KARACHI: The School of Tomorrow (SOT) International Education and Cultural Festival 2015 will host 135 local and international speakers and panellists featuring in some 40 panel discussions about media, science, technology, engineering and art, to be held over a span of two days starting Nov 28, at the Beach Luxury Hotel.

Organised by the Beaconhouse School System (BSS) for the past 10 years, the conference used to be a closed affair for Beaconhouse staff only. However, this year being BSS’s 40th anniversary year, SOT will be open to the public and has been planned as more of a festival than a conference.

“To make it more interesting for the public we have planned panel discussions on diverse topics such as film and media, digital technologies, art and culture, sports, geopolitics and global security, education and society,” said BSS CEO Kasim Kasuri during a media briefing to introduce the event here on Wednesday.

“Panellists from Pakistan, India, Australia, New Zealand, UK and USA will look at issues such as the inescapable influence of media and technology on children, the influence of Hindi-dubbed cartoons on the language and culture of Pakistani children, climate change and why people are still not concerned about it, children and social media, how to educate children for a future that’s still unknown, etc,” he said.

Talking through the main issues to be explored at the festival, Mr Kasuri explained that neuroscientists believe that exposing children to technology before the age of five has plenty of adverse effects such as slowing down of their developing motor skills.

“But technology has such a magical pull. Parents here boast that their two-year-old can use the iPad, not being aware of the impact it will have on their child’s development in the long run. The education software for computers, too, also offer more fun and games rather than education,” he pointed out.

He wondered how parents allow their children to create accounts on Facebook. “It leaves children vulnerable to so many dangers,” he said.

As for the cartoons dubbed in Hindi that are being watched by Pakistani children, he said that it is assumed that they are in Urdu but in fact they are killing the language.

Children’s education is at the root of SOT. Mr Kasuri said that we are educating our children for jobs that don’t even exist today. “Since we can’t even predict what jobs are going to be like in the next 25 years, we can at least focus on them acquiring more skills,” he said. “Because knowledge is present. You can even Google it but how you analyse it is what really matters,” he added.

“In response to a recent public debate about the school fee hike, we are also organising panel discussions on the growing gap between public and private schools while also trying to brainstorm ways on how to bridge this gap,” Mr Kasuri said.

Some of the key speakers at the conference include Roger Schank, a radical educator from the US, Alan Kay, one of the founding fathers of modern computing, David Cole, a leading UK educator, Dr Lawrence Burke, and Mr Stephen Crowley, in addition to some of Pakistan’s leading thinkers and social entrepreneurs. There is also a panel on sporting heroes that will include some iconic sportsmen from today and yesteryear.

“My colleagues and I truly believe that these issues deeply impact society and in particular children in ways we do not yet fully understand,” he said.

“There is nothing more important than the future, and children are the future. Maybe we can’t come up with black and white solutions right now but we can at least raise issues and take it from there,” he added.

In addition, the festival features a range of cultural activities including ‘Full STEAM’, an interactive science and art exhibition, robotics, screening of short films, storytelling and dramatic readings, plays, concerts, etc.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2015