Hello, everyone. Welcome to this webinar. We will be starting very soon. So we will be starting like in about four to five minutes. We are allowing more participants to join in and then we will start. So, yeah. Meanwhile, if you want to introduce yourself in the like chat, you can do it. So like tell us from where you are, if you are a parent, student or teacher, you can tell like describe yourself in the chat. We will be just starting of this discussion in just two minutes. Yeah, so I will start the session now. So, hello, everyone. I hope you are doing well. Welcome to the fifth episode of Talk with Expert, a special webinar series in which notable personalities and industrial experts join us to share their expertise and enlighten us on the topic related to the field of education, AI and coding.  This webinar series is a part of whatever 2020 AI, this year's biggest international AI and coding competition for kids that encourages them to channel their inner innovation and come up with creative solution to real world problems by making AI projects in pictoblocks. Today, we are going to discuss the importance of 21st century skills for students and how they can accomplish it. And to enlighten us on this topic, we have a panel of expert and change maker with us tonight. Our first guest of the evening is Mr. Natheshan Apaya. Mr. Natheshan is the senior manager, innovation and project-based learning at Agastya International Foundation. Agastya Foundation is the Indian Education Trust and non-profit organization based in Bangalore whose mission is to spark curiosity, nurture creativity and build confidence among economically disadvantaged children and teachers in India. The foundation runs hands-on science and art education program in ruler and rulers, semi-urban and urban regions across 19 states. And it is one of the largest mobile hands-on science education program that caters to economically disadvantaged children and government teachers. Thank you for joining us Mr. Natheshan. Thank you. Looking forward to supporting all of you. Sure. Our second guest is Ms. Anusha Siddiqui. Ms. Anusha is the head of India AI, a joint initiative of MIT, NEGD and NASCOM. India AI has been developed to create for creating and nurturing a unified AI ecosystem in country to drive excellence and leadership in knowledge creation in order to develop an AI-ready workforce and to use AI for fostering economic growth. Previously, she was a full-time product manager at NASCOM. She is also the co-founder and ex-COO of form0.in, a platform that served as a one-stop guide to getting admission in university across the country. Thank you for joining us, Ms. Anusha. Thank you. Thanks a lot. It's Asna and the pleasure is on mine. Sorry. Our third guest of the evening is Ms. Payal Manan Rajpal. Ms. Payal is the South Asia head of Robotics International and annual robotics festival organized by Robotics, which is an astonation-based organization. It brings together thousands of engineers, executives, students, families to get inspired by technology, examine new startups, build robots for various challenges and learn about the latest technology innovations. She is also the director of Robotics India and founder of Hack the Crisis. Thank you for joining us, Ms. Payal. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Thank you. Before we begin, I would quickly thank our sponsors, the Motwani Jadeja Foundation US, Talent Republic, Mexico, SEM.org US, Illigo, Center for Digital Technology, LBCMF, Zafair Toys, JLCPCB, our community partner, India AI, Agastya Foundation, India STEM Alliance, SHIROS, Play to Transform, all our business partners and academic partners for helping us making Codewa 2020 AI possible and thus this webinar possible as well. So my first question is like, my first question, like we can start with the discussion right away. So my first question is for all of you. The world we see today is not, is not like it used to be 20 years back. So today we have like cutting edge technologies, shaping our world, different disciplines are now getting interlinked and now we have like just having the knowledge of one field isn't enough. So what according to you is like, how can we define 21st century skills or how do we say that? Okay, these are the skills of 21st century. So Ms. Pail, if you want to go with this question, you are on mute. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you for that, Pankaj. And I'm glad that we are discussing the skills that will shave the future of work as opposed to college degrees. So clearly the future of, when we talk about the future of work, which is directly related, correlated to the 21st century skills or the skills that one must have, it will not be about college degrees but be all about job skills and now is our opportunity to steer those about college degrees towards successful careers and increase diversity among the workforce. So interestingly, when we talk about the future skills or the skills of today for the future workforce, it will not be just about hard skills. It will also be about holistic job skills. So when it comes to employers who look for more than just task oriented or technical skills and companies want people with an eye for detail, creative problem solving thinking, a collaborative mindset and an ability to deal with ambiguity and complexity. So besides data and AI, machine learning, robotics, cloud computing, immersive technologies, IoT, which we call as our technical skills, life skills at the same time, strategy, cognitive thinking, communication are equally important because I speak purely from education, employment and entrepreneurship perspective. Yeah, sir. Definitely, there is one part which is the technological part that is getting on and then there is a personal development part which works on life skills, different life skills like collaboration and those parts. Ms. Asana, you want to go ahead? Yeah, very well put, Pyle. I think you summarized it very succinctly but if I were to add anything to that would be, I think inquisitiveness is something that we should encourage in a child from the beginning and ensure that they are always willing to learn, unlearn their, anything that is not going on and be open to relearning. And also empathy is something that is highly underrated if you practice empathy you're going to be a better team player and not just that you're going to solve for the user whatever it is that you're trying to solve for and not for yourself. So those are the only two things I would want to add other ways you mentioned it very correctly. Yeah, definitely. So Mr. Nathesh, if you want to go like add something to it so like anything which is inside like 21st century skill. Yeah, like according to me like 21st century skills can be referred as the ability set or set of the skills which are required by the children to succeed in the life and according to me it can be grouped into three categories. One is like literacy skills, live skills and learning skills and for me like other than this one thing which I would like to add is the ethics. We must teach these ethics skills to the student so that it will build up their means holistic thing like when we are teaching them the ethics they will be learning much more into the deeper things relating to the environment relating to the things around them in a wonderful way. Yeah, definitely. So like ethics and empathy are the like what I would say is the underrated things like most of the people get ignored so that's the thing that has to be said when we are talking related to artificial intelligence or new age technology coming in. Yeah, definitely. So bringing to the next portion so like there are some like we have established that there are some skills required which are now required in this age that is like communication, problem solving, creativity, critical thinking, ethics and all those things we have said that these things are required in order to become ready for the future. So how do you think that students can learn these skills? So Ms. Pail if you want to go again. Sure, thank you. And you know very well resonating to the thoughts of my panelists and very well added on in terms of curiosity as a point. That's fantastic. When we talk about skills, many skills that had been considered valuable a decade ago are considered obsolete today and there is no doubt that many valuable skills of today will be obsolete in a few years. So we are now preparing for jobs that didn't even exist before and the world economy