sad fall 2021
HAPPY EASTER 2021 - join in 60th annual debate started by jf kennedy on what can english speaking worl learn from japan and asia rising
YOURS ai chis.macrae@yahoo.co.uk wash dc glasgow

No alt text provided for this image

we share the concern of futureoflife.org - technology has accelerated to the stage where life could thrive everywhere at the same time or self destruct-those expert in computing tell us this race began in 2 labs 1959 mit, 2 years later at stanford - 60 yars of neither party in dc understanding this race is quite sad


.let's see if it is possible to transform washington dc after nov 4 back to the high spirited days when people believed if americans could land in the moon, the no mission would be worldwide impossible for youth networks of the new machine intel age -what my dad norman macrae journalised as telecommuting and entrepreneurial revolution at the economist
our 1984 book the 2025 report fotecast 3 languages would be essential for 21st c children to design a sdg world in which 7.5+ billion lives mattered
mother tongue
coding
english or chinese- most of the world's science being originally published in english but most needed for the fifth of the world who are chinese to develop up to at least a third of the income of an american by 2025; we also predicted that by 2025 artificial intel would start to translate languages so the first two mattered most coding and mother tongue to mother natures diversity; it would probably become less valuable to study a second language unless you did up to mother tongue levels- tose speaking 2 mother tongues would make the millennial worlds most joyful cultural ambassadors and e-marketers because loving 2 peoples is the gateway to loving many peoples.
here is a sneak example of the type of community we hope will beam down hope to dc -we are firstly looking at american intl schools where students are bilingual and interested in coding -can the dreams of the sdg generation everywhere rise as we go post covid? why not if we celebrate such brilliant humansai labs as stanford's here, or projects like that below which silicon valley's singularity u gravitates from optimistic students and teachers the world wide?
.


a few questions
does it let you see the conversation on ai-artificial intel - for agriculture sdgs or does it require you to join the community?

if it requires joining - this is free, takes about 10 minutes but is worth at least one associate tech member joining imo as well as students concerned with humanising ai as the most urgent sdg related tool any youthful entrepreneur can connect scale round as we race post covid and hopefully out of trump bullying

this is a community group around singularity uni at mountain view which is run by the founder of xprize who is also sponsoring various projects at the un/itu #aiforgood - those of us who admired the free university work of taddy blecher out of s africa may wish to know singularity is now his main global platform



there are several latin am people currently active in this community- bookmark above clicks to the sort of text footnoted on a project in colombia- while i am not sure if this project has an evident win-win with your work , i do strongly ask friends at spanish or latin culture speaking american universities to form a friendship with someone in colombia which many people are saying is becoming smartest at helping youth connect good ai around the world- that might be an over generalisation but colombia's current president is helping lead ai and recently bogota became the first hub in latin america to be linked to world economic forum industrial revolution 4 which is one of the fastest moving parts of weforum during covid era- also over at the lse, ana torres the colombian who joined the organisation of american states in dc 10 years ago to hub continent wide youth entrepreneur competitions now hosts the extraordinary youth entrepreneur world cup which handled 100000 serious entries during the first covid annual competition https://platform.entrepreneurshipworldcup.com/display/EV

i am linkedin to the board level organiser of ai at world economic forum if we can think of the right sort of question to converse with her

chris macrae +1 240 316 8157 launching new washington dc from nov 4 DC2021.com
================================================================
footnote singularity members mail introducing colombia ai for agri

For this week’s Impact Spotlight, I would like to highlight the work of Carlos Castellanos and Cultivando Futuro SAS.




Carlos joins us from Bogota, Colombia where he is the co-founder and COO of Cultivando Futuro SAS, an organization that is mapping the farming and agricultural sector in Colombia.

Carlos, along with his two co-founders, have been working on the project for seven years. Carlos attended our Singularity University GSP program in 2015 on a scholarship supported by Socialab through a Global Impact Challenge.

Cultivando Futuro has mapped over 3200 farmers in Colombia. This includes not only mapping the location of the farms and the produce they grow, but information about the farmers themselves, such as how many family members they support to the infrastructure and services they have on their farms (ranging from everything from access to irrigation piping to toilets to financial services to smartphones.)

All of this information is aggregated into visual dashboards, where in a few minutes, the viewer can have an understanding of the challenges and opportunities of the rural communities that are mapped.

