So hello everyone and welcome to this this taster session on South Asia on South Asian languages and cultures and particularly as part of our BA degrees in languages and cultures. My name is Dr. David Lung and I teach in the School of Languages and Cultures and Linguistics, particularly in the South Asia section. And I teach the literature, occasionally language cinema and the kind of cultural studies of South Asia, alongside post colonial studies. My own focus is on Hindi and Urdu. And so it's a great pleasure that as part of today's session, we'll also be having a kind of language taster on Hindi and Urdu from our senior lecturer in Indian Urdu, Nareesh Sharma. And as a man said, we have a student here with us today, Farah Qureshi, and we'll be able to answer any questions you have about studying that so ask more generally. And so I'll just start sharing my screen and hopefully this will work with no problems. And so I'm hoping you can see that. So the kind of outline for today is that we'll have a sort of short talk from me on some of the things you can, some of the ways we we study South Asia at SOAS, some of the ways we think about it and particularly within the context of the degree program that we offer. And I'll speak for about 10 or 12 minutes, I think. And then we'll have this this Hindi Urdu language taster from Nareesh. And then we'll open up to a kind of question and answer session so any, any questions you might have about studying at SOAS, studying South Asia in particular, we welcome those and we'll try to answer as many as we can. And so what do we mean when we when we think about studying South Asia, particularly through this lens of what we call languages and cultures. Obviously, South Asia is a is a enormous and diverse region and we're speaking about it, we're speaking about India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and right. And when we, when we try to approach a region as diverse as South Asia, and there's multiple ways we can try and do it right we can view it through disciplinary lenses for instance like history or politics or the study of religion. And, or we can do it through the kind of model that we try and push here, which is a very interdisciplinary model right and what do we mean by that we mean trying to take as broad a kind of perspective on the region as is possible. So, in depth, yes, and intense in many ways, but also trying to think what insights can we gain on a place as complex and as interesting and as rich as South Asia. And when we bring different kinds of perspectives to bear right cultural studies historical studies and these kinds of things. And, but then a crucial feature of the way we approach it through this BA languages and cultures. Well, there are two crucial features. And the first is that we very, very strongly believe in the value of studying language. And that's kind of one of the things that makes so us so unique. And we really are convinced that if you want to study places like South Asia, or anywhere else in the world, it's absolutely vital that you can approach these places with that kind of knowledge and the insights of how you study language. And so that's a kind of key feature of how we, we try to train you and try to, to educate you and, and to construct our degree. And, and the other kind of key feature is to think about so that South Asia, not as somewhere there, not as an object, simply to be studied from a distance. And not as somewhere bounded and unconnected to the rest of the world but in fact quite the opposite, and to think of it in its multiple connections right as part of a world that really changes when we start viewing it from different perspectives and so we start thinking about the world from South Asia, from Asia, from Africa, from the Middle East, rather than sitting in London, which of course we are and viewing it as something distant and other and strange and that's a kind of key. And I think really vital part of the degree that we the way we try and approach it here. And we'll be talking a little bit I'll be talking a little bit in a few minutes about the kinds of modules that really emphasize this question of interconnectedness right about a world, and that is perhaps far more a yes interconnected than we we would regularly appreciate and regularly think and so we move beyond what has been a kind of traditional area studies model. Which is focusing, as I said, on a particular region in isolation, and really to think about it in these kind of connected connected ways and I do believe that, you know so as is the best and possibly the only place to come and do this kind of study. And so I very much encourage you to consider coming along to do it. This is a kind of a graphic that I find quite, quite provocative when we think about connections. When we think about the kind of way in which different worlds connect this is a something produced by Facebook in 2010. And it mirrors but also doesn't mirror in some ways the other kinds of maps that are produced all the work. So you can see this kind of huge amount of light in this representation in certain parts of the globe, particularly North America and Europe. But as they draw these sort of very fine blue lines across the map they are trying to emphasize they were trying to emphasize and demonstrate the kinds of ways in which people connect through social media and Facebook in particular. And when we look at things like this we're very tempted to think right this is a kind of particular element of our kind of contemporary world right we live in this hyper connected age. We are more connected than we have ever been before. And this is a result of lots of things right this is a result of technology this is a result of modernity. This is a result in some ways of the kinds of connections wrought by a history of European colonialism and imperial expansion, and a mercantilism and capitalism and all the rest of it right so there's lots of ways in which we can think about the histories of connections through this I want to sort of pick up you know three little case studies that perhaps invite us to think about South Asia and invite us to think about the world in slightly in slightly different terms. And one of these is to kind of think through ideas of what I'm calling connections before colonialism so we think of that period of European colonialism in the 18th and 19th centuries in particular, coming to a kind of end, a formal perhaps in the period after the Second World War. And we still live in the legacy, in many ways of that period and one of the the legacy is one of the kind of things that conditions as, as a result of of the era of European expansion and colonialism is this idea of what we call Euro centrism right which is a kind of approach that puts Europe at the centre of the world. And that's perhaps most obvious when we think of maps right when we look at a map we are constantly we see Europe in the middle. Right, and everything to the left and to the right, and to the east and to the west, Europe on the north, the top of the map. But what happens and you can see it I hope in the in the kind of image up here on the right what happens when we turn that upside down. Even here we've still got Europe in the centre but we're not got Europe on the bottom. What happens when we take those kinds of slightly discomforting steps and start to imagine our world somewhat differently or entirely differently. What do you think when you look at piece of an image like that. And when you compare it then to maps and you can see it at the bottom of the screen there. And this one from the, what's called it was the Imperial Federation of 1886. You can see those kind of pink, red shaded areas. Of course the kind of height of Victorian Britain and that slow and the sun never sets on the British Empire, a kind of way of represent so the way we represent the world the way we picture it really does matter when we think about all the kinds of other issues that have come to condition how we approach places like South Asia, right. And to those are this idea of colonialism on the one hand and Orientalism on the other what we mean by Orientalism is kind of will to stereotype this will to view other parts of the world as Oriental, therefore exotic, as strange, but also as inferior, and a kind of legacy of empire that was built on the idea of a European supremacy a European dominance and the naturalness of this and we are very much invested in disturbing that pattern right in what means today's terms decolonize the kind of knowledge production that surrounds and the way we approach the rest of the world right and so although we have this sort of school of Oriental and African studies as our former official name, we're very much not invested in these ideas of Orientalism but in fact of overturning them entirely and thinking about the world in more equal terms. So your centrism really does appear sort of everywhere and can appear in sort of issues like time, you know, when we talk about the common era when we talk about modernity. And we are again, things that we maybe not think of as having this European origin, but in fact deeply in the ways we view the world. And, and so we come to this question of the hyper connected world and what it looks like when we look from somewhere else. And this matters when we come to think about things like language we think about languages that travel and we think about what constitutes a global language and we immediately turn to English as that kind of global language par excellence and what happens when we think about languages and the kind of language worlds from a different perspective that might be something like what is called the kind of pre modern Sanskrit cosmopolises idea that Sanskrit as a kind of ancient culture in South Asia and