This seminar brings together international perspectives on the urgent need to develop AI competency among students and educators in higher education worldwide. Speakers will share the design principles behind the UNESCO AI Competency Frameworks, empirical findings from a multilingual global survey based on the Frameworks, to lived experiences and case studies from across different regional contexts.
Together, the speakers will share insights on the digital divide and the linguistic and cultural barriers shaping AI competency development in Global South contexts, where initiatives often replicate Anglo-centric assumptions. The seminar highlights the risks of failing to engage key stakeholders, particularly marginalised learners such as students with disabilities, those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and individuals in minority language contexts, whose perspectives remain underrepresented in mainstream AI debates. It also considers the potential downsides of developing AI competency without adequate support, including the risk of eroding the digital wellbeing of both students and educators.
The seminar closes by inviting students and colleagues to reflect on barriers and enablers from their own lived experiences, and to contribute to co-developing solutions that are genuinely inclusive.
Prof Fengchun Miao is a Professor in AI in Education at Beijing Normal University. He is currently serving as the Chief of Education of UNESCO International Institute for STEM Education and the Lead on AI and Future of Learning of UNESCO HQs. He has been playing a defining role in shaping global policy agenda on technologies and AI in education for 20 years. He authored more than forty most important frameworks or reports of UNESCO in these fields including AI Competency Framework for Teachers, AI competency Framework for Students, Guidance for Generative AI in Education and Research, and “AI and Education: Guidance for Policy-makers”. Five titles of his publications on AI in education have been ranked top 10 most consulted publications in UNESCO for more than three years with around 10 ranked top 50. His AI competency frameworks have influenced over 130 countries and sparked 50 countries’ formation of national guidelines or frameworks. His publications on AI and education reached over 5000 citations during the last five years. He launched and led UNESCO Mobile Learning Week for 12 years and organized four international conferences on AI education, convening policy dialogue and knowledge sharing among more than 20 000 policy-makers, researchers, and practitioners from over 150 countries.
Dr Skye Zhao Dr. Xin Zhao (Skye) is an Assistant Professor in GenAI for Education and AI ITL Fellow at the University of Manchester. She is also Senior Fellow at the Microsoft AI Economy Institute. Dr. Zhao’s work spans academic research and consultancy across higher education, the private education sector, and government organizations. Her primary research focuses on the use of digital technologies in education, with a particular emphasis on GenAI. She investigates institutional responses to GenAI and explores the perspectives of key stakeholders, especially marginalized learners, with a strong commitment to equity diversity and inclusion.
Ms Melti Oktavianda is a PhD researcher at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, and an Indonesian civil servant lecturer. Her doctoral research focuses on generative AI in academic writing, particularly how Indonesian lecturers use it in their scholarly writing practices, and how AI reshapes academic writing and institutional expectations in contexts where English, digital access, and academic policy intersect. Her current work examines AI competency among Indonesian undergraduates by applying the UNESCO AI Competency Framework to survey data from Indonesia, with attention to students’ competency priorities, institutional support, and the challenges of developing AI competency in Indonesian higher education.
Ms Gazi Fabiha Noshin is an Education consultant at UNESCO Dhaka. Her core expertise is in education in emergencies, instructional technology, and teachers’ capacity development. She has years of experience working in the Rohingya refugee context in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh where she worked in teachers’ professional development, and integrating Ed-Tech in refugee education.
