Prof. Maia Bliadze

European University, Georgia

Education for Sustainability Development Goals

Maia Bliadze is an affiliate professor of the European University. She has been working as a geography expert-consultant at the National Center for Teacher Professional Development (Georgia) since 2018. She is the co-author of the school textbooks of nature and geography, as well as the author of the first integrated electronic textbook “Science and Technology” prepared for vocational educational colleges; the author of school atlases, monographs, auxiliary resources, methodological manuals and numerous scientific articles.

Prof. Simon Riley

University of Edinburgh (UK)

Dr. Gavin McCabe

University of Edinburgh (UK)

Empowering transformative experiential learning at scale

Dr Gavin McCabe is based in the University of Edinburgh’s Careers Service and is responsible for supporting strategy, initiatives, and provision relating to students’ employability, development and graduate attributes.  As part of this, he is the reflection, student development, and employability lead in the creation and development of the institution-wide Student-Led, Individually-Created Courses (SLICCs) initiative, a flexible and scalable experiential learning and assessment framework that utilises a reflective e-portfolio.  Gavin is also the lead and co-author of the Reflection Toolkit, an open-access resource to support staff and students in effective reflective practice.

Professor Simon Riley has a Personal Chair of Experiential Student Learning at the University of Edinburgh. He is Director of Teaching for the Deanery of Clinical Sciences in Edinburgh Medical School. He is academic lead in the development of the institution-wide Student-Led, Individually-Created Courses (SLICCs) initiative, a flexible and scalable experiential learning and assessment framework that utilises a reflective e-portfolio. This SLICCs development has been supported by his secondment to the Institute for Academic Development.

Fabio Nascimbeni

European Training Foundation (ETF) (Italy)

Fostering inclusive and effective digital education policy making in Europe and beyond

Fabio Nascimbeni, PhD in information and Knowledge Society, works as Human Capital Development Expert at the European Training Foundation (ETF), a EU agency providing support to EU neighbouring countries for the reform of education, training and employment systems, where he mainly focuses on digitalisation and learning innovation. He has been active in the field of learning innovation and digital education for 25 years, working with organisations such as the European Commission, the ILO and UNICEF, and has designed and coordinated more than 50 research and innovation projects across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Mediterranean and South East Asia. His main research interests are open education, digital literacy, digital inclusion. He is a Senior Fellow of the European Distance and eLearning Network (EDEN) and a Fellow of the CEST centre of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and of the Nexa Centre of the Politecnico di Torino in Italy.