is being preempted with disruptive technologies which are transforming how people live and are creating demands for new skills that very few people had just you know a few years ago. So I would say that a lot of project based learning thinking of a subject with an end goal experiment creating a working prototype is what I would say how you know the children can sort of adapt themselves with the new skills and new age learning. See you are saying that majorly like if we focus on hands on projects or hands on learning where students are more focused towards creating something with some kind of a discussion in groups and those things rather than just learning about the theory or how like mugging up and all those things you are saying that hands on learning make all these skills possible? Yes hands on learning and you know project driven learning is what I am talking about so in our robotics championships our youngest participant in 2019 was seven and a half years old who made a line follower robot that was input into an agricultural project which will help the farmer it will save 25% of his time to sow seeds this is a seven and a half year old child which has learned how to create a line follower but then put that model into an agricultural project which he learned in environmental studies so those are the kind of learning that I would definitely advocate. Yeah empathy plus technology bringing both together so Mr. Natesan if you want to go ahead with your answer like how can students learn these 21st century skills? Yeah like I really agree with the file like preparing this child for the next generation skills is very important and it is not that easy task but it can be achieved by creating environment for the immersive real world learning like when we take them to the real world they will be learning in a much better way it will help in filling the gap between what they learn in the school to what is actually required and second thing is like we should create unique experiences which stand out like in terms of by taking them through the journey of AHA and AHA what happened by AHA and AHA is like when we see something which is unbelievable or for the first time we say AHA and then the journey starts to explore it we will try to explore it what is this how is this what is happening and that is the moment of AHA and the last AHA is when you find it out like this is the thing what we are looking out for or this is the thing what is actually is there that is the joy AHA thing when a child goes through the journey then that experience he or she will never forget that will be lifelong experience for them and third thing is like we should start early what I meant by starting early is like we should introduce these skills to the students at a very early age so that they will be like they will feel related to the things which is happening around they will learn explore more and the last thing I would like to add is like we should avoid these two mistakes especially these two mistakes one is like looking at this or teaching these skills as a separate entities like these are no separate entities and it is we should integrate these things and second thing is that we should not forget introducing this career readiness skills we should make them understand what is meant by this career readiness skills so that it will help them for the future so in the conclusion part I would just like to say that a space for the classroom where learner will be much more immersed with curiosity and creativity runs and the teacher and the learner will be like collaboratively working with the latest technology available to them that space will take them or enable the child to learn the 21st century skills in a better way definitely so it was it was very much like described in a manner like how how students can use the environment that they have in order to learn these things so Ms. Asna if you want to I hit with your like take yeah I agree to notations point that you know exposure to a variety of experiences is a great way to bring up a well rounded child and that not just goes for any particular stream of education it is you know it stands true for anything else that child may want to do and you know since right in the beginning of this discussion we stressed skills I think those can be acquired if you ensure that the child is exposed to a variety of experiences and also hands on learning like Payal said because that will ensure that the child is invested in what he or she is doing and you know once you're invested is when you're really trying to get to the depth of any topic yeah definitely so like if I take like if I conclude this point like it's the environment that they are like learning these things in and also a lot of experience based learning is the part which would drive how the students would be able to learn the 21st century skills and it's very much important that the teacher or the people who are teaching to the students would like give them the exposure to try something new or to learn something new so like if I just say for an example if it's an example which is not related to the topic that we are going but if we say about cricket if the student is given exposure to cricket or those kind of things then they are able to like develop interest and later on if they want to pursue that thing then they can pursue their interest as well so it's basically like if they are given exposure to the new age technologies they would get like interested in some kind of 21st century skills and then they would pursue like they might pursue those things as a like dedicated dedicated me so yeah so I would be moving on to the next question so like how does STEM education or hands-on learning help students develop 21st century skills so like what does STEM education brings on to the table and how that can be used in order to make these skills like we have covered those part but how does STEM education comes into the picture so Ms. Hasma you can go. Education forces the child to do critical thinking which is not just important in your school years but also throughout your life so to analyze to develop an analytical kind of mind is something that is at the center of STEM education apart from that I think when you're experiencing when you're doing hands-on learning and when you're actually trying to play with the components of what it is that is being taught to you I think the kind of learning that you take away from that is something that cannot be replicated by just textbooks if you want to add some examples to it you can add some examples like any past experience that you have there are certain very difficult programs that I wrote that took me weeks on end and I would remember those as the few features of my education experience I think the more difficult the problem is the more time you spend on it and you know when you try and attack that problem from different angles is when it really leaves them up on you and you not just develop an analytical bent of mind through that journey you also develop perseverance which is another I would say key skill to have definitely so Miss Pail if you want to go ahead and you can add some examples to it yeah sure you know adding on to what Ajna said and completely you know agreeing with her thoughts that STEM subjects and soft skills like you know analytical thinking will be key for the jobs of tomorrow so and the jobs of future will heavily rely on a good grasp of STEM subjects because it helps to develop the aptitude of critical thinking using the approach of solving real world problems but I would also call it STEAM and highlight the A in it so you know science, technology, engineering, mathematics all sort of perfect to use solving real life problems but also A as arts has been you know so we've been along with robotics teaching kids gamification and we've taught 2000 students of state government rural and tribal to sort of make a game we are sorry play a game and learn music via that process we've also had you know some in our hack the crisis hackathon which concluded in April 2020 we had an 11 year old that created you know mental health app and we did this hackathon when country was in an absolute lockdown you know this app which was developed was done by you know four school children the 11 year old was the project lead and they did it in complete isolation you know they won the sixth spot on hack the crisis India but beautifully using arts and music as tool for mental health in their app so you know not only are