Intercultural Mash-up: East v.s. West v.s. Open Mic
Recognizing that our systemic awarenesses are bound to our contexts, TIES also attempts to ensure the diversity of perspectives to broaden the horizon of all participants. This year, not only will there be perspectives of academics and practitioners, in each track, there will also be invited experts from the Eastern and Western countries, and a selected Open Mic Representative selected from a pool of self-nominated speakers.
The speakers include👉
🌟OTHERwise: Wit ain’t from nowhere | 14:30-18:00 (UTC+8)🌟
🎤Kate Robinson (UK)
Kate Robinson is an international consultant in creativity and innovation in education and daughter of Sir Ken Robinson.
Robinson’s expertise lies in raising the profile of inspiring initiatives, with a particular focus on startups, and building strong partnerships with social purpose. Her passion lies in engaging youth voice, and through this work has been awarded for Outstanding Contribution to Education Empowerment.
Robinson is the Director and Co-Founder of Nevergrey, a consultancy working closely with clients across sectors to extend their reach and transform how they communicate with their audiences. As part of their work, she is Head of Strategic Operations of HundrED, a Finnish initiative spotlighting inspiring innovations in K12 education globally.
🎤Kate Hsu (Taiwan)
Kate is the founder of Design for Change, Taiwan, and the CEO of the Taiwan Youth Creative Action Association. She is a TEDx speaker, and was also awarded as the Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the Year in Taiwan. She believes that we should blur the boundary between the classroom and the world by applying what we have learned to solve real-life problems. Through the Design for Change processes, she aspires to bring the power of I CAN to educators and children in Taiwan.
🎤Po Ya Hsu (Open Mic)
I was born in 1994. I’ve been starting questioning and learning more about the world after joined the department of humanities and social sciences, NCTU. Anthropology and sociology with a focus on understanding the human condition help me improve critical thinking skill. As seeing, hearing and feeling others, people would understand differences better. There are tons of great and diverse stories told by various people who are willing to interact and engage with each other.
🌟SELFation: Agape with Self-Compassion | 19:00-22:00 (UTC+8)🌟
🎤Christopher Day (Germany)
Christopher Day is an international change management consultant, educator and integral development coach. He has worked as the Deputy Chief HR for the United Nations mission in South Sudan, knowledge management expert for the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and strategy consultant for the Afghanistan High Peace Council in Kabul.
Christopher holds a Master’s degree in Consulting and Coaching for Change. As Senior Research Associate at the London School of Economics Complexity Group, he co-edited a handbook on complexity science research methods in 2018.
Christopher is a certified peace and conflict consultant and has just completed his professional integral development coaching program. He holds a Taiwan Gold Card and supports organizations and individuals in complex transformation processes. He is also a visiting lecturer in Taiwan and a member of Crossroads Taiwan.
🎤Kageki Asakura (Japan)
Asakura Kageki is a sociologist, educator, and a leading figure in the research of democratic education, School Non-Attendance (formerly known as "school phobia" or "school refusals"), and Hikikomori. His book "Ethnography of School Non-Attendance" was referred to by the Japanese academia as "the first comprehensive research on the country's democratic education and non-enrollment." In 1999, he founded Tekisen Democratic University (TDU, formerly called Shure University) with graduates of democratic schools and other young adults, which is considered one of the world's first universities that run upon democratic education values and practices. Since then, he has been one of the main supporters of democratic universities' initiation in several countries, such as Spain and Poland. In 2020, TDU partnered with the Japan Workers' Co-operative Union to found the Japan Democratic Education and Working Institute, in which Kageki serves as its director.
In addition to being one of the most active leaders of the International Democratic Education Conference and Community (IDEC) for more than 20 years, he has also been frequently invited as a speaker and advisor at occasions such as the World Forum for Democracy, public hearings on alternative education in Korea, and the Russian Innovative Education Forum. He is also a leading scholar in promoting and practicing Selfology, a study about the self and by the self.
🎤Alice Lee (Open Mic)
An explorer who likes to explore herself and the world through a different kind of practice. She likes the analogy of living like water as water is constantly moving forward. She wonders what notes she can leave to the planet if she keeps practicing new ways she learnt. Constantly practicing yoga and English and her work experience in the publishing industry influences the way she sees herself, life and the world. She is exploring a creative, kind and sustainable path to look after herself, the society and the planet.
Out of her interest in people and different culture, she had been a voluntary respite service worker in Volunteer Matters in England, a volunteer with young refugees in Centre for Multicultural Youth in Melbourne, a voluntary writer in AM-UNITY Magazine, Amnesty Australia. She currently works as a coordinator in the International Medical Service of the hospital.
🌟 ECOlogic: Nurturing Nature and Nature Nurtured | 15:00-18:00 (UTC+8) 🌟
🎤Chiung-Fen Yen (Taiwan)
Dr. Yen is a Lifetime Distinguished Professor at International College, Providence University. In the past 20 years, she has dedicated to promoting environmental education for sustainability all over Taiwan, with the support from her research team and passionate volunteers. Her cross-disciplinary research has consistently been recognized by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST). Such support allowed her to stretch out and collaborate with primary and secondary school teachers. Together they created curriculums based on Place-based Education and Education for Sustainable Development. At the heart of every curriculum lies the belief of holistic education--an education that seeks to engage the body, mind, and spirit of every learner. It is important to not only train students to think systematically, but most importantly to feel, to care, and to take action. Through taking courses such as “Social, Affective, and Sustainable Learning”, “Outdoor education”, and “Experiential Learning and Facilitating in Nature”, students are able to think holistically and understand the patterns and connectedness within a system. By incorporating theme-based and project-based learning methods, students learn to solve real world problems as a team, with an aim to turn solutions into everyday actions.
