The King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh hosted the “InnoXera” summit for the Future of Innovation in Smart Learning. The theme of this year’s summit was “Path to sustainability through innovation in smart learning”. It is worth noting that InnoXera Summit is the largest conference for Future Smart Learning Innovations in the Middle East, where it is attended by leading technology companies, Innovative edTech companies, entrepreneurs and public and private education officials. This year’s summit had seen attendance exceeding few thousand guests from more than 25 countries both virtually and onsite! The InnoXera summit is sponsored by Classera, the eLearning solutions provider which started in the Silicon Valley in the United States more than 10 years ago and has become one of the prominent players in eLearning with more than 10 million users in almost 30 countries around the world with the largest market share in the Middle East.
Industry veterans from global technology companies including Microsoft, Intel, HP, Mc Graw Hill, BenQ participated in the conference this year, highlighted their latest products in the vital eLearning field and expressed their fascination with the development taking place in the region.
In his welcome speech at the Summit, his Excellency Ibrahim Al-Nasser, Undersecretary for Digital Leadership and Inclusion in the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, stressed the importance of the investments made by the Kingdom in the infrastructure, which enabled it during the pandemic period to provide electronic government and educational services at a rate that even surpassed many developed countries. Al-Nasser stressed also on the importance of the educational technology sector as a key sector for the development of the new generation as an engine for prosperity and sustainability.
In his opening speech, Eng. Mohamed Al-Madani, Classera CEO, focused on the significant change in awareness of the importance of EdTech, which is perceived now as a necessity, not a luxury. Almadani emphasized that the best way to win the younger generation is to teach them in the language of their own, which is the language of technology. He also announced that the InnoXera Summit will be a forum to explore the latest achievements in educational technology globally and push the boundaries of innovation in the field of learning technology.
In his keynote, Prof. Dr. Hisham Farouk, Assistant of Higher Education Minister for Digital Transformation in Egypt had outlined the Egyptian government’s plan to achieve the 2030 vision in the field of digital transformation through immersing technology in the higher education institutions and building strategic partnerships with the concerned authorities both locally and globally with the aim of improving the education system and adopting the latest international strategies in the field of eLearning. Also, in his speech, Mark East, the General Director of Microsoft in Europe, Asia and Africa, highlighted the importance of EdTech solutions after Covid, and explored many influential examples that Microsoft used globally to help Education community. Finally, in his session, Prof Dr Mohamed Aljemni, ICT Director; ALECSO – Arab League had touched on the many initiatives and competitions launched by ALECSO to support innovation in educational technology in the Arab world, in which more than 13 countries participated. The summit also witnessed the participation of representatives from the Ministry of Education in the Sultanate of Oman, the Ministry of Education in the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq and other ministries.
In conclusion, Classera, the Summit official sponsor – which won several international awards, the latest of which was the Microsoft Award as the best education partner globally out of 5,000 candidates, had dazzled the attendees of its portfolio of smart solutions, where Al-Madani, announced the launch of a number of new releases that varied between the new version of the AI based smart companion that raises the efficiency of students and trainees, e-payment solutions, virtual labs library, and Persona which help students select their career efficiently.