The data on the Dashboards can be used in a number of ways, from connecting farmers to the people who will buy their produce, to helping the government understand how to make policy decisions that will support farmers, to helping farmers access services. Cultivando Futuro is currently supporting the Ministry of Agriculture of Colombia with their data and is formulating a project with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) to help farmers decide what they should plant and when, using AI voice recognition technology applied to phone calls.

Most recently, during the pandemic, they have also been able to publish information on when certain farmers will have produce ready, including specific amounts and at specific times. This helps with managing the overall food supply chain in Colombia during this time of uncertainty.

Earlier this week I caught up with Carlos over a video call to learn more about his work.

When I asked him about the major challenges he has faced, he mentioned one of them was simply the amount of time and years it has taken them to become a technology team that is also an expert in agriculture. For example, in order to gain insights about how data and communication tools could promote fair trade in developing countries where a conventional marketplace doesn’t guarantee successful transactions, they set up their own agricultural warehouse to understand how technology could help.

Another challenge is that because Cultivando Futuro is one of the first groups to digitize agricultural information in Colombia, there are so many different uses for the data it is hard to know where to start. It can be challenging to figure out which services they pursue first, or if they should try to build several at the same time. This also relates to which business model they hone in on.

In addition, Carlos also mentioned that it is challenging to help people understand how once they have the data, it can not only be used in many different ways, but is building a foundation for many future uses of the data. For example once the data is in place, one can also work with artificial intelligence, drones, sensors and Iot technologies. Carlos and his team face the constant challenges of trying to help farmers address their immediate needs, but also think about what they are building for the future. (In my experience, this is actually a common challenge for many SU alumni and community members as the nature of exponential technologies is disruptive - it changes how the world works on multiple levels and across multiple industries, and, over time.)

In addition to his work with Cultivando Futuro, Carlos also tries to help others. As we were wrapping up our call, Carlos was preparing to hop on another call as a mentor to young people working on agtech innovations in Indonesia. He does this through his role as an Ambassador with the Thought For Food Community. He said that mentoring goes both ways - although he is a mentor he also learns a great deal - and that it is interesting for him to talk to agtech innovators in other countries as it also helps him think about common principles and how Cultivando Futuro might scale their platform globally in the future.

I asked Carlos how this community could help him and he mentioned that he is seeking both agtech mentors and technology mentors (especially developers) and that they are also seeking grants and alliances to be able to experiment with building new functions on their platform.

Carlos recently joined our community, and you can connect directly with him here or in the comments section.

................

diary from 11/3/2020

IN 24 HOURS: Join us tomorrow at 11a EST as the GZERO team and special guests talk through "What Just Happened" in the US election.

Bookmark this link to watch live: gzeromedia.com/gzerolive

Decision 2020: What Just Happened? Wednesday, November 4, 11a EST/8a PST

Panelists:

...
DC diary before 11/3/2020
blog 1661.w0rld
file note summer 2020 when you take into account biden's age it now looks odds on kamala harris will be first woman president before jan 2025
- what notes can we make 1 on roots of president harris
videos





















































































































































































































































happiness' greatest english language speaker of 2020 ... more
- in 1760s adam smith became the epicentre for mediating 3 of the most impactful questions on human development (ie livesmatter) which may also determine whether we the peoples apply the 2020s to sustaining or ending our species by 2100-see un sdgs
1 how will machines be shared around the world-smith's colleague at glasgow u had become world's first engineer
2 what conditions determine whether markets compound goodwill or badwill
3 what system faults in english education system need transformation if lives are to matter everywhere
smith was in the right time and place to debate these emerging systems versus others he studied including nature and health, languages cultures and faiths as ethical systems because scotland was 50 years into be colonised by london; london/england had become dominant across old and new worlds through having the biggest warships controlling the seas, english having become the main language for publishing science, how the first global monetary/trading system evolved; 50 years before smith's publications scotland had become a colony of england- it was to suffer such disadvantages as people thinning as scottish land owners became ordered/taxed by london- sheep were to be seen as quarterly more profitable than humans- my family tree traces back to the pastor of the church on the isle or arran- every sunday the peoples sat in a circle- my 3 times great grandad's main job in the 1840s was to negotiate with landowners money so that people could emigrate-this is how scotland became a majority diaspora nation within the first century of adam smith's published works; in 1843 a diaspora scit james wilson had become a member of parliament with the aim of firing the majority of mps who had become sponsored by big vested interests; james launched the economist to help reform parliament and he started the debate with queen victoria- instead of slave-making empire could royals preside over commonwealth- if we diaspora scots have a unique value it concerns searching for empowerment not powering over