spread beyond it and was a kind of key to a key kind of linguistic world in the age prior to long prior to colonialism we might think about other models like the early modern Persian world where Persian becomes a lingua franca stretching from the Middle East all the way through to Southeast Asia. So an example might be something I'm suggesting here is sort of more modern and contemporary Islamic connections right connections forced in this case in the religious context of of Islam and connections that are not necessarily solely modern but in fact have stretched back to Arabic and pre modern Persian as we've talked about. And here's a there's a lovely example that I'd like to share that I'm sharing now of of a link between Urdu and Indonesian right so the great, the great Urdu singer Nusrat Fateh Lechan and his well known song Allah whom which you can see the lyrics there on the on the left is a mean job not the a job not the job the sort of the asaman job not the rather Huck me can see but I am job not the job not the coach. So when there was nothing here you hear you were here you the you being being God and this being then quite recently and taken on by an Indonesian and hugely popular sort of Islamic pop group and called Rehan and their version where they sing both the Urdu and they translate it into Indonesian and sing Chika Teada Bumi Teada Sika La Enya Bulan Matahari Langit Pung Teada. And so these little examples of connections that speak to much more connected worlds than we might appreciate. And then of course there's that perhaps greatest example of South Asian culture and connections in Bollywood in song and dance in Hindi language cinema. And again when we think about that as a kind of perhaps the most popular cultural product from India from South Asia. And we kind of think about it in in in isolated terms as something that is there but again we can see and we can look at this in the in the degree as well thinking about the way in which it travels, you know, not solely to where there are members of the diaspora not solely to London to Leicester to places in in India where there are in India in the UK where there are substantial kind of South Asian diaspora populations but in fact all over the world as part of those aspers but also as part of independent attempts to include and enjoy different cultures. So for instance, you can see some images here on the right of of a variety of film posters from Ghana in the 1980s. And you can see, you know, Bollywood films featuring alongside adaptations of Hollywood and other kinds of nollywood as we call it productions in in West Africa. And again, there's a long history here that's really interesting to explore and I was, in fact, decided at the very last minute to include a little image from tomorrow's new film coming out on Netflix which is called the must day or hello trouble, which is this kind of interracial love story with an Indian, an Indian man and a Nigerian woman. And we're going to see tomorrow perhaps how that plays out. But very much faded as you can see in the news clips there as this nollywood meets Bollywood in a love story on Netflix kind of moment. The connections are always here to be pulled or taken to be looked at. And that's very much the kind of prime feature of our degree program in BA languages and cultures and as we approach South Asia through it. And I'm sure you've had a chance to kind of examine the website and to look at the way in which that structure is laid out but just very briefly and there's other sessions later on today. And if you're if you're registered for those as well, you know, we really try and lay out those foundations in the first and second year right looking at these connections between Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and through culture through literature through cinema and film, and then through questions of language and decolonization. Before building on that in the second year right again exploring these kind of key cultural texts of culture of literature and of film, and to think through questions of connection and connectivity. And the world that we live in today and to think particularly you know how these connections are not solely of the moment, but have a long histories. So if you look at the world as I've said from places like South Asia right when we reorient our perspective, it can actually look quite different. Should you be doing the four year version of the degree you then get to spend your third year on a year abroad right really focusing in on language and our kind of South Asia ones that relate to that are particularly in the order and and then in your final year whether you take a year abroad or not, and you can then start really focusing in on the regions that are of particular interest to you or maintaining the kind of diversity and comparative perspective that we that we have introduced you in the years running up to that. And as I said, yes, those are the kind of languages and we offer that deal with South Asia, including Persian, and which has a long standing players presence in South Asia that was taught by our colleagues in near Middle East section. And we also offer and where feasible courses on Bengali Punjabi, Prakrit and Tibetan which all have connections as I said to the region we offer them from the beginner's level, right through to the year abroad, and then to beyond so the time you're coming back from your third year if you choose to take that option. And you're really able to use these to quite a high level and engage with texts and whether those are written or cinematic and or something else. So that's it for me, a very brief and very sort of and history if you like a very sort of rushed overview of some of the things we can do when we when we study South Asia when we study. And this be a languages and cultures. I'm not going to pass over to my friend and colleague Naresh Shah, who's going to give you a little taste of what it's like to learn in the order. Great. Thank you. Thanks very much, David.  And the idea is to just give you some background to these languages. And we're going to be introducing some beginners level words and phrases and also just to give you a feel for the kind of things that we might be doing in a in the language class. So I'll just get a slide started while I'm just getting this technology to work for me. Let me encourage you to interact and put some comments in the chat. So, first of all, maybe you could just tell me which languages you already know what languages you already speak, you already have some interesting knowledge of Hindi. It'll be really useful for me to know. So, see, yeah, please do, you know, type away. I didn't see any, any comments coming in yet so I'll let you do that whilst I proceed. And first of all, I'm going to start off with this. The title of my presentation today is milky buddy who she who he this is a phrase that means pleased to meet you. And so, as you know, I'm an Aresha Massini lecturing within India as David mentioned. And so this phrase milky buddy who she who he pleased to meet you. We. I'm not going to go into the grammar and the structure of how this works, but it means something like having met great happiness happened. And so in the classroom sometimes they I like to offer some suggestions. Okay, how do we learn languages, how can we memorize words and phrases, and sometimes trying to build up some associations so this particular phrase that come up with a little sort of mnemonic and mentioning something like milky bar. I don't know whether you ever are a fan of milky bar. I am not a particularly white chocolate fan myself. But milky bar sort of sounds like milky buddy to me and then cushy cushy sort of reminds me of a cushion it's almost sounds the same and we kind of association can we have with who we anything that you can think of. Well, there's who we who is the kpop staff from Pentagon I don't know whether you are the Korean pop music, or maybe you watch Dr who who we some connection there so this phrase maybe you could imagine you are eating a milky bar sitting on a cushion, whilst you're watching or watching Dr who are listening to we if you build that mental image, maybe it connects to this phrase milky buddy who she who I don't know try it. Think about that. And move on to some greetings Namaste Salam aleikum, greetings that you might hear in in the end of the and also a phrase here for you. Miranam Nuresh and Miranam Nuresh you see in Roman script. The translation. My name is Nuresh. A question you might ask. First of all is okay we're doing a Hindi and Urdu taster. How come we're having both of these languages together in one. The background well in the end of the hour at the spoken level virtually identical at the day to day colloquial level, we might have some differences in vocabulary, and maybe not too dissimilar to British English and American English where in Britain we might have a lift where as in the US they say elevator or pavement and sidewalk things like that we have different, different types of words different words for for the same thing. And similarly with Hindi and Urdu at the day to day level. They are virtually identical so this phrase Miranam Nuresh. You could say that in Hindi. Am I speaking Hindi or am I speaking Urdu. It's the same. The distinction comes when you see the written form. And here you can see the phrase Miranam Nuresh had written in Urdu which is this sort of modified Persian Arabic script, and which is written from right to left, and then in Hindi we have the Hindi script which is written from left to right in Devanagri, which is also what we use for Sanskrit Marathi, various other languages. So yes at the day to day level, very similar. It's only when we get to sort of like literary or journalistic styles of language that Hindi borrows more from Sanskrit and Urdu borrows more from Persian Arabic sources. The word Naam. Naam, name, you see the similarities between the actual words themselves and agenda. So, well, we've already introduced what I've introduced myself, and this is what we're going to be covering not necessarily in this order, things might be might be flowing sort of to info that you still get a bit of a flavor. So as I said Miranam Nuresh, and I'm going to ask this question to you. And I would say Abga Naam kya hai. Abga Naam kya hai. Now, we're not going to have our mics on, we're not going to go into breakout rooms, but you can still repeat after me, you can still answer the questions, whilst I'm asking you in the comfort of your own home. And I do say this to language students, that even if you don't have anyone to practice with, you can talk to yourself. It might be odd if you know you were getting the bus or the tube and talking to yourself, someone might give you weird looks but you know when you're at home, particularly in lockdown, you can be talking to yourself and practicing the language.  