(MENAFN- The Peninsula) By Fazeena Saleem | The Peninsula
H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation (QF), at the opening session of the eighth World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) yesterday, stressed the importance to address various education challenges in a post-truth world.
Sheikha Moza inaugurated the 2017 WISE Summit, in the presence of Emine Erdogan, the First Lady of Turkey; H E Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al Thani, Vice -Chairperson and CEO of QF and more than 2,000 politicians, academics, policymakers, businesspersons and students.
The biennial global summit is being held under the theme ‘Co-Exist, Co-Create: Learning to Live and Work Together,' at the Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC) and debate around education challenges in times of global disruption and economic uncertainty.
Sheikha Moza presented the prestigious WISE Prize for Education to Patrick Awuah, founder and president of Ashesi University College, a private, not-for-profit institution that has become one of Ghana's premier universities in little over a decade.
In her opening speech, Sheikha Moza said that as everyone agrees education is the key to solutions, and expressed her fear that it will be unable to find that solution if several global challenges are not fixed urgently.
She also said that sooner or later education, which creates development, will face obstacles at different levels as politically, culturally, technologically and as media. Also greatest challenges came when the political discourse, in its eloquence, linguistic sophistication and what the media broadcasts, made a vision of the events on our behalf.
Sheikha Moza added that as result of the internet revolution of creating a virtual world deals with reality selectively and maintains its notion, putting reality in question.
She further said that hypocritical illusions being marketed in some media outlets in the form of real stories and being pictured as some what the truth, is not true and resulted in toppling the standards of media discourse.
Sheikha Moza also said that activities are flooding the social media to promote propaganda, rumors and lies intended to divert people's attention from previewing reality or getting to know the truth. These false realities that have been fabricated as alternative facts to be accepted in the so-called ‘post-fact world,' she added.
Sheikha Moza also cited as an example how fabricated information about Iraq lead to an invasion and destroyed the country, especially its strong educational system as well as in Yemen. She stressed same tools were used against Qatar which is under siege since June 5. 'A blockade is imposed on Qatar since June 5. Some wanted to make matters difficult for us, yet it was only difficult for them. They wanted us to change, yet we remain unchanged, she said at the opening ceremony.
'World full of false news does not prevent us, the defenders of education, from lining up to where the truth stands, she added.
The Opening Plenary session also featured a panel discussion on Education in the ‘Post-Truth World.' Professor Kishor Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore and Fareed Zakaria, writer and journalist of CNN discussed, how today's post-fact and fake news environment has caught people in a struggle around ideology, emotion and objective research. They also discussed how education should respond to the challenges of the post truth world.
While, Sheikha Moza also honored project representatives of the six WISE Awards winning projects during a special ceremony held on sidelines of the summit.
WISE 2017 includes around 50 sessions focused on education in a post-truth world, with sessions focusing on media literacy, artificial intelligence and virtual reality, social entrepreneurship, design thinking and direction for best education choices, among others.
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