adam smith alumni choice of top 50 sdg connectors and top 500 cases by tech -nb tech world started up 1760 glasgow U by adam smith and first engineer james watt- there has always been a crisis of translation between the english and their first colony to app engines -for moore ask chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk- which quarter of century do you want to search

top 50 sdg connectors>..health deeptech cases>..fintech cases>..edutech cases>..other tech cases>..
>fazle abed..>borlaug/food prize laureates..>bkash as 7th piece in brac finance for porest..>new tech uni glasgow year 260..>
>lee kuan yew/mahbubani..>ai food last 3 years emmanuel faber danone..>alipay and antfinance..>new tech uni stanford c150..>
>borlaug/food prize laureates..>attenborough only 60 year diversity tv anchor..>cases un digitalfinancingtaskforce.org/..>mit tech uni c130..>..
>.e pakistan cholera lab laureates including barefoot chinese medics and james grant .>village mothers para health servants-rural keynesianism since 1975.>bcorpsdanone maifesto ventures..>...new asean uni singapore>..
>.larry brilliant.>..>..>first search new uni coalitions starts with brac uni and china/schwarzman..>..
>deming
thurgood marshall
>..>..>connectivity sdg uni un..>..
>roosevelt/kennedy>..>..>africas virtual free uni collab..>..
>royal families of japan, netherlands , uk>..>..>..preschool playlabs>..
>keiretsu/chaebol
akio morita/founder toyota/abdul latif
mass & hanson robotics
negrppronte & joi ito
>..>..>informal primary adaptation montessori/paulo freire..>..
>..gordon moore/craig barrett>..>..>missing curricula of peer to peer- eg peer to peer health from age 10 up..>..
>guterres & ban-ki moon>..>..>girls apprentice clubs 13 up..>..
>.kobe bryant.>..>..>different practice specifi bridges to uni -eg hi tech hi, coding schools -replace classroom with blended team projects and virtual..>..
>gates>..>..>vip kid - best language coaching worldwide..>..
>berners lee and torvaulds>..>..>.dual language schools - optimising service learning.>..
>bezos and j ma>..>..>.refugeee edu educationcannotwait, educationaboveall.>..
>quadir family mobile for poorest>..>..>..>..
>p ma wechat/whatsapp>..>..>..>..
>serge brin and kai fu lee>..>..>..>..
>jerry yang & steve case>..>..>..>..
>dubai edu summit coordinators eg varkey &>..>..>..>..
>sheika moza and qatar edu summits>..>..>..>..
>abe & klaus schwab 5-place ir4 revolution geneva san fran tokyo beijing delhi>..>..>..>..
>elon musk..>..>..>..>..
>li ka-shing..>..>..>..>..
>..joko widodo
paul kagame
father and daughter jin
>..>..>..>..
>.mr and mrs stanford
clara barton and florence nightingale
gandhi and mandela
montessori & paulo freire
pope and st francis
keynes and adam smith.
>..>..>..>..
>thorkil sonne autism lives matter..>..>..>..>..
>..rosalind picard - 5 sense genii - human & machine>..>..>..>..
>..>..>..>..>..
>..>..>..>..>..
>..>..>..>..>..
>..>..>..>..>..
>..>..>..>..>..
>..>..>..>..>..
>..>..>..>..>..
................
.....united nations at 75 - can markets be designed to sustain our species - we explore this question through seven 5 point unnovation networks inspired by listening to some of the world's most extraordnary heroines and heroes of poverty alleviation - special thanks to the late great fazle abed 1 2 3 and his friends who welcomed us to bangladesh on 15 occasions between 2007 and 2018

5 livesmatter bottom up markets shelf; 5 top-down markets that 2020s need to value younger half of world

5 exponemtial solutions that emerged un years 1-15 - 5factor target practice of sdgs

how bottom up marketers integrate global values- 5es of microfranchising; 5 vs of place mapping

leaping ahead of moores laws 100 times more machine analytical intel 5g 2020s 1g 1980s

SHELF bottom up INTEGRATION UNITING NATIONS 2021now transformation of top-down- valuing younger half of world 2020s as first sdg generation