Abga Naam kya hai. And your answer would be Miranam, whatever your name is, hai. So let me ask you that and you answer. Abga Naam kya hai. And I'm presuming you're telling me your name. And how about you ask me the question as well. So I'm imagining you're asking me Abga Naam kya hai. Please do try that. Abga Naam kya hai. And then put that all together as a phrase, Abga Naam kya hai. And my answer would be Miranam, nareesh hai. And the phrase, please to meet you. Hey, what was that mnemonic that we had? What was that image that we had in our mind? We're eating amil ki baan. I'll sit him on a comfortable cushion and we're either listening to Rui or watching Doctor Who. Milke bari khushi hui. Do you try that? Milke bari khushi hui. And so a little bit about our modules at SOAS. We'll go into a little bit more language shortly but let me tell you about what we teach at SOAS. We have a lot of language programs, language modules in India on the beginners level. So you don't need any background or any existing knowledge in Hindi or whatever. And then we go up into various levels we have. You can see it on the website. You can explore in more detail the type of things that we cover in each module. There's various materials, text books here from beginners levels, learning the script, learning the language, grammar books, readers, et cetera. So quite a range of material. And obviously now with everything being online, loads of material. I post my material online. All of our classes are held online in the virtual classroom. Hindi and Urdu, where are they spoken? I'm sure you know the main places where Hindi and Urdu are spoken. And that is Urdu is a national language. It's a national language in Pakistan. And both of these Hindi and Urdu are official languages of India but also all around the world, wherever Hindi and Urdu speakers from the subcontinent have settled, Hindi and Urdu are spoken. And certain regions as well have developed their own styles of Hindi. And for example, I would come into mind is Fiji and Hindi. So indentured workers who were taken from the subcontinent to Fiji took the language with them. And in Fiji you have this style of Hindi, its own distinct form, Fiji and Hindi. And similarly as well in the Caribbean, in places like Guyana where indentured labourers once again were taken across the oceans into their language, you have styles of Urdu and Hindi spoken there as well. And in terms of speakers of the language, so in India alone, you can see from the 2011 census here that the number of Hindi speakers is close to 700 million. And Urdu is, well, a lot of people and Urdu over 60 million which interestingly is more than a number of Urdu speakers in Pakistan. And that could be an interesting discussion to talk about that another time. And just to compare with the numbers of English speakers as well, you can see the stats here. And in England as well you see Urdu is up there with over a quarter million Urdu speakers. So it could be a useful language to learn here. You're probably not far from an Urdu speaker and could find opportunity to practice in person once these lockdown restrictions are over. A little bit about language family, sometimes it's useful to think about how languages are connected and that's why I was interested to know about what languages you speak, because we can see connections between languages and the fact that Hindi and Urdu are part of the European language family, which you can see illustrated to some extent on this slide and you see in the end of the year in the Indic languages and English down here in the Germanic languages and other languages that you might know you might find on this chart as well. So there are these links that occur between languages which can be useful for language learning. Just like in particular because you see the Indo-European word brother and how it has sort of the similarities with other words for brother across the continent. In the Proto-Indo-European rehtar and how in the UK English we have brother, then in India we've got brother, which I mean more than Hindi, Bhai, more than Urdu, Bhai as well. So you might see links and similarities between your languages that you know and other and Hindi and Urdu. And this little slide here I tend to like to share as well because you'll see a number of words here and my question is which of the following are Hindi and Urdu words. Which of these words have come to English from the Hindi and Urdu path. I don't know if anyone wants to put anything in the chat. I would encourage you to to interact with me through the chat and tell me which of these words you think coming to English from Hindi and Urdu. Well, let me tell you in fact they all are interestingly so what these words have come across and so that can be useful in in again seeing connections building vocabulary words that we already know. And whilst we're learning the language, the script, we talked a little bit about the script I mentioned that Hindi is written in Devanagari, which we also use in Sanskrit and the T, Konkani, Nepali and here's a slide just illustrating what the Hindi in the other half of that looks like and then the script is written in this modified form of sort of an Arabic script. And on the issue of scripts and writing here is a famous diary, any thoughts on who could have written this diary a historical figure. And at the bottom, there is a translation as well, not the neatest of handwritings if I am honest. This is in fact written by Queen Victoria, the Empress of India herself she was given the title later in her reign, and I believe she had an affinity to India. And wanted to learn Urdu, which was the official language at the time. This is her Urdu teacher, Abdul, and, you know, being an Urdu teacher myself, I'm not taught any royalty as far as I'm aware, but hey, that might change I don't know if Elizabeth the second is interested in learning Urdu probably not actually. Anyway, let's get started with a bit more speaking we've already been talking about our names you asked me my name I told you my name I asked you your name. I'm going to read each other by saying Namaste. You can respond with namaste. Kia hal hae. Try this phrase. Kia hal hae. Put that together. Kia hal hae, which means how are you. And the response, tea care. It's fine. Shukria. Tea care Shukria. Okay, thanks. And you are up. Tea care Shukria. And, okay, thanks weather good little TK in his because the actual word T care sounds like by TK so again, another way of maybe remembering it TK, okay. Okay, thanks. And so try these try saying these phrases. Kia hal hae. Kia hal hae. TK Shukria. TK Shukria. Now if we had more time if we were in breakout rooms or if we had our mics on. I'd go into a little bit more detail with the pronunciation. How do we say this peak, because it's a very specific kind of T sound, and it has this aspiration as well TK Shukria. And then we have the phrase or up or up, and we really roll our Rs in in the end will do or up TK Shukria again. So, what was the phrase for them for asking our names. What's your name. Abha ka naam kya hae. Abha ka naam kya hae. So the idea with language learning is lots of repetition, practicing, trying to build connections with words and phrases, and getting to that point where we, it's automated, we can do it without thinking. That's what we do in the classroom. That's what we encourage students to do when I set homework as well. So milke pari khushihui, that was our phrase for please to meet you. And we can try and have a little bit of a conversation now. So, on the next slide we'll see some words and phrases I'll say them and then you repeat after me. So, with your audio mute. Namaste or As-salamu alaikum. And then the reply would be Walikum As-salam. Namaste. So, try repeating that phrase. And you, how are you? Okay. Thanks. My name is Nareesh and you'd obviously say your name there. Milke pari khushihui. And a very quick conversation. This time you answer, you read out the bits in green. As-salamu alaikum. Namaste. So I'm imagining you're reading the bits in green and I'm answering to you. My name is Nareesh. It's very strange doing this without your mics on usually in the classroom. Obviously my students have their mics on and we can interact with each other. Grammar. Obviously we need to couple our language learning with grammar. We might cover some terminology, so even if you haven't done grammar before, not to worry. We explain everything about grammar terms and nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. Don't go into anything too much hardcore grammar detail just the basics that we need to know. And you'll see from this phrase, for example, the word hair is, so