we looking at stem here but we are also looking at how it was highlighted and then when we look at the life skills of working in remote locations communication team building that was all sort of a part of this yeah definitely so like now nowadays like steam is also like a very very important thing that is coming on and arts add a lot of like creativity into the project so or like we can add much as a creativity or as a music and all those things we can add in order to enhance the experience that the end user is getting definitely so Mr. Natesan if you want to like add something on this and you can also give an example from your past experience how stem has changed like the students overall play yeah I totally agree with both Payal and Asana that stem or team like they play very vital role in developing the 21st century skills in a child like if we are introducing the stem in a proper way what I mean by proper ways like not focusing only on the science part or the mathematics part or the arts part it should have all the aspects all the elements in a certain aspect like then only it will give a child the tool or the method of the new on the creative ways of innovating or the problem solving or data analyzing or defining a data or linking to the multiple fields one of the examples I would like to share is that we often like take our ruler students we usually work for the ruler students take ruler students through the various activity and some of the activities are research based which involve the stem all those things like these two students did a project on making like paper from the banana fields they like they did they work with some of the experts in the engineering college they use some of the technologies and learn the mathematics of it like in which shape the paper will be better and what is in search and all those things science part all this was involved after this like they went to the competition but they were not fortunate enough to win but their confidence level was very high and they said that now they can achieve in in life like now they were not afraid and they were thinking like they have moved to the next level or the next step and they even started to teach these skills to the other students that's what we call it as a peer to peer teaching that is also happening thank you great example so that was very inspiring how how your organization like all these experience to the students that was great so moving ahead with the next question so like when we talk about STEM skills or newest technology then there are few technologies that comes into our mind so one of the technology that comes is artificial intelligence and coding okay so like my next question would be so like what role does these like newest technologies like AI and coding like play when it comes to the overall development of students because like a lot of if I like add a point here before we start the discussion so like if we talk about coding so coding had a lot of logic building and problem solving skills into the picture so like you can have you can have students focused on these parts so according to you how does coding and artificial intelligence you can take it one by one as well help students develop these things and how they develop their life how can this be developed in the life skills so so miss Pail if you want to go first thank you thank you Pankaj so you know I was reading this sort of interesting report by World Economic Forum that said that more than one billion jobs and almost one third of all jobs worldwide are likely to be transformed by technology in the next decade and we're talking about artificial intelligence machine learning and robotics being the absolute you know entry level fundamental or foundational of it and you know we are already seeing this happen besides that you know I would like to give an example for the children who are watching this in terms of you know how it plays a pivotal role in terms of you know day-to-day life that I mean think of think of the service staff at you know one of the favorite restaurants which is taking your order these days on a tablet you have to scan the menu which means you're also compromising your data but anyway that is a separate topic altogether that you know it's connected to a central order processing system back in the kitchen which has a very heavy element of you know ML and automation to sort of get that running then the tablet you know must work without any glitches to make sure that the you know orders are running sort of smoothly and at times you know when you go back to that same place you're instead of your server remembering back in the days you know you would like a bowl of fries or you know your favorite chocolate cake this time around it is you know the tablet which is prompting that which has a very heavy you know enormous element of artificial intelligence you know sort of built in it and then if you think of the apps we use to shop track orders and simply stay informed about you know day-to-day things in life we're looking at you know the fact that these are running at all hours day-to-day so when I said that our data would be compromised so besides AI and ML I would also add in an element of blockchain and cybersecurity here for the students to at least you know go and make themselves aware of it from you know a perspective of securing the data I mean here's an example of how AI and ML are already being used in day-to-day life yeah I guess you took it to a point like telling a lot of applications like I was asking in terms of how like the application that you told was now going very increasing in terms of getting into specific regions and but also like what I would ask the question to Ms Asana so according to you we know that artificial intelligence and machine learning has come a long way and now it's getting into the way students can learn the skills that we are talking about like 24% well I think this is your question there are two sides to AI plus education one is us using AI to help in getting better education and the other is to learning AI in itself so to the first part I think the world is moving towards hyper personalization and education is not no different personalized learning is a great application of AI in education evaluation there are so many different ways that AI can help evaluate whether it is through taking the mundane part of a teacher's role giving it over to AI when it comes to using AI for a student adding it to their arsenal of skills AI is no different than regular programming apart from the fact that you deal with a mountain of data so imagine we are living under a mountain of data and AI is that sieve which is helping us make sense of mind insights from that mountain of data in the form of diamonds which are those insights so I think AI working on AI on top of coding can be a very rewarding experience and at the same time can reveal a lot of insights that you didn't know exist in the data so that kind of feedback mechanism that happens when you are programming in AI that is something which is unparalleled yeah I would add an example to that so one of our students a lot of students to whom we have made them aware about AI and machine learning we make a very simple project which is identifying whether I am wearing a mask or not so when they are just training a machine to identify whether I am wearing a mask or not a lot of times what happens is the model that they have created they use their face only okay and their the current is not perfect when they change when the model is being changed and they are being used by other students then their models tend to be like working not accurately so in that process they learn about the deep things like for AI is like a human being only so in more data we will be giving it to learn more accurate it will get so things like this would add a lot in terms of making the students aware about these technologies and developing and questioning the things why these things are happening yes and making it rigorous by ensuring that you make test it against a variety of data so yes it builds that rigor in yeah definitely you want to add something on it yeah like undoubtedly this AI technology is going to be next big thing in the world and this AI has the potential to accelerate to create new innovation technology like AI when we talk about the AI and the 21st century skills what is happening is like this is supporting students in a great way in all the three categories what I mentioned earlier like