfare of refugee children in 1995. She has also received the Inter Press Service’s International Achievement Award for her work on behalf of children internationally, the Africare Distinguished Humanitarian Service Award and the North-South Prize of the Council of Europe.

Among her many current commitments, Ms Machel is Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, a founding member of The Elders, a member of the High Level Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems and a panel member of the African Peer Review Mechanism.

Tererai Trent

Dr. Tererai Trent, founder of Tinogona Foundation and inspirational speaker, has touched millions with her story—including Oprah Winfrey, who chose Dr. Trent as her “all-time favorite guest” after 25 years and more than 30,000 guests. Because of her amazing never-give-up attitude and desire to give back to others, Dr. Trent's life is an inspiration and a lesson in perseverance.

Dr. Trent is also featured in Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a New York Times bestseller written by columnist Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

In inspiring keynotes, Tererai Trent passionately commands a room as she talks about the power of dreaming with a purpose, the importance of education, women’s empowerment and the four Ps of women in leadership: power, passion, purpose, and procreation. Her eloquence and rich authenticity leave audiences with a lasting impression of what it means to overcome humble beginnings and to achieve one's dreams.

As a child growing up in a cattle-herding family in rural Zimbabwe, Dr. Trent dreamed of getting an education. Married young and the mother of three by age 18; she was bound to an abusive husband who beat her when she expressed her desire to learn. But Dr. Trent was undeterred. She met Jo Luck, a woman who worked for Heifer International and inspired the young mother with the words, “If you desire your dreams they are achievable.” Without a high school diploma and with only her mother’s encouragement to aim high, Tererai subsequently wrote down her five dreams on a scrap of paper; going to America to achieve a bachelor's, a master’s degree, and a doctorate degree along with the seemingly insurmountable goal of giving back to her community.

Sealed the list of dreams in a tin can, and buried the tin under a rock. In doing so, she became her own dream keeper and broke down the vicious cycle of poverty in her life despite facing incredible odds and many obstacles.

Today, Tererai earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees in the United States. Now, through her organization Tinogona, which means “it is achievable” in her native language, she is working to realize the last dream— “giving back to her community by creating educational opportunities for girls and women in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

In partnership with Oprah Winfrey and Save the Children, Dr. Trent is rebuilding 9 schools in her native country and improving learning for more than 4,000 girls and boys.

Currently an adjunct professor in Monitoring & Evaluation in Global Health at Drexel University, School of Public Health, Dr. Trent is a senior consultant with more than 18 years of international experience in program and policy evaluation, and has worked on five continents for major humanitarian organizations. As a fellow at the Center of AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) at UC San Francisco, Dr. Trent conducted research on HIV prevention in Sub Saharan Africa with a special focus on women and girls.