how in Hindi is the word verb goes at the end and meaning what goes just in front of the verb so we can see word order and structure from very early on. But it's not just all about grammar rules in textbooks and things like that. We might look at a song and I might ask you to identify a particular grammatical forms in the song and here is the image of Sushmi Dasen who sings this song in the film. And she's got a very stylish pee-pee on there and will do practical activities such as role plays, but we'll also look at the language through the literature, maybe access some poetry and here is an image of a verse written in a very beautiful calligraphic style, maybe you know trying to analyze this, what is this verse or looking at print news as well as online news might take a look at some film posters and look at different typescripts. So all sorts of things that we might do. And this actually brings me to the end of the presentation so we can have some questions about either my presentation or David's presentation. So I think I can stop sharing now and open the floor up to you. Okay, thank you both for that. We've received three questions in the Q&A which I'm hoping you guys will be fine to answer live. So I'll read the questions that we've had one question from for now. One question Katarina, which is, do you think apps like Duolingo and the like, can teach us to become proficient in a language. Right. I, to be honest, don't know what the ins and outs of Duolingo are. So I'm not sure if I'm really well placed to answer that. I think from from what I've heard you can pick up words and phrases but becoming proficient in a language, I don't know. Personally, I think you need to speak to people. And one of the best ways to build up proficiency is, is interaction, but also immersion. That's why I encourage students to do the, the year abroad, or we also have a summer abroad module to go to the country to be immersed in the country, and to be interacting with, you know, in the older speakers and having in the family all the time. Sometimes we can create fake immersion environments at home, and by just watching the, you know, TV of the region, listening to the music of the region and just having as much of it around you as possible. But yeah, I'm not sure if you can just do it solely through through the app. Yeah, I would like to hear about your experience of Katarina do drop me an email. David, if you have anything to, to, to say about that, since having, you know, studied languages as well, or for her being, you know, a Korean language student, anyone else has anything to mention. Um, I've actually tried you lingo. Um, but I feel that there's quite a lot of grammatical errors on it. And I feel like it's very, it's kind of like comparing it to Google translate like it doesn't translate exactly how you want it to. And so it teaches you wrong sometimes and the spelling is a bit off as well. So I wouldn't recommend it honestly. Thanks. I see the next question from kishford that you're a mature student. And you can speak a little bit of word. Right. Yes. We do have students who come who already have some prior language knowledge. And we have different levels available. So it probably be about having a conversation and assessing your, your language level. So I always try and meet students before they enroll in a particular module. And now that everything is online, it's just a lot more convenient to be able to set up a quick, you know, zoom chat, and, and, and assess your level. And then, you know, advise more specifically, but if you have some prior knowledge, then yes, you know, we have different levels. So if we have a level that's suited to you, then you have more than happy to talk about that. Okay. Thank you. The next question is, what is the difference between shukria and then you're going to catch me now. Sure. I don't know, David, would you like to take this as. I could try and take this and we might take it with the next one which is from an anonymous attendee and take them together how different are or do Hindi and Hindustani grammatically. I mean, the difference between shukria and a new ad is where they're from. So you remember Narech said that in certain contexts or doing Hindi start to differentiate themselves by the kind of vocabulary that they draw on in particularly a higher registers right if you're going to talk about science or you're going to talk about religion or literature. You start picking, you know, choosing your words. Do you say napkin or serviette? You know, do you take the Anglo-Saxon word or do you take the kind of French derived, Norman French derived word? So do you say shukria, which comes ultimately from Arabic shukran? So you use Danyavad, which has a more kind of what we say Indic or kind of Sanskritic origin. They mean the same thing when we translate them. And they are fundamentally interchangeable, though they do indicate, you know, what kind of registry you're speaking. And then this question about grammar, Hindi, Urdu and Hindustani. This Hindustani is a word that I'm particularly familiar with. The PhD was on this idea of Hindustani as a kind of space of common ground, you know, at a time under colonialism when Hindi was becoming associated with Hindu and Urdu was becoming associated with Muslim. And there were lots of people who wanted to say, that's not how we think of language and that's not how we think of literature and that's not how we think of religion. Hindustani, there's a very famous line from, oh my goodness, Iqbal, Hindi, Hindustani, but not Hindustani, but not Hindustani, Hindustani, but not Hindustani, Hindustani, Hindustani, so we are Hindi, we are Indian, right? So these words all have different meanings. On the basic question of grammar, there is no difference. They share a grammar. You might look at one grammatical feature which would be the azafat which I suppose doesn't get used in Hindi, but fundamentally this is a shared grammar across these registers. Great. Thank you. I'm going to ask, if there's any questions, please ask them now. I'll wait for about 20 seconds. Well, maybe we should just say, you know, if there are no questions or if no one wants to raise their hand, we can at least say that, you know, we're all very happy to be contacted with any questions you have. So you can write to Nareesh and you can write to me. And if you want to know anything more about studying South Asia or the degree in particular, we're always happy to get those emails. So do feel free to get in touch with us. That's it. Yeah. Great. Thank you. I'm not sure there's any more questions. Oh, oh, we got one. So, yeah, so can I say religion makes most of the differences between Hindi and Urdu? Yeah, to a point. They, in a kind of contemporary sense, in a recent historical sense, as I was saying, you know, they do get associated with different religious communities. And some people are invested in, in kind of weaponizing that difference, as they were historically from, you know, the 19th century on, and others are interested in not doing that. And religion is a component of it. And but there are, you know, different literary traditions as well, and that overlap for some people, but remain quite separate for others. And there are different kind of aesthetic worlds. So religion as a part of it, but religion itself isn't to blame, you know, it's the it's the choices that people make on the associations they want to make with with language. And I'm not sure if that's an entirely clear answer, but it's a complicated question. Great. Okay, well, I'm afraid we're out of time. So I guess all that's left to do is to thank, thank Farah. We have time for one more question. It's, we can get that in what sort of career path with this degree help with. So, so many different career options we've had students who have done South Asian studies with language and have gone into all sorts of things from journalism to working for, you know, within the charity sector within diplomacy. I don't think we can name it because it's it's it's quite a sort of like a, you know, this interdisciplinary degree that David was explaining about, so it opens up a lot of pathways. I don't think there is one set kind of, you know, direction that our students tend to go into. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's very fast indeed. David, you've got any thoughts on that as well from previous students that you've known. I'll say two things quickly. I was having a conversation just the other day where a friend of mine in business was saying that, you know, the place that most area studies or like, you know, language studies graduates go to is investment banking, which I thought was terribly sad. But, you know, it's because, you know, the banks want people who know parts of the world and know how to speak to people there and know how to interact with them and that kind of cultural knowledge is really valuable. And similarly, you know, every year after year, the, the CBI, the Confederation of British Industry says, we are concerned that there aren't enough people graduating of languages. We are concerned that there aren't as many courses as there used to be because businesses love language. So whether you want to, and love language graduates because language graduates demonstrate this kind of commitment over multiple years to learning something that really takes time and effort. And they come out with a kind of, as I've said, different way of seeing the world. So your options are wide open. Great. Okay, so now we really are out of time. So thank you for helping us out. And of course, thank you to narration David for giving us great talk. And of course, thank you for our attendees for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed and have a great day. Thank you. Thank you.


