Leading Educational Transformation with Symbiosis—— The Topics for Global Finals of Higher Education Track, The 8th Global Competition on Design for Future Education Released
date：2024-07-26 15:24author：adminsource：Smart Learning Instituteviews：
What are the lessons for the future? How will humans adapt to the transformations brought by AI? How will humans coexist with nature (different species) in the future? How will humans coexist in the future? These are the hot topics discussed at the Global Final of Higher Education Track, the 8th Global Competition on Design for Future Education (GCD4FE). The Global Finals was jointly organized by Beijing Normal University (BNU) and the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE). The event assembled over 110 outstanding participants from universities across China, Bulgaria, Slovenia, South Korea, Germany, Malaysia, the Maldives, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United States, etc. Hailing from interdisciplinary backgrounds spanning education, technology, design, humanities, and arts, these participants faced an intensive 48-hour challenge: to transform initial concepts into fully developed design solutions.
Global Finals of Higher Education Track Finals, the 8th GCD4FE
Since the 21st century, AI has been reshaping the boundaries of knowledge. Climate crises demand a return to ecological ethics. Global aging intensifies alongside youth population imbalances, while technological advancements exacerbate mental health challenges. Confronted with these complex challenges, humanity must urgently reconsider a fundamental question: Where is the future of education headed? The 2021 UNESCO report Reimagining Our Futures Together: A New Social Contract for Education proposed that future education must rebuild relationships—between people, between humans and our planet, and between humans and technology. It emphasized that education transcends knowledge transmission, serving instead as a critical pathway to address global challenges. Echoing this vision, the 2022 UN Transforming Education Summit called on nations to harness digital innovation to transform global education, ensuring equitable access to quality education and lifelong learning as common goods. As an international platform, this competition enables the outstanding youth worldwide to contribute substantively to reimagining the future of education
On behalf of the Organizing Committee, Prof. Asha Singh Kanwar, Chair of the Governing Board of the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education and Vice Dean at the Smart Learning Institute of BNU, announced five cutting-edge topics for the Global Finals.
Prof. Asha Singh Kanwar Announced the Competition Topics
Guided by expert mentors, participating teams will rapidly define their problem focus and refine solutions through two rigorous presentation rounds before competing for Gold, Silver, and Bronze Awards. Detailed analyses of each competition topic follow below.
Topic 1: Growth Curriculum System Design for Primary Schools Towards 2050 (Holistic Human Development)
The primary students in the future must transcend being mere vessels of knowledge. They need to cultivate global perspectives, critical thinking, emotional empathy, and agency to become true global citizens. As we face the profound uncertainties in 2050, curriculum design must address two core questions: “What is the purpose of education?” and “What kinds of humans do we aspire to nurture?” This topic challenges participants to focus on holistic human development, transcending traditional disciplines and teaching models to design a future-oriented growth system that empowers children with the inner strength to navigate an increasingly complex and uncertain world.
Growth Curriculum System Design for Primary Schools Towards 2050
Topic 2: Learning Design for Mental and Physical Health (Holistic Human Development)
Whether children, adolescents, the youth entering the workforce, middle-aged individuals bearing family responsibilities, or seniors facing physical decline, challenges to physical and mental well-being are ever-present. This topic aims to address the multidimensional health pressures faced by all age groups in modern society by designing innovative learning solutions and creating an integrated support system spanning physical, virtual, and transitional spaces. Participants should focus on key dimensions such as psychological adaptation, emotional regulation, physical health, and social connection, providing practical and effective methods for stress relief and self-care—while also exploring ways to achieve holistic well-being and sustainable growth.
Learning Design for Mental and Physical Health
Topic 3: Design for Interspecies Learning in Nature (Human-Nature Symbiosis)
Against the backdrop of ecological crises and ongoing biodiversity loss, humanity urgently needs a fundamental shift in its understanding of nature. This topic centers on “interspecies learning” as its core philosophy—moving beyond traditiona “environmental education” or one-way “ecological knowledge dissemination.” Instead, it advocates for a more symbiotic approach to learning, where nature is not merely observed but actively engaged with. Participants should focus on a specific age group or community, designing immersive learning experiences set in the natural world. A forest, a swarm of bees, a tidal rhythm, a climbing vine—these should not serve as passive "backdrops" for lessons, but as co-participants in the educational process.
Design for Interspecies Learning in Nature
Topic 4: Human-centered AI Design (Human-AI Symbiosis)
Against the backdrop of AI rapidly permeating daily life and education, we are confronting a “dual paradox”: the more intelligent the technology becomes, the more readily people relinquish independent thinking; the more convenient systems grow, the harder it becomes to sustain proactive engagement. This topic directly addresses the cognitive inertia and weakening judgment caused by increasing reliance on AI, seeking to redefine the boundaries and collaborative models of human-machine relationships. For this reason, the competition uniquely adopts a “dual-mentor mechanism,” pairing human mentors with AI mentors to guide participants through their projects. Human mentors focus on imparting experience, value-based guidance, and emotional support, while AI mentors excel at providing personalized feedback, structured knowledge supplementation, and efficiency enhancements in project design. The two complement each other in cognitive pathways and learning structures, forming a support network that is both precise and imbued with warmth.
Human-centered AI Design
Topic 5: Sustainable Intergenerational Cooperation Design (Human-Human Symbiosis)
“Intergenerational” signifies more than just an age gap—it represents a connection across time: where memory meets the future, where experience collides with vitality, and where accumulated wisdom engages in dialogue with fresh perspectives at the same table. The topic lies not in bridging the so-called “generational divide,” but in activating the value inherent in each generation, allowing knowledge, experience, emotion, and skills to flow freely within a shared framework—ultimately fostering new social dynamics. Participants are challenged to explore how to inspire multi-generational motivation for “collective societal participation,” ensuring that all age groups feel respected, a sense of belonging, and personal growth through collaboration.
Sustainable Intergenerational Cooperation Design
Design for the future education is not merely about solving the problem of connection, but about constructing a new type of social relationship: a collaborative civilization bound not by age, species, or technology, but by symbiosis and co-creation. The essence of design lies not in creating objects, but in inspiring new models of understanding and collaboration between people, between humans and nature, and between humans and technology.
Topics Chosen by Finals Teams
The Global Competition on Design for Future Education (GCD4FE) is an international event jointly organized by Beijing Normal University (BNU) and UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE), supported by domestic and international organizations, universities, and renowned technology enterprises. Since its inception, the competition has attracted over 15,000 participants from more than 40 countries and regions, generating over 3,000 outstanding educational designs. It aimed to showcase how intelligent technologies can address diverse learning needs while exploring the transformative potential of technology for disadvantaged groups and underdeveloped regions. The event featured four main tracks: Higher Education, Vocational Education, K12, and Enterprise Track.
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