What leadership in the Education industry means to me

In the last years, as Microsoft Regional Director, I have been involved in a few collaborations with schools and Universities, including:

• AI for Good School Challenge: Australian students in Grades 7–12 learn the basic concepts of Artificial Intelligence and work in teams on a design-thinking challenge to dream up a creative way that AI could be used to make a difference in the world. The challenge is about understanding AI and innovating concepts for how this technology could be used.
• A series of workshops about the Azure cloud with the UNSW (University of New South Wales, Australia) Cloud Society. Starting October 5th, 2020, I’ll be delivering four workshops about conversational AI, Computer Vision and Voice cognitive services, and even crypto micro-payments. Students of the University will team up to compete in building the best bot ever!

• “Virtual” lecturer for a UNSW course on digital marketing, showing the use of AI technology applied to marketing initiatives. I have shared a couple of mini-lessons on my YouTube channel:
• Sentiment analysis: https://youtu.be/WvJrvL4n2G4
• Targeted marketing with Machine Learning: https://youtu.be/Aow8YWczhnM
• Since August 2020, I’m a technology advisor to the Department of Industry, Australia, on the definition of the National Blockchain Roadmap, with particular focus on Digital Identity and Credentials in the Education industry.

Before moving to Australia, I lived in Switzerland and I was a technical advisor to the ETH (University of Technology in Zurich) hub, an incubator of start-ups and academic projects, to assist on the choice of the right technology.

I have a dream…

I would like to get involved at more strategic level with Microsoft on building a stronger presence in the community and Universities (and possibly, why not, primary and secondary schools as well), with more initiatives meant to create awareness in Azure and related technologies, and help governments and businesses fill their tech gap. Especially in this time of isolation, businesses will suffer if they cannot source the rights talents in the market.

I would like to see Microsoft helping public and private education institutes going on a digital transformation that enables more virtual campuses, for example, to offer the opportunity to Universities to extend their services also online and attract international students.

I would like to see more businesses born out of Uni, start-ups that have a great idea but know little of how to do it, and we are there, as trusted advisors, to enable them to succeed.

Minecraft for Education

Minecraft Education Edition is a game-based learning platform that promotes creativity, collaboration and problem-solving in an immersive digital environment. Educators around the world can use Minecraft Education Edition to engage students across subjects and bring abstract concepts to life.