Opinions on Andrew Tate and the masculine movement happening in young men across the globe. Jordan Peterson is a man whom I deeply admire and respect. While we differ on set martyrs, particularly regarding the Christian faith and tradition, I do share his perspective on the importance of upholding traditional family values, in theory and practice. It is worth noting that he has not directly addressed or commented on Andrew Tate's influence on young people worldwide. The reasons behind Peterson's silence on this matter may not be immediately apparent, but they are not entirely plus one. It is possible that he chooses to remain silent because Tate could be seen as a product of the failed Western experiment with godlessness. Tate embodies the archetype of an individual who takes control of his destiny with unbiases. Therefore, Peterson's silence might be seen as an affirmation of the exceptional nature of Tate's case. While Peterson has not provided a direct statement about Andrew Tate, it is important to acknowledge that his viewpoint on the matter remains unknown basically. I really haven't said anything about Andrew Tate and I probably won't tonight, but well, I'll make a few comments about the Andrew Tate phenomenon, you know, I would say, is that the mystery is, there is a mystery in relationship to Andrew Tate and the mystery is, why is he so popular? And I think the part of the reason he's so popular is because he doesn't easily bend a knee, so to speak, you know, and it isn't obvious to me that he doesn't bend a knee because of his stellar moral character, but because I'm not particularly, what would you say, impressed by what he's done on the sex business front. It seems to me a bit on the pimpy side, let's say, and I'm not a great admirer of pimps. So, wait, even if they're the electronic version.  But there is a mystery there and the mystery is, you know, why has he captured the public imagination?  And that attraction is the attraction of what's alternate, what's the alternative to a kind of cringing defeat, you know, and so maybe a fourth right aggression is a preferable alternative to a cringing defeat. And I have some sympathy for that viewpoint, you know. So, and I think Tate at least stands for that. And, and apart from that, I don't know enough about him or what he's done or what he stands for to comment. And so we'll leave it at that. Jordan Peterson demonstrated caution in his response, why he expressed a desire to delve deeper into the subject, acknowledged his limited knowledge of under Tate's history as a restraining factor. Nevertheless, I really appreciate Peterson's acknowledgement of the concerns surrounding the sex industry aspect of Tate's profile and his recognition that it's necessitated careful and appropriate approach. I invite you to share your thoughts and opinions in this matter in the comment below. I really haven't said anything about Andrew Tate, and I probably won't tonight, but, but, well, I'll make a few comments about the Andrew Tate phenomenon, you know, I would say, is that the mystery is, there is a mystery in relationship to Andrew Tate and the mystery is, why is he so popular? And I think the part of the reason he's so popular is because he doesn't easily bend a knee, so to speak, you know, and it isn't obvious to me that he doesn't bend a knee because of his stellar moral character. But because I'm not particularly, what would you say, impressed by what he's done on the sex business front. It seems to me a bit on the pimpy side, let's say, and I'm not a great admirer of pimps. So, wait, even if they're the electronic version. And, and so, you know, but I don't know that much about the details of his life. And apart from that, you know, rather casual diagnosis, I'm going to leave it alone. But there is a mystery there. And the mystery is, you know, why has he captured the public imagination?  And that attraction is the attraction of what's alternate, what's the alternative to a kind of cringing defeat? You know, and so maybe a fourth right aggression is a preferable alternative to a cringing defeat. And I have some sympathy for that viewpoint, you know. So, and I think Tate at least stands for that. And, and apart from that, I don't know enough about him or what he's done or what he stands for to comment. And so we'll leave it at that. It's a short one, guys. Let's leave it right there. Until next time. As-salamu alaikum.


I love Boston, this is my 7th year running Boston, so it's still a mess, you know. I'm a breast cancer and I get treated at Dana-Barbara, so I'm running for the Dana-Barbara team. So I watched two of my friends run for Dana-Barbara last year and I was like, why not me? Like, I can do it. And so I started training last May. Being part of a community like this, right, being part of a group like this, you feel the energy of all these people committed to the same thing. It's like, well, okay, God's plan is all of us dead set on excellence, on living lives to the best of our ability under him. Being examples of his love to the world. Racing, running, is a taste of that. It's actually part of a running group back in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and basically have brothers who attend church, Catholic church, all inspired by the race of endurance, and run for our role, and be inspired. Challenge to myself. I'm going to compete against myself. I've never had one so close to the bottom. How many rounds have you had? This is my first box.


So I'll be showing my screen once you tell me we're on. Yeah. So yes, welcome everybody for our second preliminary talk of the conference. And it is given, it will be given by Professor Heba El Degredi from American University in Cairo, where she is currently the head of School of Humanities, Chair of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. She has done her PhD from University of Birmingham and she works in various projects, including the project, sorry, the Tempest project, which I don't know much about, but I'm sure you will hear from her about that. So Heba, can you please share your screen? OK, sure. No, OK, I think it's just requesting that I give access to Zoom to share my. Anil, are you around? Yeah, OK. OK, is that all? Yes. OK, perfect. Your screen. OK, perfect. So hello, everyone, and thank you so much for this kind of invitation to the conference. It does seem to be a kind of holding so many interesting sessions related to STEAM or STEM in general, and I'll speak more about these variations that we have. So the topic that I'm offering and talking about today is about STEAM Power 2. And of course, it might look a bit weird, but I'll say more about that. And social responsibility in higher education. This is where I'm actually from. I'm from Egypt, which is very well known by its history, by its culture, 7,000 years of history from this place. Of course, I think one of the main things that pops up in someone's mind when you mention Egypt is the pyramids. So I thought to start with the location of where I'm from. Sometimes we've been misunderstood of having the desert so much, and sometimes we get questions like, do you have cars? Do you live in the pyramids? So just a little bit of a clarification. This is our history, but of course, modern age did arrive to Egypt, so no worries about that. To show a little bit more about our location, this is actually a map. It's coming from the American University in Cairo, where I'm located from. And it's very interesting to see the number of graduates and alumni from different countries who came to study the various programs at the university. And I was so surprised to see that we have 79 graduates actually from India who joined the American University in Cairo on different programs. In terms of distance, of course, the map doesn't really show much in terms of the distance between the two countries, but having had the luxury to actually visit India, it would take like five hours or so in terms of flight. A little bit more about going back to the American University in Cairo, a little bit of terms of the fact finding. We are actually one of the very old universities in Egypt and in the region. And actually, if you go back to its launch and its history, it's actually over 100 years old. We actually, oops, I'll just go back to that. It was launched in 1919 and a few years back, we celebrated the centennial of the university. It has 40 undergraduate programs at the undergraduate level, 24 graduate diplomas, master programs, PhD programs. In addition to all of that, it actually also offers non-degree programs. It had various international and national accreditations as well, just to give a little brief of the university. In terms of my research interest, as it was mentioned in my bio, and you can find that a little bit more on the website of the conference itself, my background is actually science education. And I started off with a PhD program in science education with the University of Birmingham, but then gradually as I think research in general is trying to push the boundaries between various disciplines, interest into crossing these boundaries to other disciplines such as STEM, STEAM education and others as well. I've actually started to even gain my own personal research interests. So although the background is science education, it does go beyond that to some of these very new buzzwords in the field that we'll talk more about. In addition to that, education sustainable development is another kind of, big kind of area and a big discipline that I'm interested in. And it goes along with what's happening internationally in terms of the sustainable development goals, the 2030 if you're also aware of that. Teacher education, in-service and pre-service are fields of also my interest. So I'll be sharing at the end of the presentation and my email address and further communication so we can get along if that's the situation. Okay, but just a minute. We are seeing some blank rectangles on our screen. So maybe what we do is just stop sharing for a minute. Okay, so close or minimize all of the Zoom windows. Okay, and also the sound from your side is very weak. Just minimize all of the Zoom windows that will probably solve the problem. Let me try again then. So let me see, sharing again, right. Okay, it should be on now. Is it any better? Not sure. See, have you closed all the chat box and all other boxes from Zoom? Okay, let me see. I'm trying to do that again. Or at least minimize them. Yep, let me see that. Any better? On top there is still one more window. One more window. I mean, that's the, okay. And at bottom there is some window. There we go. Is that it? Bottom window is gone now. Any better? Yes. Yeah, this is better. Are we good to go? Yes, thanks. Okay, just go one more, one slide back. So, okay, there we go. So these are my areas of interest. I'm sorry about that disturbance. And then here we go. These are the key arguments that I'll be actually talking about today in the presentation. So we'll be looking at kind of like dissecting the title of the talk into several areas. One of them is related to the role of universities, higher education institutions in the 21st century and beyond. Another key argument will be related to education sustainable development or the ESD, which is a major component related to sustainable development goals that is a very big topic locally, regionally and internationally. And of course, our