learning, life and literacy skills because when students are doing AI projects like they will be not only sitting in front of the laptop they have to understand what actually is the problem for example if a child is designing something on a traffic or solving the traffic problem then that child has to actually go and see what is the traffic problem and understand it then he or she will get a better understanding which will support in designing a better solution yeah so that part is also added here yeah definitely definitely so this brings me to the next question which is like let's talk about the different roles and you can also describe about your organization and how you are getting other partners or collaborators on board as well so schools, business and government organization empower this like children to develop these skills so question notation if you want to go ahead yeah like with new NEP in the place like we can expect changes in the education system developing the 21st century skills in the students like I believe now is the time for to like leverage the power of collaboration to bring in this change like building the partnerships with different leaders from the business from the education of fields it will help us like when we develop these collaborative things then we will be working together in one direction like for this vision and when we are able to fulfill this vision it will be possible for us to develop a better like a collaborative team which will look to different skills among the students like we are always ready to collaborate even Agastya as a thing like we are collaborating with different peoples, different organization different schools and it has been like helping us a lot to reach to many rural students and support them in various ways yeah so can you just to get to elaborate on the things how your collaboration have helped expand to like you are working on like 19 states so how does that has like been for you yeah like when we talk about the collaboration like I would like to like thank our chairman because he is the person who builds upon the networking system like and he focuses on the networking and collaboration even advises most of the staff members to work on developing those skills like networking and collaboration like we have been collaborating with various institutes not only in India abroad also like in Singapore or USA like Boston of museum, MIT those peoples and India also like Indian Institute of Science those people and we expose our students to this various teachings which we are receiving from different people different institute and like we are giving this to all the students so supporting them and developing their skills also to reach the next level yeah definitely so yeah definitely so miss Pail if you want to add something like you can tell us about your more about how you do partnership with different organizations it can be schools businesses and those part and how can schools and business can like get into these kind of things you can like elaborate more on that right thank you thank you so yeah I would firstly when we talk about collaborations was very excited to you know sort of see as I hear because I have been reading so much about AI for India and the fantastic job that you started the 8th 9th and 10th grader training for AI so you know that's fantastic and that's a you know brilliant example right here we've been doing is so we've been working heavily in the public and the private sector and when we talk about you know something that's really passionate and close to my heart is the public sector so rural tribal state governments and state board schools that we work with starting age six for our you know steam robotics AI and other future skill programs and our collaborations are with so I was a former spokesperson for you know education Estonia and Finland so most of the collaborations steam from Finland and Estonia because we know that these countries have been one of the finest in the last you know few decades when we talk about OECD so adapting the Finnish based model and also the Finnish based prototype for most of the kits that we use are the prototype do come from either Sweden or Finland or Estonia and then we make them India and those are the kits that our student use even for robotics to AI to steam the gamification course that I mentioned earlier so a lot of international collaboration that we've been you know doing since the last five years in India and we have also thought of something in terms of how to make these future skills accessible and affordable for you know why should these expensive skills be limited to the private schools or to the rich kids therefore we added our you know nonprofit in the last three years where we worked heavily with the state governments and it's amazing to see that when one of our tribal you know a student from in 2019 who was taught AI and robotics completed 78% of the line follower track at the crampionship which was commendable that sort of gives us more information to do it and secondly when we look at even the you know education boards of Finland when they know that this is being done for the betterment of the no strata of the society so something which will be available for 15,000 euros is then made available to us for 500 euros and even sort of further downsized because it's for you know giving back of the society so yes we've had some you know brilliant collaborations with the international countries and we've implemented them in India we have programs running in eight languages and it's been fantastic yeah definitely so Ms. Ashna like you have your vision is on collaboration and meeting a very big community so according to you like how is this collaboration and community building and all those things are important like how can businesses can start like their first step into these kind of things so like what is your view on that well schools can ensure that there is an open environment for students to choose the problems that they want to solve for and then create a conducive environment whether it is arranging for partnerships that will help them benchmark their abilities against the rest of the world for example I think that is one way to ensure that whatever your building is you know at least you know in the long short you're aiming for world class businesses I think you know I want to you know sort of take a different stance on it and say that you know businesses should highlight role models that are truly representative of the diversity that India has so as for the students to really for the you know children to look up to role models that they want to aspire to become and when it comes to government I think you know they should parallelly strive for inclusive education across all streams and particularly STEM because it's a resource intensive field it is one that requires a lot of resources so for government to ensure inclusivity you know throughout the country is a major task in itself yeah so like just to add to that like there have been a lot of initiatives that our government has started so like at an innovation mission was one part which is very much like focus towards building the skills then we have the new NEP that is coming on which focus on hand on learning and then there is like if you see the curriculum that are coming into CBC and NCRT and those parts so there are also like artificial intelligence and programming to like early students is also coming yes so like how do you think like these government initiatives would help to accelerate the process of learning of course you know once it is mandatory and part of the curriculum you have no once you are exposed to the wonders of this technology there will be a percentage of students who will take to it and really flourish and I think you know ensuring that every child gets exposed to this technology is was a mandate that has been taken up by the government and is being executed beautifully you know there are ATL utter tinkering labs all across the country and you know budget has been set aside for that and they are already you know being allocated to universities and other places to set them up so I think the first piece of the puzzle is really in play in terms of resources and I think the rest is hopefully will work out really well if the students take to it yeah definitely so mainly we now have to focus on how we are executing those programs and make it more fruitful for the students yes also you know adding on asna your spot on there because