SAFETY

resilience of community to nature

last mile health services

personal safety in community all lives matter

Borderless good relations -life critical knowhow flows

HEALTH

Types of health and nutrition local services needed so no mum or child dies through lack of basic care

connecting world immunologists and epidemiologists

health as missing peer to peer edu curricululum from 4th grade pre-adolescence up

EDUCATION ilivelihood skills

age of humanising machine and personal connections

lifelong including interruotions eg refugees, family crises

at pre-school

at primry

through adolescence /many need apprenticeships or community learning not closed classrooms

college for lifelong teaching and studying- era when half of most valuable knowhow changes every 5 years and is opposite of disciplianry or cultural silos

LOVEQ LEADERSHIP

servant leaders and professions are embedded in communities, resolving systemiv breakdowns- this cant be done top-down; the worst constititution in 21st c is the perfect one when horse was fastest way to communicate

before 5g to 0g decades - the Economist hosted dialogue on entreprenurial revolution if future lives matter - redesign every system to valuing sme netwrks not large organisations

FINANCE

examples of tranformed finance thanks to blending digital unga75 peoples money

UNIVERSITY COALITION NATURE INFRASTRUCTURE TECH SPORTS ARTS FASHION LOCAL HEROINES
by 1960 5 extraordinary solutions looked ready for exponentilly risinghuman progress mapping 5 gravitaional factors if you find 17 sdgs too many to recall or interact
VILLAGE ENGINEERING SATELLITE COMS SPACES TECH COMP POWER YOUTH GOAL COALITION F1 END POVERTY NEXT CHILD BORNF2=SDG 2-6 BASICS OF SHELF F3 7-12 EVERRYCOMMUNITY LINKED INTO TRADE F4 13-16 CLIMATE ADATATIONF5= 7.5 BILLION PEOPLE COALITIONS BEYOND HISTORIC PLACE ONLY GOVERNANCE
e1=EFFECTIVE e2 -EFFICIENT e3=expandable to any community in need e4=electrification e5= e- aka digital V1=one VILLAGE v2=200k villages national global worldwide real & virtual
5G 2020s 5 DOLLAR COMPUTER BRAINS EVERYWHERE - PERSONAL AND SOCIETAL CLOUDS- BIG DATA LOCAL OPERABILITY 4G 2010s MOBILISE UNIVERSAL BEHAVIOURAL MAPS EARLY AI AND REAL TIME CLOUD PLATFORMS- YOUVE GOT ZOOM AND WECHAT 3G 2000s TRANSITION TO SMART MOBILE- DATA IS EVERYONES FREEDOM OR TRAP 2G 1990sBLEND COMMERCE AND KNOWLEDGE- BLEND PERSONAL COMPUTER WITH TEXT MOBILE1G 1980s INTERPERSONAL KNOWLEDGE WEBS AND COMPUTING -YOUVE GOT EMAIL

letterfrom america 2020 -sadly our peoples are up the creek in deep shit- how come US lost peoples' trust world class nations trade on? neither media, nor educators nor politicians value:

LOCAL IS ALWAYS BEAUTIFUL, BUT WORLDWIDE CAN BE URGENTLY LIFE CRITICAL................

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

  

