Keynote speakers

Manuela Milani

University of Brescia, Italy

Manuela Milani is currently advising on the creation of the Teaching and Learning Centre at the University of Brescia (Italy) and supporting innovation and the enhancement of teaching practices at Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic). She previously worked as an Academic Developer at the University of Milan. For over 20 years, she has been involved in faculty development in higher education, contributing to several European projects aimed at sharing tools and methods for professional growth. In recent years, she has designed and led numerous training initiatives for university teachers, with a particular focus on fostering reflective skills. She has published several articles on the use of cultural differences in teaching, on teaching observation, and on faculty development design.

Keynote speech: Designing for Whom? Motivational Diversity, Needs Analysis, and Training the Trainers First

Digital fluency initiatives are often designed for an imagined average learner. Yet digital fluency is not a fixed target — its meaning and relevance shift considerably depending on who the learner is and what their context demands. The populations targeted — teachers, practitioners, NGO workers, women re-entering education or the workforce, and displaced individuals — are motivationally heterogeneous, yet this diversity is rarely captured in needs analysis processes, which tend to focus on skills gaps while systematically underweighting motivational profiles.

This matters because motivation is not a soft variable — it is a design variable that shapes both the entry point and the expected outcome. When motivation is intercepted early, it becomes possible to identify which components of digital fluency are truly relevant for a given learner — and to build from there. Once those components are acquired, they can trigger a virtuous cycle of further learning. Ignored, motivation leaves the process sterile, and the full architecture of digital fluency remains out of reach.

The root cause lies one step further upstream. Trainers and instructional designers are themselves rarely prepared to conduct motivationally-informed needs analysis. They inherit frameworks that treat motivation as a given, rather than as the starting point of any meaningful design process.

This session proposes a reorientation: needs analysis frameworks that explicitly incorporate motivational mapping, and trainer preparation programs that equip educators to use them. Building genuinely inclusive digital fluency for youth, women, and displaced communities alike requires, first and foremost, training the trainers to ask better questions.

Cristina Obae

NEdHo (New Education Horizons)

Dr. Cristina Obae is AI and Virtual Worlds advisor at NEdHo (New Education Horizons), involved in new technologies-based learning environments research at the University of Lapland. With more than 20 years’ experience in education, she is an active Digital Education Ambassador, involved in multiple innovative EU projects, has lead the Hybrid Learning Squad and has been invited as expert in all of the European Digital Education Hub Squads on AI, Future classrooms, Sustainability, Immersive Learning and Futuring.

Keynote speech blurb

Keynote speech: From Classrooms to Learning Environments: Designing Multimodal Ecosystems for Future-Ready Education
What if the biggest barrier to future-ready education is not the lack of technology but the way we still think and see the classroom?
Education systems continue to be built around a model that no longer reflects reality. Learning today happens everywhere: in physical spaces, online platforms, and increasingly in immersive, AI-supported environments. Yet we still design education for just one room. The result is a growing mismatch between how people learn, the skills they need, and how education is structured.
These new learning environments we constantly see emerging are powerful, but also extremely complex. They are shaped by technology, pedagogy, institutional rules, cultural expectations, and the diverse realities of learners. AI is rapidly becoming part of this ecosystem, enabling personalised learning, real-time feedback, and new forms of interaction. But technology alone does not transform education. Design does.
And design is not neutral. It determines who can access learning, how students engage, and what skills they develop. Well-designed learning environments can foster critical thinking, collaboration, digital fluency, and adaptability, key competencies for navigating modern uncertainty. They can also open opportunities, especially for youth, women, and displaced communities. Poorly designed ones, however, risk reinforcing inequalities and limiting skill development. The role of the teacher is thus shifting from delivering content to designing and orchestrating learning ecosystems, working with AI tools and multidisciplinary teams. This requires new competencies: communication, collaboration, design thinking, and the ability to manage risk and adapt within complex environments.
Grounded in the speaker’s state-of-the-art research on immersive and hybrid learning environments, and in the collective work of the European Digital Education Hub – Squad on the Future Classroom (a European Commission initiative), this keynote offers a clear lens to understand education’s future transformation.
This session invites a shift in perspective: not how to improve classrooms, but how to design learning environments that build the right skills for the future.
Because the future of education is not just about where learning happens. It is about what learners are able to do, and who they are able to become, within the environments we design.

Zoltán Loboda

Educational consultant, Educational Development Ltd., Hungary

He is a senior expert and consultatnt in education policy, digital transformation and strategic planning, with more than two decades of experience in national and European contexts. He currently works as a professional lead and consultant for large-scale digital competence development projects in Hungary, supporting strategic design and implementation aligned with the European DigComp framework.

As a former head of the Digital Competence Division at the Digital Success Nonprofit Ltd., he took aprt in the implementation of Hungary’s digital education strategies. His policy work included developing digital maturity assessment tools, supporting institutional digitalisation, and contributing to the creation of a national-level framework and quality assurance systems for digital competence development.

He has played a expert role in various Erasmus+ and other international projects, From 2012 to 2017, he led the International Department of the Hungarian Educational Authority, coordinating national qualifications framework and lifelong learning strategies. Earlier, he held senior positions at the Ministry of Education, directing EU affairs and representing Hungary in education-related international organisations. He was a member of the OECD Education Policy Committee and in the EU Education Committee for several years. As Chair of the ASEM Lifelong Learning Hub Advisory Board, he contributed to interregional policy dialogue on lifelong learning. He chaired the EU Education Committee during Hungary’s 2011 presidency.

Beyond policy development, he has been actively engaged in professional training, delivering EU policy and strategic planning courses for public officials, educators, and higher education stakeholders.

He holds a degree in history and literature, as well as postgraduate studies in sociology. In 2015, he received the Ágoston Trefort Award in recognition of his contributions to higher education development.

Keynote speech: Can AI Buy Equity? Unlocking the promise of reframing inclusion through personalised learning and lifelong learning pathways in a new learning ecosystem.

The narrative of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education and learning holds the potential to reshape the promises of equity by enhancing personalisation, efficiency, and effectiveness of learning process. The keynote explores what is needed to unlock this promise, particularly for youth, women, and other structurally disadvantaged groups.

The presentation begins with a critical review of current AI narratives in education, which often present AI as a solution for optimizing learning. However, such discourses tend to overlook the complexity of inclusion. It is not merely about access or digital infrastructure, but about learners‘ dispositions, competences, empowerment, learning recognition and participation fully in digital learning ecosystems. These dimensions interact with labour market opportunities to produce positive inclusive impact.

Reframing inclusion involves a shift towards systemic change that recognises the interdependence of tools, actors and structures. Using key EU policy frameworks, guidelines, and strategic opportunity windows, the keynote offers an evidence-based, policy-informed perspective on how AI can support inclusive learning. It presents selected tools, frameworks, and guidance that support more relevant, responsive, and relational learning.

Special attention is given to how micro-credentials, digital recognition, and blockchain technologies can support lifelong learning pathways. These systems enable flexible and modular learning journeys across different contexts, provided they are supported by trust frameworks and quality standards.

The keynote concludes by outlining the contours of a new learning ecosystem, shaped by new actors (edtech providers, AI developers, credentialing bodies), evolving roles traditional players, and networks of interdependence. In such an ecosystem, equity is not a by-product of innovation but its deliberate and measurable goal. AI alone cannot ‘buy’ equity — but when used thoughtfully, it can help build inclusive, flexible, and fair learning systems that meet the needs of diverse learners.