On December 9, 2023, the"Transforming Higher Education in the Age of AI" InternationalInstitute of Online Education (IIOE) Global Partners Summit Hong Kong sub-forumwas successfully held in Hong Kong, China.

The forum was attended by more than 60participants, including representatives from UNESCO, IIOE partner higher education institutions in Asiaand Africa, industry technology experts, and representatives from highereducation research institutions and think tanks.

The meeting was initially chaired by Mr. DuYue, Secretary-General World Federation of UNESCO Clubs, Centres andAssociations, followed by opening remarks from Mr. Firmin Edouard Matoko,former Assistant Director-General for Priority Africa and External Relations atUNESCO, Mr. Deng Fei, member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, Mr. WangDuanrui, Governing Board Member of UNESCO-ICHEI, President of Hong Kongindustrial Commercial Association Limited, Honorary President of ChinaCharity, and Ms. Han Wei, Executive Deputy Secretary-General, IIOE Secretariat.

Inauguration of the IIOE Hong Kong TrainingCenter and Wedon Cloud Education's Phase Two Smart Classroom Donation Ceremony

Executive Deputy Secretary-General Han Weiremarked that the IIOE Hong Kong Training Center is an innovative explorationand expressed gratitude for Wedon Cloud Education's continuous donations to theSmart Classroom project. The project aims to improve the hardwareinfrastructure of higher education institutions in developing countries inAsia, Africa, and Latin America, support online and blended teaching, andaccelerate the digital transformation of higher education. The first phase ofWedon's Smart Classroom project covered six classrooms in six countries acrossAsia and Africa. The second phase, in collaboration with the Hong Kong ShenmingCharity Foundation and the Singapore GMC Education Group, involves theconstruction of smart classrooms in Hong Kong, China, the Philippines, Vietnam,India, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, and other regions, supporting and safeguardingthe educational rights of students in developing countries and contributing tothe improvement of education quality and promotion of educational equality.

Keynote Speech

Dr. Chen Bangdao, Executive Director, UniversityCollege Oxford Blockchain Research Centre, Oxford University, delivered akeynote speech on "AI Data Security and Data Sovereignty in FutureUniversity Education". He highlighted the significant security challengesposed by the AI black box effect and emphasized the importance of data securityand data rights protection in promoting safe and compliant AI development. Dr.Chen introduced the concept of digital civilization proposed by his mentor,Professor Bill Roscoe, advocating for personal digital rights protection as thecore value in digital technology development. He detailed how to use securitytechnology to build the infrastructure for the digital transformation of highereducation and regulate the application of AI in education. Finally, Dr. Chendiscussed the vision of building future universities and provided a completetechnical path reference for innovating a borderless higher education model.

Special Topic Sharing

In the special topic sharing session,domestic and international experts in educational technology shared theirinsights. Wedon Cloud CEO Zhang Gao discussed "AI-Era Education DigitalAsset Solutions", starting from Wedon Cloud's real-world challenges,creating AI-assisted courses, digital personas for teachers, and providing dataprotection and rights assurance through a knowledge bank, fostering assettrading to create greater value. After months of trials, they achieved atenfold increase in course creation efficiency and support for coursedevelopment in 30 languages. In the future, Wedon Cloud will provide knowledgebank services free of charge to partner institutions' teachers and students incollaboration with IIOE, developing 1000 digital personas for partner schools'teachers and digital assets for 200 partner institutions.

Prof. Paul Prinsloo, Research Professor inOpen Distance Learning, University of South Africa, shared insights on "AIApplications and Data Security in Remote Education", analyzing datagenerated during the educational process and the corresponding privacy,security, and risk issues when student data is no longer used as a"closed" ecosystem but as part of a broader data ecosystem.

Yi Min Zhang, President of Sino-BritishEducation Group, Dean of Hong Kong Institute of Financial Management, sharedinsights on "AI Applications in Financial Education". He discussedthe high penetration of AI in financial technology and its implications forfinancial education, with some schools in the US, Europe, and Asia offeringpersonalized systems and intelligent teaching systems. The Hong Kong FinancialManagement College is advancing new teaching models through AI and digitalpersona technology and promoting AI-themed courses in finance.

Leo Ma, Director of Deloitte AI ResearchInstitute (Hong Kong), explored "Potential Applications of LLM-RAG (LargeLanguage Models and Retrieval-Augmented Generation) in Education". Heshared the technical points of LLM-RAG and its application in education, whereit could revolutionize the cultivation of deep understanding of complexsubjects and provide a personalized learning experience for each student.

This event marks a new beginning in the eraof artificial intelligence, emphasizing the need for future universityeducation to build a new digital foundation in security and data rights andexplore boundless new educational methods. The conference also signifies thestarting point of IIOE Hong Kong Training Center, jointly promoting the digitaltransformation of higher education in the AI era.