even the sort of you know the state governments and the government forums and bodies to implement these you know when we say that rural it has been as quick as what it would be in the private sector and pandemic has helped even further the scale of the problem for the government is huge and I think it is a big mandate to take on correct and like you said the ATLs have set their budget aside and so have a lot of forums and in it's great to see that you know for example of Vicky Flow comes in so they are sponsoring one of our programs for you know certification and it's good to see that it's government and we have these external forums but also for you know helping a larger set of the children community influence by yeah definitely like a lot of CSR are taking these steps forward in order to get this then to like in rural areas or in those parts so yeah definitely so like what are the different methods in which like they can start off like we have like discussed about like okay there is something called 21st century skills we have schools and those have to take it out now what are the different methods in which they can start off like I would say it's something like workshops, competitions and those parts so like how like according to you what are the different methods they can start off with and then they can build their community inside this so Ms. Paril if you want to go ahead sure so sort of you know I'm going to quote in the past you know when we've been running for Olympias yeah we've witnessed some remarkable innovations from young talent we are talking about age starting 6 to 21 and the championships are over 10,000 years and you know you see the zillions and the ability to manage time you know sort of put that boundary along time based competitions the self-awareness, the confidence in various competition categories that we have so an example in 2019 we had a group of students from Bombay you know make this e-cycle product and it was I think 8th graders that did this were in had an electric charge to go up to 120 kilometers as a last mile delivery product that they had created and then after that should there be no electric charge they had these two paddles so one can paddle through and this product was you know one of the national winning products and then when they participated in the Asia championship they you know got a podium position there and then further on in the European Olympiad as well and what is amazing to see is that there were improvements from a regional to a national international to an Asia there were so many product improvements in that e-cycle that was created and similarly there are hundreds of examples how all the future skills competitions can be applied into project based learning but the fact that participating in these competitions not only instills betterment of the product because they have seen you know in China well like last year in Shanghai there were 15,000 kids and there was one Lego area where I even saw some 4 year old kids who were creating their Lego prototype and then I saw that our Indian participants got even more motivated to better their product there was no direct competition but to see someone so much younger do it so I think you know championships are absolutely vital to see how well the progress of learning has been yeah definitely so competitions are the part which gives them a motive in order to work in a direction and like achieve that goal in like whatever better way they can come up with so yeah definitely that's the part so I would ask the question to Mr. Nathesh and so like like competition is one part so like in this like this whatever competition also was created in order to get awareness out to the schools get awareness out to the like different what I would say businesses or NGOs so in this what we created is like we created a thing like we will do some webinars for the schools which would be a free of cost and after that the students can learn those things and then can like participate in the competition based on their interest or from their learning so in so like the competition is one part so other things like webinars or conducting like short workshops or how how are like what are the different programs that you use in order to like get all these things started okay like other than the competition like if you want to build upon the skills like we usually have this orientation workshop like workshops kind of a thing which we regularly have with the students and these workshops will be more focused on the research base or the STEM based and the project based learning thing like we will be doing them the challenges these challenges will be linked to the real world issues like you and sustainable goals kind of a thing so when they are working for you and sustainable goals it is automatically taking them to the real world challenges and then they are exploring these things through various ways and we will be having different mentors from our end who will be supporting them on like a time to time yeah definitely so like once the school got the like awareness or the community has got the awareness about something they can pursue those things and can get more things started but first they have to know about those things like they exist and like if I take just an example so like when we created the picture blocks platform and we added artificial intelligence to it so what happened is like before that artificial intelligence was being done majorly from syntax based programming like python and c++ or it was not that easy for students to get started with so after we added artificial intelligence in our picture blocks platform and made students available to these kind of technology using graphical programming what we have seen that a lot of students and a lot of school disciples and teachers like have been shocked that students of grade 6 can also learn these skills and they can experience what they can build with these technologies like mass detector is one part phase detection is also things like students get to see the technologies like face unlock so like they can make face unlock with picture blocks so these things are making them aware through workshops through webinars through like this webinar also would be very much informative for few participants in order to get started and get motivated about these technologies and these are the things that that are the first steps and after that it's just a journey that they start on so my next question would be for like asna so what advice would you give to the parents and the teachers in like in order to get these things developed so like it would be like you can talk about what are the different things a parent should like consider when they are like letting their children learn about these things and what should be the mindset of a teacher well first off you know it never gets old let them follow their progression so it doesn't really have to be coding whatever it is let it not be the cool thing to do for children to follow a certain stream of stream but having said that if a child is showing inclination to learn coding I think the job of a parent is to ensure that they are providing the right tools and the right learning environment for the I think being cooperative and encouraging are the only two things that you can be as a parent while you watch your child learn for teachers I think you know as coding is something that is you know it is a feedback mechanism based experience you know you build something you see the results you tweak it and rinse and repeat so I think the role of a teacher should just be to stand back and intervene only when necessary I think for most teachers they should inculcate in the child what is called a growth mindset they should ensure that the child learns to not see anything as a hurdle which cannot be crossed they know that anything can be learned anything can be any obstacle can be overcome that's something which of course works across all walks of life but I think that in particular comes very handy when you're programming or when you're doing something related to coding and in short you create a positive inquisitive and nurturing environment for the child I think those things that are oft repeated but like I said it never gets old these are like very important things to have in order to get the best out of the fine the students are investing in their classes so I would ask on the teacher side you have a lot of group of teachers who are working on in teaching these things what