favorite topic from the conference even theme and interest is STEM and STEAM education. What is it about? How is it being presented in higher education institutions? Are we doing the right job or not? And then finally how we can unfold and actually bring in social responsibility to our discussion as a whole. And in doing so, and in providing for these so many different areas, universities, education sustainable development, STEM and STEAM education and social responsibility comes actually this term which is put in the title which is STEAM power two. And this will be the core focus of the presentation today with the unfolding aspects as it's shown in the diagram. So what is the role of university in the 21st century and beyond? We can actually think of so many different areas where higher education institutions can start to lead nations as a whole. Some might think of universities as the knowledge share. Some might think about its role and responsibility in this current phase and era related to technology. And some might think about it in terms of the workforce and how it prepares the generations to find jobs with certain certificates and credentials. And since there's so many talks and areas of views about what is the role of universities or higher education institutions as a whole, I think it's very good that we think about some examples of what is taking place at universities internationally. There is of course something which is very well known in terms of the rankings of universities which is the QS rankings. I just pulled a couple of logos from universities taking different places internationally from the rankings. And we can just think about, once you put a name of university or title university you might associate a specific area or specific discipline or a specific focus. So these are just representations from different international universities and we can associate and think about their roles. But I think as we are taking this conversation further and the topic is related to the role of higher education institutions, i.e. universities, I think it's also good that we think about this exercise and share together our thoughts of what you think would be the role of universities that need to be played in today's society. So if you have your mobile phone nearby or if you have actually access to a website browser, either you can scan using your mobile phone camera, the QR code, or you can actually log in into the minty.com with this number, the 6422-3659. And please share your views of what you think the university role should be in terms of today's society. So I'll just give you two minutes if you can do that. And once the time is up, I'll just go and have a look at your comments and your responses on the minty.com. So I'll move from this actual window to another one. And please let me know if things don't go the way that I wanted to go. Well, let me just see if I hear. Okay, so this is actually the minty.com. So if you go in and we're able to actually use the code, it will give you some reference or access to this site where you can put your responses to what you think the role of universities have in terms of crucial roles in society these days. I can go back again if you want to, to the QR code, if that's going to be easier. I can see there's a large number of participants here. So this is going back again to the QR code if that will be of any help. And then forward again to the minty meter. So if you have any problems, can just let us know on the chat so we can just make sure that this activity is going as planned. There we go. All right, so that means people are in. So employment opportunities. It has a role to be a facilitator, to educate, to mentor, and I'll just talk for a few minutes until the responses are coming in. Take a few more seconds if you just want to pop in your response. I can tell even some of the keywords are coming from the plenary today or even from the session that I was in a few minutes ago. Okay, well, it seems educate. We can, you can just keep on going and I'll just kind of pick a few of those just to highlight and kind of emphasize what is written. So educate seems to be the most prominent response currently that is available now from the word count and the cloud. But there's also aspects related to social responsibility, critical engagement, empowerment, safe space, employment opportunities that's the usual role we would expect for universities. But if you think about the new roles, so there are some roles of the universities, of course, would stay as is, but there might be new roles that are coming up and being brought to the forefront of universities as we speak, given the change and the technology that we're facing, the advancement in knowledge crisis that we are even going through locally and internationally where universities need to shift from their current traditional roles to others that might not have been the situation 10, 20, 30 years from where we are now. Networking is really an important part as well because once you have a university in place, I know some cities are actually built around universities. Work opportunities, opportunities even for collaboration, businesses are all there because of a university is in a specific locality. It open up gates, of course, gates for collaboration, gates for internships, gates for possibility of jobs, but also gates for exploration, gates for problem solving, places where we can navigate our thinking, places where we can bring about actually leaders in a specific field to resolve problems and issues in certain places as well. So thank you so much for all of those who actually made it to the Minty and responded. So let's have a look at what is actually in the literature in terms of the roles of universities in general. So I hope I'll go back to the slide and take it from there. So from the literature, there seems to be, of course, some correspondence and some alliance with what was just mentioned from the responses, but the roles of universities in society can actually help develop a culture of academic enterprise and knowledge entrepreneurship. It can actually provide for neutral conveners, assemblers of talent. There's a lot to do with innovation if we think out of the box of the traditional role of universities of just feeding in information and knowledge to those graduates or undergraduate students who come in, but it does provide for a safe place to innovate and to create. Universities might need to think of ways that even go beyond the expectations of societal transformation. At today's pinery there, the topic was related to a social actually, emotional social movement related to science education, but we need to think who would actually take the lead on that that might be the universities at that point. And universities must become effective partners for global development. So all the different universities in the various regions might need to come together to think about how we can push the boundaries and the problems that we are facing internationally so they can become solvers of these issues and problems. And the following point looks actually at solving social problems and again providing for innovation. A point related to the networks and a point related to partnerships between different institutions, different entities, different stakeholders in a specific nation is also of extreme importance for the university to flourish and even make sure that its role is on the right track. So given the role or the expectation of what universities should be doing, it's important to link this with an important topic as I mentioned earlier of the key argument related to education sustainable development. So just a quick notion of what it is. So if we were to think of defining what is education sustainable development, these are very well known definitions from the literature but it all relates to how the current generations are looking into the resources that are available in a specific locality to make sure that these resources will still continue for the future generations depending on their needs and depending on the changes that are taking place, currently and in the future as well. So when you think about education sustainable development, we think about it in terms of how we can actually provide for the knowledge and skills that are needed for our generations, the current ones to ensure that their resources and the facilities that are available are also maintained for the next generations and the future ones as well. So it does rely a lot in terms of awareness and actions and possibilities for the future. Now other important point related to the definition of education sustainable development, it is not just about aspects related to the environment but it goes beyond that to social aspects, cultural aspects and of course the environment too but also the economical aspects as well in any given society. So these are all kind of part and parcel of the definition of education sustainable development. So you think about what are the international movements that took place in relation to education sustainable development and what are universities doing in terms of that bare role as well. So we can link the concepts together as we move from one item to the other. You might have heard of the millennium development goals that took place like 10 or 20 years ago but then the movement in relation to education which many of us of course in this talk are attending in relation to their interests, knowing what education can do to actually fulfill the requirements of a sustainable development. In 2005 to 2014 it was mentioned that this is the decade for education sustainable development. A lot of international projects at that point started to evolve around funding different development countries and developed countries to maintain their actions and their practices in terms of probably even programs that are offered at the higher education institutional level so that their students and participants in these programs are aware of their actions, what to do and what not to do to maintain the resources that are currently available. A very big kind of push for the countries and globally to know more about education sustainable development was mandated by the SDGs 2030 or what is known by the Sustainable Development Goals. There's 17 of them. And as you can see here, there are different emphasis in each of these goals in relation to what exactly is needed on the international level. So no poverty, zero hunger, good health, quality education. This is definitely an area where we need to emphasize more and here we're looking at not just higher education institutions or at the university level in relation to what they should be doing or could be doing in relation to ESD but also even at the school level. Gender equality, clean water and sanitation and so many other aspects that are very much relevant to what our talks globally and locally in relation to resolving big issues that we are facing currently. One of them that is very well known is climate change. There's a lot of push for universities to think about reducing any carbon impact that we have whether at the institutional level or even individually. So this talk will take place in the next few slides as well. So Egypt has actually also embarked on a change and the change is not only a change in relation to its national goal but also at every single level as well with the 