Currently, Dr. Yen is active in promoting the STS and Science Communication from MOST. She continues to voice her belief through publishing her work in international journals. Dr. Yen also believes in learning wisdom from the aboriginals. Since Nature is humans’ oldest teacher, Dr. Yen yearns to bring the ancient wisdom of mother earth back into the classroom, making it an important part of today’s learning. She hopes to plant a sustainable seed in every person’s heart.
🎤Daniel Christian Wahl (Spain)
Daniel is an international consultant and educator specialising in biologically-inspired whole systems design and transformative innovation. He is a biologist (University of Edinburgh and University of California), holds an MSc in Holistic Science (Schumacher College) and a PhD in Design (CSND, University of Dundee, 2006).
Daniel has worked with local and national governments on foresight and futures, facilitated seminars on sustainable development for the UNITAR affiliated training centre CIFAL Scotland, consulted companies like Camper, Ecover and Lush on sustainable innovation, and has co-authored and taught sustainability training courses for Gaia Education, LEAD International and various universities and design schools.
He is a member of the International Futures Forum, a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA), co-founder of Biomimicry Iberia, and brought Bioneers to Europe in 2010. Daniel currently works for Gaia Education and the SMART UIB project of the Universidad de las Islas Balears. Triarchy Press published his first book, Designing Regenerative Cultures, in 2016.
🎤Petra Wu (Open Mic)
Religious Sister of the congregation “the Daughter of Jesus” (Hijas De Jesús). PhD candidate of the School of Forest Resource and Conservation, National Taiwan University. Life education teacher in Middle school. Believe that people of different religions, cultures, and political stances share the same concern for people and nature. Believe that listening and dialogue can transform and enrich everyone's life.
🌟 SOCIALpath: Tides and Ties of the Collectives | 19:00-22:30 (UTC+8) 🌟
🎤Ada Wong (Hong Kong)
Ada Wong has led a varied career as a solicitor, educator, social innovator, and civil society figure. She is a staunch advocate of social innovation, creative education, and cultural development.
Ada founded the Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture (HKICC), the HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity, the Make A Difference (MaD) initiative (
www.mad.asia), and The Good Lab (
www.goodlab.hk). Since 2016, Ada, in her capacity as a Director of Ednovators, led and designed the Innopower Teacher Fellowship, an annual programme to build the innovation capacity of teachers in Hong Kong.
Since 2016 Ada has been invited by the Mayor of Seoul, Mr Park Won-soon, to join as a member of his “Advisory Group for Seoul Innovation" together with social innovation leaders from around the world.
Ada was an elected member of the Urban Council and Wan Chai District Council between 1995 and 2008 with the last four years as Chairperson of the Wan Chai District Council. She received her BA (Hons) from Pomona College, California USA, and M Ed from the University of Hong Kong. She is an Honorary Fellow of Hong Kong Baptist University, Lingnan University, and The Education University of Hong Kong respectively.
🎤Geoff Mulgan (UK)
Sir Geoff Mulgan CBE is Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social Innovation at University College London (UCL). Prior to that he was Chief Executive of Nesta, the UK's innovation foundation (an endowment which grew in worth to around £450m) between 2011 and the end of 2019. Between 1997 and 2004 Geoff had roles in the UK government including director of the Government's Strategy Unit and the Performance and Innovation Unit, and head of policy in the Prime Minister's office. From 2004 to 2011 he was the first Chief Executive of The Young Foundation. He was the first director of the think-tank Demos; and has been a reporter on BBC TV and radio.
Geoff has founded or co-founded many organisations including: Demos, the Young Foundation, the Social Innovation Exchange (SIX), Uprising, Studio Schools Trust, Action for Happiness, the Alliance for Useful Evidence, States of Change, The Australian Centre for Social Innovation, Maslaha and Nesta Italia.
Geoff's books include ‘The Art of Public Strategy’ (Oxford University Press), ‘Good and Bad Power’ (Penguin), ‘The Locust and the Bee’ (Princeton University Press) and ‘Big Mind: how collective intelligence can change our world’ (Princeton University Press). His latest book – 'Social innovation: how societies find the power to change' – was published in late 2019 by Policy Press. His books have been translated into many languages including - Chinese, Arabic, Korean, Russian, Malay, Italian, Punjabi, Turkish, German, French, Romanian and Greek.
🎤EGRC Group 7B of Chungli Junior High School (Open Mic)
We are from the EGRC Group 7B of Chungli Junior High School. We are Energetic Explorers. We pay attention to the public agenda, so in Independent Study class, we decided to join Design For Change and to explore the cultural conflicts of the new immigrants in Taiwan. We collected some data, interviewed the local new immigrants and migrant workers, and understood more about how they feel about Taiwan. We promoted the culture of Southeast Asia on campus to let people know more about the new immigrants around us!