welcome

00:02
to this panel
organized by the world innovation summit
for education -
wise which is an initiative of qatar
00:08
foundation for education science and
00:10
community development
00:11
my name is ahmed baghdadi i'm a research
00:13
manager at wise and i'm happy to be the
00:15
moderator for this panel
00:16
this panel is part of the global
00:18
learning festival 2020 which is held
00:20
virtually
00:21
from september 1st to 4th
00:24
as we all know as a result of the
00:26
current covet 19 pandemic
00:28
communities around the world are trying
00:30
to transform the learning systems to
00:32
ensure
00:32
resilience inclusivity and impact on a
00:35
digital
00:36
digital frontier and language is a key
00:38
component
00:39
of our learning systems uh building off
00:42
of the wise research report entitled
00:44
language policies in globalized context
00:47
which was published by
00:48
wise in 2019 in partnership with
00:51
carnegie mellon university in qatar
00:54
this discussion will explore how
00:56
multilingualism
00:57
challenges education systems to examine
00:59
how they develop the communities
01:01
to be cohesive and to value individual
01:03
identities of the community
01:06
this report published by wise and
01:08
carnegie mellon university is available
01:10
to download for free at wise
01:12
qatar.org
01:15
informed by the current global health
01:17
situation this panel will focus on how
01:20
the super diversity of cities today
01:22
changes the nature of policy responses
01:24
especially regarding which languages to
01:26
teach
01:27
and to teach in before i introduce the
01:31
panelists for this
01:32
uh for today i would like to mention
01:34
that this panel will run
01:36
for one hour and we're planning to have
01:38
a discussion with the panelists
01:40
for about 45 minutes and hope to have
01:42
around
01:43
15 minutes towards the end for questions
01:46
from the audience
01:47
so please write your questions in the
01:49
chat box and we will hope to
01:51
hope to try to answer as many of them as
01:53
possible
01:55
i'm pleased and honored to welcome a
01:57
group of expert panelists
01:58
today who will share their insights and
02:00
experiences on the topic of this panel
02:04
i'm pleased and honored to welcome
02:05
dudley reynolds who is a teaching
02:08
professor
02:09
of english at carnegie mellon university
02:11
in qatar
02:12
dudley has been a teacher and a
02:14
researcher for over 30 years
02:16
and has served as president of tesol
02:18
international which is the
02:20
association for teachers of english the
02:22
speakers of other languages
02:23
in 2016 and 2017 is also the author of
02:26
the wise research report we're
02:28
discussing today
02:30
i'm also pleased and honored to welcome
02:32
alin sarah who's the co-founder and ceo
02:34
of natakella
02:36
netakalam is a social enterprise that
02:38
connects refugees
02:39
and displaced persons with work
02:41
opportunities in the language sector
02:43
through the freelance economy and i'm
02:46
also happy to
02:47
welcome lori noel who has been a
02:49
journalist and writer for 25 years
02:51
he's written for publications in
02:53
australia the uk
02:55
canada and his work has been published
02:57
in the herald sun
02:58
the guardian the times in the daily mail
03:01
he's currently working in media and
03:02
public affairs for migrant
03:04
migrant refugees settlement agency ams
03:07
in
03:07
australia dudley
03:11
allen and laurie welcome to this panel
03:12
and thank you for joining us today
03:16
i would like to start uh this discussion
03:18
by um
03:19
uh sort of a big picture question about
03:22
how can we break social barriers through
03:24
language teaching in our societies and
03:26
what are the best
03:27
uh practices in this regard um i'd like
03:30
to start with dudley uh if you could
03:32
share with us your thoughts on on how we
03:34
can break social barriers through
03:36
language teaching i think you know the
03:39
the start to answer that question is
03:41
looking at where the social barriers are
03:43
coming from
03:44
and one of the patterns that we see
03:47
worldwide and especially in cities
03:50
is increasing diversification as a
03:53
result
03:53
of migration and
03:56
you know it's and this isn't going to
03:58
change it's a reality that cities
04:00
everywhere
04:01
are dealing with and as
04:05
uh current communities of
04:08
migrants get larger and as new migrant
04:11
groups
04:12
move into community um there's always
04:15
been a tendency to
04:17
to stick together from communities
04:19
within the larger community
04:22
and if we're not careful those
04:26
communities begin to erect barriers
04:28
between them
04:30
and i think that we have to recognize
04:33
the essential role
04:34
of language learning in
04:38
breaking down those barriers and
04:42
when i'm talking about language learning
04:43
i'm not just talking about a one-way
04:46
type of relationship where the host
04:49
community says
04:51
they need to learn our language in order
04:54
to be part of our community