2030 Egyptian vision. There's so many different countries that even took the responsibility of looking at the sustainable development goals. The SDGs 2030 and started to restructure its strategic plan, its priorities, its national interests to start to think about what universities should do, what institutions should do to actually get these goals achieved by 2030. A big contribution related to sustainable development goals but also pillars of education is what the Laws report in 1996 provided in terms of having any educational program look into concepts that we need to know. So learning to know, learning to do related to skills that we are embarking on. A lot of emphasis comes also from literature if we think about many of the theories of learning that we know of, Dewey for example where there's a lot of emphasis of what we should be doing and the experiential learning as well. Learning to live together that's a very societal need and when we look in terms of universities, we look in terms of programs, we look in terms of progress, we look in terms of even transformation in general, learning to live together needs to be part and parcel of this equation too. And so these are the main four pillars related to education as well but also specifically to education sustainable development. So to link these together, there's a very short video that I'm going to share with you which are bringing various voices from different entities and individuals where there's really a big push to issues related to sustainable development goals but also the net zero movement that is taking place as well here. So hopefully get the movie on and share here. What kind of world do I want to live in? I think about this question a lot. For our generation and for specifically my group of people which is refugees, the circumstances might dismantle any vision of the future that we have. You're trying to rebuild, you're trying to make a future for yourself and then the climate-related disaster comes and you start again.  The first step to understand is that we're all a part of it. None of us are going to be left out by the crisis. We're at a stage where if we don't act now, really there won't be very much left. There are generations that will never see certain things that we grew up seeing in real life. We have to start treating this like the emergency it is. To achieve the 17 sustainable development goals, we have to go from an intention to a serious commitment. Business leaders really need to rethink how they conduct their business and invest in creating systems that are climate-friendly. The action I would like to see is accountability. Structures being put in place where countries aren't just asked to do something, but they're kept accountable to the decisions that they make. There has to be that strong collaboration between government, between corporations, between youth activists to drag change forward. The world I would want to live in, it's a world where imagining the future is not a privilege. I want to live in a world where people do not give up on hope. Hope that a positive change is possible. The fact that you're listening today means that you are willing to make a change. This is actually the key message that is coming from this video, but also from the presentation as well. How we can think to be more responsible in relation to the actions that we do on a daily basis, as individuals, but also as institutions and as higher education institutions in particular when we think about ESD and now, the new or the other concept that we're going to talk about, which is the social responsibility aspect. So social responsibility from the kind of few kind of points that were mentioned in the previous video showcases so many people who are getting disturbed about practices that are currently being made on different various levels and there needs to be action. So the action would only happen if we are able to infuse a sense of responsibility amongst various individuals, institutions, governments, countries, and globally as well. So only with that we can start to see a sense of being proactive and being even agents of change in our nations and elsewhere. So when you think about social responsibility, this is a definition that is found in the literature that I think if you can just spend a couple of minutes just looking at that. And it really is important when we think about social responsibility not only in terms of the usual corporate social responsibility because that's very much kind of the trend of businessmen when they try to share some of their assets or some of their even revenues to the society around them, which is definitely a good thing. But what I'm really trying to emphasize more is what we call the university social responsibility and that is how it's put together in this kind of frame of the topic of today and the talk of today. What are universities, what and how should they be held accountable in terms of their social responsibility. So here in this diagram you can see that when universities are aware of their impact, when they're aware of their actions, they take that into consideration even at the very simplest aspects. So even universities going paperless or universities trying to find different ways to irrigate the gardens on their campuses or even provide for opportunities for programs to emphasize sustainable development and social responsibility. This is all part and parcel of what a university might need to think about and move towards this direction of higher education being a responsible entity rather than being just consumers of knowledge from other entities as well. So this is just a quick example of what we've been doing at the American University in Cairo and it's with very much of pride. It's actually ranked the first in Egypt and in Africa in terms of its green metric and it produces various reports to showcases actually what it does and what it's providing in terms of its action on a daily basis. So it provides annually the carbon footprint report and it showcases what is its consuming in terms of its water, its energy, how it's trying to provide and encourage even individuals to take responsibility of very simple actions such as carpooling for example and to lower the carbon emissions that we actually do on a daily basis without being aware of. That's one of the aspects. It aligns for sustainability report. Again it's linked with the SDGs the 2030 and it showcases how much it is aware of its role in the country and in its locality to align with all of the aspects and the interests as well. In addition to these two there's also the green guide report and it showcases what it does in terms of its waste management a very important aspect what it does in terms of its outreach and its awareness too at the academic level and its research and the academic level is what I'll be talking about in the next few slides. But it has to go with the individual social responsibility so even if the university is very much aware and is providing what it should be it cannot happen unless we are trying to embed and infuse a sense of social responsibility at the individual level. You might be aware of Greta Thomburg a Swedish 19 year old currently who actually took the lead in terms of providing youth to have a voice and a choice to lead a campaign related to the critical issue of climate change and she actually started a move which is called Friday for Future where school and university students would actually sometimes come up and have a march or they have a strike in relation to bring their voices up and clear to the administrators and to countries to ensure that the carbon footprint is taken care of and the climate change is a big issue that governments need to act upon. This is a very interesting part related to the global warming in general and the climate change I've actually got this from the website related to Ed Hawkins who actually brought up the stripes and it showcases how much there's been a change in the temperature from the 1990s and onwards and this actual slide is coming from India so it showcases the rise of temperature that we're all aware of and we all kind of feel it there's disruption in terms of the environment disruptions of our daily lives as well related to climate change so what should we do at the individual level and at the university level so STEAM comes in in a very prominent way and STEAM just for a quick awareness this is a conference related to STEM education so the S is for the science, technology, engineering and math but the STEAM comes in with a different perspective it comes in with the A and the A is a representative of the arts there's a lot when I attend conferences that I'm seeing different interpretations and different localizations of what STEM STEAM or STEAM with double M or double S or double M might mean and it all goes back to and boils down to the point of localizing what is needed so we might be borrowing this concept from different countries but to bring it to the forefront and related to the local needs is extremely of importance and this is why some nations or some countries have actually maintained specific terminologies related to this combination the interdisciplinarity of the STEM or the STEAM made sure that it's representative of what their country needs and what the forefront of the strategic plan to bring the country up is also related to in an effort that I've done and also making sure that STEAM as a terminology and as a concept of interdisciplinarity that can bring in all the different concepts and skills from the disciplines is well known not just for those who are English speakers but those who are also Arabic speakers there was a MOOC which is a massive open online course that was actually hosted on one of the platforms that provides for this opportunity for Arabic speakers to know more about the practices related to STEM and STEAM education with an emphasis on teachers, teacher education and even parents as well as they can bring it and connect it to life especially as we are facing we're not facing specific issues related to just science on its own but it's very much interdisciplinarity so this is the STEAM power 2 and this is actually bringing in the different combinations of a trans disciplinary concept and this is something that I've coined and it showcases STEM with all of its disciplines the ESD with its emphasis on the social environmental and cultural aspects and the arts it has an emphasis on the 21st century skills global citizenship but also a lot to do with innovative technologies and I was very fortunate through this actually concept to provide it to students at the American University in Cairo as a higher education institution to bring about this new concept and interdisciplinarity and even trans disciplinarity approach as well so what I did is that I provided a course related to STEAM power 2 and students were at that point thinking of themselves as agents of change and they would bring about concepts that are related to problems that they are facing on a daily basis in the Egyptian locality and it would replicate more of a 3D concept so it will bring about aspects of sustainable development it will bring about their voices and choices one of the theoretical aspect that is provided in this particular area or discussion and of course the social responsibility where this economic, ethical and environmental this is the kind of an outline