has been your advice to them and what is the advice for other teachers as well yeah my advice to the teachers will be like they should be open to the new things like learning new things learning the new skills and before like because AI is a new thing some of the teachers might not be aware of it but that openness to accept it and learn it so that they can teach to other students in a better way is very important and they should provide that environment where it is not like a relationship between a teacher and the student it should be a relationship between like a family kind of a thing where they can relate to each other and they can share the each other's learning like it is a co-learning environment what they have to create so that growth mindset they have to develop and they have to develop that openness and environment yeah definitely so like if we talk about teachers as well their personal development is also very important and if they are investing time in learning and new skills they would be more like they would be more comfortable when these things comes into the mainstream so like yeah definitely so my question next question would be to Miss Payal so like what are the advice you would give to the students okay that's a tough one listen to what the previous panelist said and listen to your parents but to the students I would say that you know STEAM foundation and the future skills are quite imperative however the education age old which are reading, writing and arithmetic are now being joined by a form which is rethink so predominantly use you know technology to rethink because developing this particular skill in muscle will further strengthen your future they think about entrepreneurship or employment and you know remember that technical skills plus like skills is a winner for future workforce and lastly something that I always tell the students parents and teachers that the foresees which is creativity, critical thinking communication and collaboration always so yeah yeah definitely anything you want to add Miss Asim well it might be an extreme thing to say but I strongly believe that the future is AI so tightly ingrained into everything that we experience these days that you know we've come to expect it as you know we don't really second guess it I think the future work teams will be cross functional because you know there will be an element of AI and there will be the domain experts also who will be sitting on top of that layer so I think students should think of AI technology and AI as a skill for those who are you know who go for it and if they're into something else they should keep an open mind and also look at you know AI as a problem solver and you know consider it as a black box to understand what it is that it can do for their domain which is a perspective which will come in very handy when they're in those cross functional things that I just spoke about interdisciplinary things are coming ahead and we are seeing agriculture being added to like artificial intelligence being used in agriculture healthcare retail manufacturing BSI is already you know so you name it and AI is part of it so you cannot be part of a domain and think that it's not going you don't need to know about AI true like when you rightly said that the future is AI that is you know no two ways about it is going to be like science so there will be steam and I think plus AI after steam there will be another extension to it yeah it has like it's already in CBSE now but it's like not mandatory but the thing like how computer science like computer science has been getting inside the things AI would also be in future would be coming in mainstream and like if we see a lot of engineering college big college like IIT have added a full BTEC program in artificial intelligence so like now it's have come into the mainstream of colleges and it would be in getting mainstream and like schools between schools students as well so that would be a very good thing to see happening in the like in the near future definitely so yeah this was a very fruitful discussion so as we like like this like it's already time so I will be concluding the discussion now so like as we discuss like competitions and a lot of different things that we do play an important role in empowering children to develop must have 21st century school and prepare for future so Codiver 2020 AI is doing exactly that so now like a lot of you might not be like might be aware about Codiver 2020 AI or some of you might not be aware so I will be playing a video in order to make you understand about Codiver and how you can participate into that as well and if you have any question that you want to ask for a panelist we can have 2 or 3 minutes of that part as well so we will we have the chat open so you can ask while the video is playing I would request all of you to just mute your audio so that there is no ego Introducing Codiver 2020 AI this year's biggest international AI and coding competition for kids the aim is to make the world a better place by solving real world problems using AI based on the following themes beat the pandemic with AI think automation AI and coding for the will entangling transport systems and the 2020 Space Odyssey anyone 7 years old and above can participate in one of these age groups yes you can either participate as a 1 person army or as a team of 2 anything you can create your own story game software based AI project or a hardware based project in Pictoblocks it is an interactive AI education and coding platform you can learn to code make interactive animations and games interesting projects based on AI program actions for robots and much more now available on play store you can even make your projects for the competition on the go follow these 3 easy steps to participate first go to the registration page and register yourself or your team once registered the portal will take you to the learning page where you can learn AI and coding with our video tutorials and interactive tutor led online courses now that you have the skills required it is time to show the world what you have got choose your theme and brainstorm on your project then submit the project brief Pictoblocks project file and the video of the project on the submission page now all you have to do is sit back and wait for the results the registration for Codewa 2020 AI starts from 2nd October the last date to submit your project is 20th December 2020 you can register anytime between 2nd October and 20th December the winners of Codewa 2020 AI will be announced on 10th January 2021 participants stand a chance to win 50 plus prizes worth $6000 in total the winner of each age group will get an Apple iPad 2 first runner ups in each age group will get exciting education kits 2 second runner ups in each age group will get smart watch kits but these are not all there are many special category prizes too all the winners will also receive a medal certificate and the official Codewa 2020 AI t-shirt so what are you waiting for register today I think you are on view yeah so that was about Codewa 2020 AI somebody has asked me that about Quarky so there are some updates that we have added in Codewa from the our previous episode so now we are running a refer and win program on Codewa it's like if you are already a register team then you can refer the Codewa to like 6 or 12 teams and 12 teams and you would be getting exciting robotics kit that we are developing that is coming on like coming in the market very soon so we have added a very sneak peak on Codewa thing Codewa website so you can check your dashboard you can check your when you log in you will be getting a refer program so you can refer the refer Codewa to your friend and you would be you would be getting Codewa like Quarky as a Quarky kits as a prize as well so and there is also one update that I wanted to give we have crossed more than like 3500 teams being registered on Codewa as well so and we are looking forward to get it more than 5000 so it's going very good so like any closing remark that our panelists would want to give like in one minute they can just give and then we can close out the session so we can start from Ms Asana yeah very excited to see the kind of solutions that can build by these students I was on the panel of one of the utter challenges and the solutions that came in through them were very interesting given that they were by such young children so yeah I would really want to stay clued into that thanks a lot for having me it was a