04:56
what i'm talking about is a much more
04:58
reciprocal understanding of language
05:00
learning
05:01
where cities make an effort
05:04
to encourage the learning of
05:07
new languages that are being brought
05:09
into their community
05:11
they support programs that
05:14
teach community languages
05:18
and this is good for two reasons one
05:21
when
05:21
obviously when we learn someone else's
05:24
language
05:25
then we can see the world through their
05:27
eyes we can empathize
05:31
we can share information with them
05:35
but also just the very process of
05:38
language learning
05:39
in in a formal setting in a classroom
05:42
puts
05:43
people from different communities in
05:45
contact with each other
05:47
and it leads to to friendships it leads
05:50
to relationship building
05:53
um and that goes a long way i think
05:56
in breaking down
05:59
the tendency that exists everywhere to
06:01
erect barriers
06:04
really based on my experience as a
06:06
teacher and and um
06:08
and in my classes i used to you know
06:10
notice that students don't only learn
06:12
from teacher
06:13
from the teacher they learn from one
06:14
another and if someone is
06:16
you know i mean most of them might not
06:18
be native speakers of the language and
06:20
they can
06:20
they have different backgrounds and
06:22
different you know uh
06:24
proficiency levels so they might
06:26
actually learn from each other have you
06:27
seen this in
06:27
your experience absolutely and i mean
06:30
you have to think about
06:32
what is the content of language classes
06:34
right
06:35
it's not just grammar instruction it is
06:38
often questions about
06:42
values it's questions about how do you
06:44
do
06:45
this uh you know how you know what's
06:48
your process for doing something whether
06:50
it's cooking
06:52
um whether it's teaching
06:55
uh a practice to your children whatever
06:58
it is
06:59
and in this way students become
07:02
informants
07:03
for each other right and so there's
07:08
often as much peer learning going on
07:11
in a language classroom as there is a
07:13
teacher
07:14
pushing out some kind of knowledge
07:18
all right thank you um i'd like to turn
07:20
that to um
07:21
lori i think laurie i know you work
07:23
through your um your
07:25
job with ames australia with migrant
07:27
communities
07:28
and you you write about that and you're
07:30
you're engaged in
07:31
discussions around language in in the
07:33
migrant communities what are your
07:34
thoughts on how we can break social
07:36
barriers
07:37
through language teaching well i think
07:40
language
07:41
is very important in breaking down
07:44
social barriers and
07:45
and i think what dudley said about it
07:47
being not just a one-way
07:50
street is really important i mean a lot
07:52
of the work we do
07:53
is to help communities
07:57
tell their own authentic stories in the
07:58
mainstream media here so that there's
08:00
some understanding
08:01
in the broader society of their cultures
08:03
and their traditions
08:05
um and i guess you know australia's
08:08
it's kind of unique in that you know
08:10
it's uh
08:12
it traditionally was a sort of
08:13
monolingual
08:15
settler society but in the last 30 years
08:18
it's become one of the most diverse
08:19
countries in the world if not the most
08:21
diverse
08:22
um you know a third of us were born
08:25
overseas and
08:26
half of us have at least one parent who
08:28
was born overseas
08:29
and in the last 30 years the majority of
08:32
those migrants have come from countries
08:34
where
08:34
english is not the um the main language
08:37
and we found that
08:39
communities that are confident in their
08:41
own culture
08:42
and able to preserve and access their
08:45
own their own language and traditions
08:47
are also also more confidently and
08:50
successfully engaging with mainstream
08:52
society
08:53
um and we see this all the time in in
08:55
lots of communities
08:57
so um you know and
09:01
the basis to this is language you know
09:02
language is kind of everything it
09:04
in a sense you know defines a community
09:06
and if there's a
09:08
broader understanding in the wider
09:11
society that these languages are
09:13
important then
09:14
that kind of builds on social cohesion
09:16
and it becomes a really important factor
09:18
in
09:19
having a cohesive society
09:23
thank you i think australia would
09:24
probably be a perfect example for us to
09:26
consider here given the diversity and
09:29
you know the migrants and the settlers
09:31
and the you know
09:32
original uh people in the country so
09:35
this is um
09:35
interesting aline i know you work with
09:38
migrants but
09:38
maybe in a slightly different way you
09:41
don't necessarily teach them
09:43
language but you actually enable them to
09:44
teach their own language to others
09:47
would you mind sharing your thoughts
09:48
about uh how this can
09:50
break social barriers within a society
09:52
especially with regards to migrants
09:55
yes sure hi everyone it's it's nice to
09:57
be here