of the course in a brief kind of way because I know I'm running out of time right now so these are different modules looking at educational sustainable development but bringing the STEM and STEAM education as a trans disciplinary approach in general and then students were required to actually work in groups and to come up with a local problem that they are facing in their real locality and then try to think how they can bring about concepts and skills from the disciplines of STEAM education and related to the areas of focus of educational sustainable development as well so are they directing their problem to an environmental issue, a social issue or an economical issue or more than one actually because that usually was the case so this is kind of a very brief slide of some of the concepts and topics of their projects students were working on and in the next few slides I know we're running out of time this is a few of their projects vocational education as a right for all the students to know and actually have access to good quality education, traffic destructive growth related to the large number of population in general and here in each one of them the skills, the dimensions and the values that were provided in each of their projects as a whole so I'll run through this extremely quickly and as a conclusion of this and a real kind of talk to take it forward, not just talk it's important that higher education institutions would think about their roles as not just providers of knowledge but enablers of innovation and a place where students can actually have a voice to showcase their areas of interest and innovation and social responsibility as they come along and see themselves as agents of change in general for social justice and for social change and transformation in education as well and this is just my context of if anyone wants to contact me just again a quick QR scan of this code we'll get connected directly to my linked in account and with that I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to share what we've been doing at the American University in Cairo but also to provide a place where we can see the higher education institutions as a change agent for better learning but also for social responsibility and involvement thank you so much Thanks Hibba we have some questions in chat but before that I wanted to understand more I think the last part of the talk you went through it quickly so when you said you offered this course so what was the background of the students who participated in the course Sure the background they're offered into actual cohorts it was offered to a number of students who are the graduate level they're MA students they're in the program of education and it was also offered as an elective course for undergraduate students in different majors so the American University in Cairo is actually a liberal arts institution where students go in probably not deciding on their major as yet but they take a couple of courses and then eventually they start to declare their major so the projects I have a huge amount of projects and numbers of projects in different areas as a result of this course has been offered a couple of years now and it has been offered to a number of prospective number of years to the MA students and to the undergraduate students as well Thanks so there is one question by Prejwal Prejwal would you like to unmute and ask the question directly Yes please go ahead That's okay you can just read it out Yeah okay so she's asking and move away from funding from military sources or sources that prioritize profits over people That's a very big question and it's very difficult to answer directly but what I have to say is that universities in general in Egypt they are very much aligned with the Supreme Council of Universities which oversees its programs provides for its accreditation and provides for its funding to the American University in Cairo the situation is a little bit different because it's not a national university it's a not-for-profit university and therefore it actually has an endowment which provides for its funding by the Board of Trustees and according to its facilities that is needed and providing for any programs and new programs this is more of a governing kind of place where it has much more freedom than national universities depending on the system that you're looking into and depends also in terms of the country as well so some countries have this very decentralized system where universities can take the lead of what they want to do but others are very kind of centralized particularly in Egypt in the national system where it has to follow of course the Supreme Council of Universities where the budget is mandated in a specific way and the expenditure is also mandated in a specific way as well Question from Ayush Did some students and our teachers struggle with aspects of the curriculum or pedagogy if yes any stories or insights Struggle and I'm not sure what is meant by exact struggle but what I would say is that the beginning of the course students had to get a lot in terms of content to know what is education sustainable development first but when they started to embark on the projects and know what is happening at the international level they got the hang of it and then they felt so much excited and even towards like midway through the course they started to reflect on their own practices at the individual level so many mentioned that they started to be more aware of closing the tabs if they're not using it, switching off the lights very simple everyday actions we're not aware of that cutting off plastic bags because in Egypt for example there's no mandate to cut off the plastic bags but it's done at some kind of organizations or NGOs where they're trying as much as possible to bring awareness to the misuse of plastic bags and reduce it as much as possible in terms of curricular design since they're working in groups with the facilitation and support and scaffold that I provide them they are able then to see esteem power to come together with the combination of content and specific skills from science and engineering and technology and so on but also to highlight how can this actually be presented to the areas that they're looking into so for example the WeGarden project looks into how they can develop compost for example so they're bringing concept from science and then they bring in activities where they can do as a hands-on and then they think about really bringing in even videos and YouTube videos and some texts where they can be presented on a website or a blog so the end and I actually made sure that I close my presentation to leave the 15 minutes for questions but I think it'll be more richer than because it'll bring about the questions that everyone was looking into as I was presenting so all of the project students were handing over at the end of the semester were actually blogs or websites and as they went along and started to design the website they would share on frequent basis how they developed and brought in the aspects and they would get feedback even from other individuals from the class as well so that they can see it more as a collaborative rather than a competitive group work and group assignment. Thanks. Next question by Ravi Subramaniam In India in terms of the universities are in general low in the higher educational hierarchy with professional education institutions like technology medicine and law having a much higher status these are generally outside the universities and are institutions by themselves Do you find something similar in Egypt? Generally speaking education as a discipline is always a low status discipline if you compare it to medicine and engineering I think this is an international trend so if I were to say and introduce myself I'm a professor of education that would be one thing but if I'm saying I'm a professor of medicine it will be another thing so there's always this high status of specific disciplines rather than education as a discipline if we're comparing between higher education institutions we do have enrollment would be for students joining higher education institutions as universities institutions something like a two-year, a three-year institution would be less socially accepted and respected so it does cause of a social kind of of let's say stigma more or less if I'm a graduate of a university I'll be looked in one way and will provide opportunities for career and jobs in comparison to if I'm a graduate of a two-year institution after high school it will be very much different and it will provide very much limited opportunities in terms of careers and job opportunities as well so I think what I will just ask that question in different way because I think what Ravi means here is in India we have the system that the engineering institutes and medical colleges are separate from universities no we don't have that no no no it's part of the university exactly maybe I misread the question yes it's part of universities yes okay I had one question about that course which you offered again so you have been offering this course for 2-3 years you said so are there any alumnus who come back and tell about the real world insights and how that course has been helping them after the graduation that's a very interesting question what I've been always asking my students as they come to the part where they're doing their projects is I tell them don't think about this as an assignment think about it as a contribution to your surroundings and your areas of influence as well so some of them are teachers or they have some connections with schools some of them have their own professional linked in accounts and they've actually posted them because it was all free and we think about as I'm mentioning social responsibility so part of the social responsibility is that we don't close the creation of these projects just for the course but we provide them and facilitate let's say the marketing of these projects elsewhere but they haven't been actually specific examples where a project or one of these websites has actually been brought to one of the schools and we have results coming back this is I always mention that if you do it if you share it with someone and you apply it please make sure that you bring in results back but because of this course is actually offered at the end of the as a kind of senior level many of the students once they graduate they leave the university and it's very difficult to maintain the connection once they're out so there's another question by Mashoot so what is the status of science education research in Egypt? Are there many universities which offer a program science research as a program for PhD or yep, science education is of course one of the main disciplines the faculties of education and the national universities they offer master degrees programs and they offer the PhD programs it's not the case at my university and the American University in Cairo because we don't have a specific discipline disciplinary program, our programs are related to educational leadership and it's related to international comparative education so it's not per discipline it's more of a comprehensive MA program and we do not currently have a PhD program okay are there any other questions? if not I think we can all unmute and thank our speaker by clapping thank you so much thank you Heba thank you so much