pleasure yeah thank you thank you for giving us time and yeah Mr. Natesh if you want to add something yeah like I would like to thank for making part of this wonderful webinar and like I saw there were participants from not only India but abroad also like interacting with them was really a great thing and other than this I would like to say something for the students that they need to explore new skills and they need to start early and just don't think about the failure like even you can celebrate the failures also because when we learn to celebrate the failures then only we are at the edge of the next level we will be moving the head yeah you added a very very important point that we haven't taken on the discussion but learning from the failure and moving ahead is also a very important thing just for an example when we are making some programs it might not work for the first time it might not work for the second time but finding out the solution and making it work is a thing that everyone should learn and should appreciate as a very important life skill definitely thank you thank you for coming on this file if you want to add some concluding words I would like to say it's remarkable to see such an enormous amount of innovation being done you know with the students that are participating in your competition so I would just wish all of them all the best keep learning keep innovating and get seeing the participants and the solutions and the innovations that come out of it and thank you for having me today I would like to interact with you Pankaj and Asna and other fellow panellists thank you likewise so yeah and also I would like to add few words so like we have at the back side of the code but we have been seeing a lot of innovative projects coming on from the students and when the portable competition will end we will make all the projects go public so that other students can also learn from it so it will not be something like my creation would not be shared with other people but it would be something that you have worked for a long time and other people would also be learning a lot so that's a thing which would which would motivate like which is very motivational for us and we have seen a lot very innovative projects coming on based on artificial intelligence based on robotics as well so a lot of solutions has been coming on in terms of the themes that we have chosen for this year yeah so someone has doubt on the last date of submission so like last date of submission currently is 20th of December and like we will be adding more updates about portable 2020 AI on the website so keep yourself informed and we will also send some updates on the SMS so that you are kept updated and updated about the next webinar that we will be doing and about the other things that we are introducing in portable like referent when program was the part was a new program that we have started so yeah and with this we have reached to the end of this webinar thank you very much Mr. Nateshan, Ms. Payal and Ms. Asana so for taking out time from your extremely busy schedule and joining us for this webinar a big thank to all the attendees as well for joining in for the webinar and this would have been like this is like the this they are like I hope like all the webinars that we have we are doing is adding some things in terms of some knowledge creation and the industry experts coming in and telling about their experiences they would be motivating the participants to work harder towards like their projects so so it's like very good to see how we are getting the response of the webinars and of the competition as well so thank you everyone for joining us for this webinar and like we will be closing the webinar now okay thank you thank you thank you thank you


It's still plus politics. Now, Dr. Obunaya Onu, a former minister of science and technology has questioned the all-progressive Congress APC over its failure to zone the 2023 presidential ticket to the Southeast. Onu disclosed this yesterday at the Eagle Square while delivering his agenda to the party delegates just before the commencement of the voting at the presidential primaries. He asked, and I quote, where is the justice? that he sacrificed his presidential ambition in the past just so two candidates from the Southwest could run. Take a listen. Mr. President will be completing his tenure by 29th of May next year. I think, you know, naturally, naturally, it should be somebody from the Southeast. I'm not saying this because I'm from the Southeast. Somebody from the Southeast that we're now replacing and that will give the opposite of South versus North and Christian versus Muslim. And it will bring stability to our nation. It will strengthen the unity of Nigeria. And I believe that this should have been done. And you know, I personally, 23 years ago, I made a personal sacrifice when there were three parties and I held the presidential ticket of one of the three. But I had to let it go in order to solve a problem in the Southwest to make sure that two or lose contested for the presidency. I heard or tell one will become a president. And that brought down tension in the country. And this is what would have happened if we allow the Southeast to, which is the, I mean, look at it. The Southwest has eight years as president. They have eight years vice president and president. Where is the justice? Where is the justice? Well, that's the question, where is the justice? And I remember watching that and there was a loud booing coming from the crowd of delegates who were representing every state in the federation. So I think the question that came to mind was, I think the question that came to mind was, he was obviously making sense, but why was he getting that much apprehension from a group of delegates in a party that he belonged to? Okay, so thank you very much. I think, good evening viewers. I think that why, I would hazard a guess as to why that booing was happening because it was more or less almost over in terms of the fact that this wasn't a place to begin to act for justice. Yes, it was a place to agitate, show your agitation verbally, but it may not have much effect if you've not been planning. He made a lot of sense. In fact, a lot of things that he said was actually factual, especially for, if you look at every region, every region coming out to, of course, agitate for that shift of power. We're talking about the supreme power now, as in terms of the real crux of what everybody's searching for. And he's thinking to himself, since 1999, that we became civilian democracy, we've had Muslim, sorry, a Northern president, we've had a South-South president, we've had the Southwest president, and we don't have Southeast president. And he, when the three parties merged to form APC was critical, in fact, was one of the pillars of the AMPP who came to get out from that party. But there's a lot of play that happens before you get to this point. I'm guessing that that's the reason why that boing was happening. But if you think very deeply about it, it made a lot of sense because it was even much, much deeper than that, down to the appointments, down to federal appointments, down to the local government distribution, down to as much as some of the security agencies, spread of security agencies. So for instance, out of 16 heads of security agencies, you don't have any from South East extraction. I want to take you on on that, but ladies and gentlemen, Ihei Beji is a political analyst, also joining us via Zoom is a legal practitioner, but Ihei, I want to take you on on that. I have had this conversation over and over again about appointments, about people from the Southeast or even the South South, leading or heading, being chief of Army staff or naval staff, and they would tell you that we don't have a huge number of these men and women in those forces. And that you have more of people from the North, the Northeast, the Northwest, the North Central in those areas. And that's why most of the time you see them rising to those positions. It's debatable. But this is what they say. Also for, and some people would say that what he says or talks about as a sacrifice of sorts, would be, so for some would be that he was rigged out of that position. And so why is he saying that he sacrificed it? Is he trying to say that he was a good luck journalist and in this instance?  