09:58
uh so yes um so uh i am the co-founder
10:01
of netaquellum which is a social
10:03
enterprise
10:04
that hires refugees as language teachers
10:07
over the internets
10:09
so echoing what has already been said by
10:12
the panelists um language is a window
10:15
into the world
10:17
language is a window into other cultures
10:20
and it's absolutely
10:21
critical to foster understanding and to
10:24
kind of bridge the gaps between the
10:25
different cultures in the world
10:26
especially
10:27
as communities diversify and people are
10:30
more
10:31
mobile and migrating much more um
10:34
i would say that the particularity of
10:36
what we're doing is
10:37
uh twofold uh with let's because
10:41
while we are trying to create um an
10:43
understanding of
10:44
different cultures we're also trying to
10:47
create an understanding of migrants and
10:49
particularly for
10:50
netakalam's case refugees
10:53
unfortunately we're living in a world
10:55
where there is a rise of populism
10:58
and there is um overall a negative view
11:01
of people migrating uh for whether it's
11:04
due to war or natural disaster or for
11:07
um economic purposes so what netankalem
11:10
does is not only bring languages to
11:12
people who might not speak them as
11:14
they're signing up to learn them
11:15
but their teacher is is a refugee and
11:18
that enables them to also
11:20
change their mindset and see a different
11:23
image than what might be painted in in
11:25
the media and political spheres
11:27
uh and seeing really that migrants are
11:29
just like you and me
11:31
we're all similar people with uh similar
11:33
goals and ambitions and uh refugees
11:36
especially have just
11:37
uh been subject to extraordinary
11:39
circumstances that have forced them to
11:41
flee
11:43
and um you know you've been doing this
11:45
for a number of years i understand and
11:47
and
11:47
could you tell us a little bit about how
11:49
successful this has been
11:51
uh so far yes sure so um sunata
11:55
was born out of lebanon in light of the
11:58
syrian refugee crisis
12:00
i'm myself lebanese born and raised in
12:02
the u.s
12:03
and the idea was how can we enable
12:06
syrian refugees in lebanon who are
12:08
typically barred from the local economy
12:10
not given a right to work and suffer
12:12
discrimination like many refugees
12:14
regardless of what country they find
12:16
themselves in well the idea was
12:19
they have an innate skill which is their
12:21
language
12:23
and across the world people are looking
12:25
to learn
12:26
languages many people who learn
12:28
languages need to practice
12:29
through conversation and so the idea is
12:31
very simple
12:32
um what if we could create a platform
12:35
which is what we did
12:36
that enabled people around the world
12:38
mostly americans i would say we started
12:40
with
12:40
who could learn arabic or at the very
12:42
least practice
12:43
um speaking arabic um with
12:46
refugees who would be in lebanon who
12:49
can't actually get a full-time
12:50
employment
12:51
but could then be paid to be the
12:53
language partner of
12:54
these individuals worldwide so since uh
12:57
the the founding in 2015 um so we're
13:01
going on five years old
13:02
um that's economics actually expanded so
13:05
we we do
13:06
work with many syrian refugees but we've
13:08
expanded to other arabic speaking
13:10
refugee communities iraqis palestinian
13:12
yemeni
13:13
um unfortunately there's there's many
13:15
refugee populations in the middle east
13:17
to choose from
13:18
uh we've also launched uh persian with
13:21
iranian and afghan refugees
13:23
spanish with venezuelan and central
13:25
american refugees as well
13:27
as french with francophone african
13:29
refugees and so
13:30
we're we're going on uh five years and
13:33
we've
13:33
connected with thousands of students but
13:35
also
13:36
have our programs running in schools and
13:38
universities and um the qatar foundation
13:40
has been a significant supporter of ours
13:43
for this work um and we're excited to be
13:46
hitting a million dollars in
13:48
disbursements to refugees as well
13:50
in the next couple of months wow this
13:53
sounds
13:53
amazing and it's super diverse as well
13:56
um
13:57
well speaking of the super diversity now
14:00
my next question is about
14:01
how the super diversity of cities today
14:03
uh change the nature of policy responses
14:06
especially with regards to language
14:07
teaching more specifically
14:09
which languages do we teach in and which
14:12
languages do
14:13
we teach and uh i'd like to ask this
14:15
question specifically
14:16
um um to uh dudley and see uh
14:19
based on on the report what do you think
14:22
how do you think we
14:24
should consider languages to teach in
14:25
the classroom and the language of
14:27
instruction
14:29
yeah you know and i'm going to repeat
14:32
something i already said which is
14:33
that um we have to move away from this
14:37
mindset
14:38
that when someone comes into our
14:40
community
14:42
the only aspect of language learning
