As we examine how UWCSEA will rise to the challenges of the decades to come, our ongoing Kishore Mahbubani Speaker Series invites our community to engage in an exploration of the possibilities of evolution, and perhaps even revolution, of learning at UWCSEA.
Join UWCSEA as we continue to engage pioneers and thinkers in education as we reimagine learning at UWCSEA and further align our mission-inspired education with the needs of our students so as to better equip them to step into their future and thrive.
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2021/2022
- Celebrating the UWC mission: a conversation with Faith Abiodun
- Perspectives on Peace: a conversation with Kishore Mahbubani
Celebrating the UWC mission: a conversation with Faith Abiodun
Monday, 13 December
6.30-8pm | Register to attend this online event
As we launch into Founders Week celebrations at UWCSEA, marking 50 years since the official opening of the College by Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, we are pleased to welcome the incoming Executive Director of UWC International, Faith Abiodun for a conversation with our College President Carma Elliot.
In the 50 years since UWCSEA joined with Atlantic College, in effect creating a global movement by extending the mission to a second location in Singapore, much has changed, shifted and accelerated in the world.
And much has stayed the same. One constant is the continued need to provide access to education that will prepare young people to be leaders who can take courageous well informed action to address the urgent challenges we face. From Hahn’s original vision of students learning together through solving problems has come the UWC mission to create solutions for the most urgent problems of our time: peace and a sustainable future.
College President Carma Elliot will join Faith in a discussion examining how UWC and UWCSEA can continue to be a force in the reimagining of education to create a sustainable future for all.
Guest speaker
Faith Abiodun
Executive Director, UWC International
In a career spanning nearly a decade at the African Leadership Academy (ALA), Faith served as an executive leading the recruitment of thousands of young leaders from all over the world for ALA’s programmes. He also headed the Communications, Marketing, Programme Recruitment and Partnerships departments, helping to build ALA’s global brand and developing strategic partnerships with governments, corporates, foundations, NGOs and schools.
Going back further, Faith started his career as a reporter in Nigeria with The Guardian. Today, he regularly provides socio-political commentary for global news outlets such as the BBC and South African Broadcasting Corporation, and he is a contributor to Common Action Forum, a transnational network of intellectuals, academics, politicians and journalists.
In 2009, he founded The Speech Academy, a leading elocution and public speaking institution in Nigeria. In 2013, he led the initiative to establish the ALA Model African Union, where more than 1,500 young leaders from 58 countries have participated in a simulation of the African Union, including several students from Waterford Kamhlaba UWC of Southern Africa. In 2016, he also founded Future Africa, a public sector leadership organisation with a network of emerging leaders spread across more than 30 African countries. Previously, he worked in corporate communications at the Bi-Courtney Group and recently served a stint with the international secretariat of Catalyst 2030, where he developed and managed the inaugural Catalyst 2030 Awards, recognising exceptional models of systems-change philanthropy.
A member of the Board of Trustees for the global education news service News Decoder, Faith previously served as an International Advisory Board member for Global Youth Innovation Network and as a Global Youth Ambassador for A World at School. He earned a Master’s degree in Public Administration at Syracuse University, New York, where he was a University Senator and President of the Coalition of Multicultural Public Affairs Students. He is also an alumnus of the Learners Voice Executive Education programme at the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE). Faith completed his undergraduate studies in his home country, Nigeria.
Officially joining UWC International on 1 December he will assume full responsibility as the new Executive Director on 1 February 2022. Before relocating to London to assume the role of Executive Director, he lived in South Africa with his wife, IniOluwa and daughter, Oluwadabira.
Event host
Carma Elliot
College President, UWCSEA
Carma joined UWCSEA in 2019 as the first College President, following a career as a British diplomat. For 23 years, until 2010, Carma worked in a wide variety of roles and across continents, including bilateral politics, trade and investment, immigration and protocol. Her final three postings were as Consul-General in Chongqing (China), Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) and finally Shanghai (China).
Carma spent much of her adult life in China; first going to China as a student at Fudan University in Shanghai over 35 years ago. After leaving the Foreign Office, Carma became Executive Director at China’s single largest international NGO, the Half the Sky Foundation (2010–2013), focused on enriching the lives of China’s orphaned children, before joining the British Council in 2013 as Director China, and concurrently Minister for Culture and Education in the British Embassy Beijing, a member of the Ambassador’s senior leadership team. Throughout her professional life, Carma has affected meaningful change in the government, international education and development sectors in several countries, most recently completing a complex business transformation at the British Council in China.
Carma is originally from Scotland, and is proud to call herself a global citizen. A ‘third culture kid’, she grew up living in multiple countries as her family moved around with her father’s job. Through her professional life, she has developed a deep knowledge of the cultural nuances required to successfully navigate and create intercultural understanding and an appreciation of the importance of respecting diverse perspectives when working towards peace between people. Carma has been honoured twice by Her Majesty The Queen, for her service to the UK abroad.
She is single and has two adopted daughters.
Carma's Blog is called Thought: Process
Perspectives on Peace: a conversation with Kishore Mahbubani
Slated for April 2021, event information and sign up will appear here when available.
Tuesday, 21 September 2021
"The paradox about our times is that on the one hand, we live in the most peaceful era ever in human history, statistically speaking … on the other hand, we are also about to enter one of the most dangerous periods in human history.”
Kishore Mahbubani, DISTINGUISHED FELLOW AT THE ASIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE (ARI), NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE (NUS), SPEAKING AT THE KMSS EVENT: PERSPECTIVES ON PEACE ON 21 SEPTEMBER 2021, IN REFERENCE TO THE CURRENT SHIFTS IN POWER DYNAMICS IN THE GLOBAL GEO-POLITICAL LANDSCAPE
2020/2021
- Human-centred curriculum: redefining measures of success
- If not now, when? From access to equity
- Digital learning and disruption
- Navigating learning in the 21st century
Human-centred curriculum: redefining measures of success
Slated for April 2021, event information and sign up will appear here when available.
Thursday, 22 April 2021
"The power of your being able to write your story is the power of being human. And that’s what a good education helps you do; to chart your pathway forward, not to prescribe it, but to help you get there.”
Jeff Bradley, Director of the NEASC Commission on International Education
If not now, when? From access to equity
Scheduled for early 2021, full event information and sign up will appear here when available.
Thursday, 25 February 2021
"To go into the future thinking that things are getting worse is a defeatist way ... things can be better, and we are part of making them better. We must struggle on, and do what we need to do to make the world a better place than the way we found it."
Dr Musimbi Kanyoro, speaking at the third Kishore Mahbubani Speaker Series: Reimagining Learning 'From access to equity' event
Digital learning and disruption
Planned for December 2020, event information and sign up will appear here when available.
Wednesday, 9 December 2020
"Rather than yearn for the past, we should seize the opportunity before us.”
BHARAT ANAND, SPEAKING TO THE BOSTON GLOBE IN JUNE 2020 ABOUT THE POSSIBILITIES CREATED BY THE INTERSECTION OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE NECESSITY OF RESPONDING TO THE PANDEMIC