So I mean, every region positions themselves. I mean, for a region to understand the strategic nature of a handshake across very different divides, you need to begin to position yourselves. You need to position yourselves up to the point where you have fully top ranked officers who can take over at the highest level of positions, a higher level of offices. But then again, it also behoves on the president and the top office to appoint, make such appointments. So even if you position yourself up to that top rank and the president does not deem it necessary, you will not get that position. So for instance, you have an IGP, for instance, who maybe has not gotten up to the level of a DIG, so to speak, and is going to be picked to be made an IG. What normally would happen is what? Every other person who is above him. He's retired. He's retired. So that's how it works. So at the end of the day, it all boils down to not just the preference of the president, but our federal character and the equity, which is one of the things that we are talking about. So aside positioning, that also comes into play. You know, the political evaluation and political strategizing in the power structure, it has to work that way. And so for, unfortunately, it hasn't worked very well for the Southeast. If you look at the spread of the political appointments within this cycle, if I may, you look at the Northwest, Northwest has 37. You look at North Central, 21. You look at Southwest, 64. You look at North East, 29. You look at South, South, 24. And you look at the South East, 15. So these are some of the things that you begin to look at, then you begin to put one or two together, one or two together, and you ask yourself, okay, so where is the equity? And that's exactly, these are some of the things that bring the angers to what he's saying. But you also need to understand the fact that there is a role that is played, as I said earlier, by the political class, by the presidency, and there's a role that's played by the region. The region needs to begin to bond together. I was about to toss that question to you, Barsatricu, we've heard the Southeast complain over and over again about being given the short end of the stick, always. Whether it be a government that's even under a South-South government or a Southwest government, the Southeast always seems to be getting the short end of the stick. And Ihe is also saying that maybe there's a death of positioning and structuring that would put you in a position where you would be peaked for these offices, or even for the Southeast to be able to spread and say, well, it's our turn, and are able to also make sure that they get that turn. But what's your take? Okay, so thank you for having me. This has become a recurring thing in the Nigerian policy. I think to me, this appears to be the closest that Southeast, or people from the Southeast, have gotten to in terms of being the flag bearer of a ruling political party. Why did I say that? Because at least up to midnight or early hours of this morning, at least the winner of the APC primaries was not known until the vote started to roll by and the counting started. But for me, I would say that we need to deemphasize this issue of every time or any time we are close to a political, say, okay, let me be specific, the primaries for presidential election. You begin to hear politicians shout, mention, one region or the other. I think we need to deemphasize that. Let us, if what Nigerians wants to follow is to allow for the people to vote, is to allow for the best candidate to admit. We should completely take a dive into that and allow that to work. What that will not mean will be that whoever that will be elected or that will fly the ticket of a political party will be by merit. I don't understand why in one place. But is there not also a loophole in that? Because you see, merits can also one way or the other put certain persons in a corner. Again, merits can be that, oh, this guy's smart, he's intelligent, but then how many people does he have lined up behind him? That's what pushes again, because politics is a game of numbers, not necessarily about sentiment. So you might be smart, you might be good, you might merit it, but then we don't give it to you because you don't have the numbers. So what happens then? What I'm saying is that I don't like this in one breath. The politicians will be shouting north and south, letting them to north and south. In another breath, you will see the politicians do exactly opposite. If the main aim, or maybe to encourage stability and inclusiveness, and Nigerians or the political parties or decide to now go zoning, why don't we go, allow that zoning to work, or allow the zoning to get to the extreme? For instance, over from 1999 up to the, into this administration, the issue of zoning between north and south worked until we got to the point where the zoning was again to come to the south. And looking at the south, you will see that the only region or zone that has not taken a shot at the presidency from 1990, now, in the southeast, ordinarily, for equity and fair play, it should have been zoned like it was zoned in 1999 to the southwest. It should have been zoned to the southeast. What do we have? We now, what we are hearing is north-south, north-south, north-south. If we are zoning across the two regions, north and south, it therefore means that one particular region should not be allowed to produce the president at every given time. Okay. That's why I now said, if we want to do away with zoning, let us completely do away with zoning. Okay. And let it be like as it were, survival of the fittings or whoever, let the candidate that has the clouds, the candidate that has the money. For instance, I know that whatever that will come out of this, particularly the two big political parties, the PDP and the APC, I can tell you that's not the will of the people. Okay. It is the will of money. Okay. Those that can be able to raise the millions. They are the ones that contested. I can even tell you, maybe it's by sheer more that those that contested came from a particular region. They came, some came from the north, some came from the southeast, and some came. But if you look at them, you will see the whole thing is an assemblage of millionaires or billionaires in Nigeria. All right. That does not in any shape or form reflect, the reflect Nigerians. All right. Let me come to Ihe because we are almost out of time. Where do we go from here? Because he's made very interesting points. It seems like it's a convenient rhetoric to put out there every campaign season. How do we change the narrative going forward? Because we can't keep coming back here every election cycle. I totally accept what he says when he speaks to meritocracy. But you see we have six geopolitical zones, seven or seven before local governments spread across the nation. And there's meritocracy that exists in all of that. How do we change the narrative? We need to look deep into the equity redistribution of political offices. So I mean, the two positions, the two key parties, APC and PDP, have a southwest and a north. And then incidentally, the southeast has one in Louisville party, even though it's not the front line, it's not considered the front line, so to speak. But we need to begin to look at whoever is the winner must be magnanimous in victory and actually implement federal character. As for Dr. Bonaya's position, the region, the southeast region, which I'm from, was born together really strongly and begin to reassert themselves now, as of now. I would say you have a candidate already. We're born around him and push for it. On the other hand, we speak with one voice. Seven years ago, APC flag bearer has set a plan. Yesterday, we saw governors from member southwest states step down for him. He had done a handshake across the divide. We had about three or four candidates from southeast extraction and they all stood on the podium. Some stepped down for the southwest candidate. No bonding together. These are very crucial points that we need to take to heart. Well, unfortunately, time is not on our side, but we will revisit this conversation, of course, because campaign season is upon us and there is a lot to talk about. But Ihei Beji is a political analyst and Obinat Chiku is a legal practitioner. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Thank you very much, Rami. We've had a conversation. All right, well, this is where we wrap up on the show today. It's been a very interesting 20, 48 hours, if you ask me, but tomorrow is another day. We'll be talking for development. I am Mary Anna Cohn. Have a good evening.