14:45
that we need to worry about is teaching
14:46
them
14:47
our language and
14:51
what we're seeing you know every
14:54
individual
14:55
has a need to connect to their their
14:58
history
14:59
their identity they need to be part of a
15:02
community
15:03
and you know in terms of special
15:06
cohesion
15:07
and they also need economic opportunity
15:11
and economic opportunity in today's
15:13
world
15:15
often uh touches on globalization
15:19
and having language skills that allow
15:21
you to work
15:22
not only within your local place of
15:26
living but also
15:27
worldwide and
15:31
so what schools and communities are
15:34
increasingly having to do
15:36
is support find ways to support
15:40
a very sort of complex matrix
15:43
of needs and they're having to do it
15:46
in a way you know in a situation where
15:50
the languages that each student
15:53
in this are that satisfied each
15:55
student's needs
15:56
are different you're not you're no
15:59
longer teaching to a classroom
16:01
where you've got 30 students
16:04
and in particular their their heritage
16:08
languages are all the same
16:10
or even the languages that they want to
16:12
learn for for wider opportunity outside
16:15
the community
16:16
are the same and so we're having to
16:20
come up with new models for language
16:22
instruction
16:24
that support the learning of multiple
16:26
languages
16:28
at the same time cities are having to
16:31
come up
16:31
with ways to support uh
16:36
programs for for many different
16:39
languages
16:40
uh and they're you know there's some
16:42
great models out there that i can talk
16:44
about
16:45
uh if you're interested but um
16:49
it's it's how you deal
16:53
and and support diversity
16:56
um at the same time i mean i i like to
16:59
use the phrase that what we're
17:01
um we're no longer just teaching
17:04
multilingualism
17:06
we're teaching in every classroom
17:10
multilingualisms right
17:13
we're we're encouraging each student to
17:15
be multilingual
17:17
in whatever configuration matches their
17:20
needs
17:21
and that's that's a very different
17:23
paradigm
17:26
i totally agree i think this qatar is a
17:28
is a perfect
17:29
example for this and and if you can tell
17:32
us a little bit about how
17:34
you know um teaching languages or
17:36
teaching in
17:37
uh a specific or multiling language
17:40
languages and qatar
17:41
um happens and if there's anything that
17:43
we can learn from that
17:44
yeah i think i mean you know at this at
17:47
the classroom level in particular
17:49
i think we've got to get away from the
17:52
notion that
17:54
in order to you know teach a language
17:58
um you have to restrict
18:02
a conversation in the classroom to just
18:05
that language
18:06
and instead realize that it's possible
18:11
to
18:12
in a sense license multiple languages
18:15
in a classroom and that the focus
18:18
is much more on understanding language
18:22
and how language
18:23
works as a mode of communication
18:27
as as a sort of matching of resources
18:31
you know uh to communicative needs
18:35
it's about understanding what our
18:37
communicative needs are
18:39
um and and really sort of in a sense
18:43
building this meta awareness um
18:48
not just memorization of vocabulary or
18:52
grammar rules and that that's what
18:54
language teaching is
18:56
and uh you know there are lots of
18:59
classrooms
19:00
in qatar where they are adopting this
19:03
um this mode and i had a chance to
19:06
work some with the qatar foundation
19:10
uh schools and and qatar academy schools
19:14
um that are really pioneering some of
19:17
these
19:17
these methods because they have such
19:19
diverse classrooms
19:22
yeah i think it's uh it's perfect here
19:25
to see uh students from
19:26
various backgrounds in the same school
19:28
in the same classroom learning
19:30
you know in multiple languages i think
19:32
that would be uh that would be a pioneer
19:34
as you as you said
19:35
um i'd like now to focus more on the
19:38
impact
19:39
uh of teaching migrants um the local
19:41
language and their ability to integrate
19:43
into the society and there could be some
19:45
direct and indirect um
19:47
you know impacts of that lori based on
19:50
your experience and your
19:51
work with the migrant communities in
19:53
australia what do you what do you see as
19:55
the impact of
19:56
teaching the migrants the local language
20:01
well i guess at a fundamental level it's
20:03
what we do we support around
20:05
70 000 newly arrived migrants and
20:07
refugees
20:08
to settle in australia every year um and
20:11
what is critical
20:13
um in successful settlement for most
20:16
people is economic participation
20:18
so for most people that means finding a
20:22
job or starting a business
20:24
and having enough english to achieve
20:26
that is vital for for most people
20:30
and so having this economic
20:31
participation leads to social
20:34
participation
20:35
and access to mainstream society which
20:38
in turn builds
20:39
social cohesion across the whole of
20:41
society