People and Technology: A New Era for Education

One of the key drivers of IE University is the reinvention of higher education in the digital age. At an international level, it pursues this objective by constantly innovating its educational processes and offerings and by organizing forums and encounters related to this strategic challenge.

With this commitment in mind and building on the success of last year's event, IE University is staging enlightED 2019 in partnership with Fundación Telefónica, Fundación Santillana and South Summit on October 2nd, 3rd and 4th, 2019. This international conference attracts experts from across the world and leading figures in education, technology and innovation for a strategic debate on education in the digital age. EnlightED will be held under the umbrella of South Summit, a major event on entrepreneurship and business opportunities which operates as a forum at which business and organization leaders can meet innovation and the entrepreneurial ecosystem face to face.

Experts and thinkers from across the globe

The enlightED program includes three days of 360-degree debate on education, with experts from different regions and industries and key agents operating in this field.

The program for enlightED 2019 includes a world-class panel of speakers, including Niall Ferguson, historian, writer and lecturer at Stanford University and CES Harvard University; Kelly Palmer, co-founder and Chief Learning and Talent Officer at Degreed; Tal Ben-Shahar, bestselling author and lecturer in Positive Psychology, Happiness and Leadership, who formerly taught at Harvard University and is a consultant to multinational organizations; Siva Kumari, General Director at the International Baccalaureate; Simon Nelson, CEO of Future Learn; Markus Witte, CEO of Babbel; Orlando Ayala, Advisor to the President of Colombia on Education and Technology; Pierre Dubuc, Cofounder and CEO of Openclassrooms; Patricia Kuhl, co-director of the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences at the University of Washington; Ju-Ho Lee, former Minister of Education of South Korea; and Alex Romero, Founder & CEO, Alto Data Analytics.

Also attending will be the presidents of the supporting organizations, José María Álvarez-Pallete, CEO of Telefónica; Santiago Iñiguez, President of IE University; César Alierta, CEO of Fundación Telefónica; María Benjumea, Founder and CEO of South Summit, and Ignacio Polanco Moreno, President of the Santillana Foundation.

The event will also be attended by the world's 100 most innovative startups, among which enlightED 2019 has selected the top 10 in the fields of education, innovation and EdTech from among 580 candidates, who will receive their prizes at the enlightED awards ceremony.

The first edition of enlightED brought together more than 10,000 attendees, both face-to-face and through streaming, as well as more than 1,200 corporations and more than 1,100 startups. The first meeting on educational innovation in the framework of the South Summit attracted thinkers and innovators including Sir Ken Robinson, Barbara Oakley, Jonathan Zittrain, Maysa Jalbout and Gerd Leonhard.

Commitment and pioneering leadership

IE University is convinced of the strategic challenge of promoting debate on the reinvention of education in this new era. Since 2010, it has been organizing the international Reinventing Higher Education (RHE) conference at different global venues. Over two hundred and fifty experts from around the world have addressed the forum whose purpose forms part of IE University's brand identity. This year's conference, held on the Brown University campus in the US, discussed the management of the human capital of tomorrow.

Enlighted 2019 is another example of IE University's commitment to transforming education and its pioneering leadership in this area.