Session to feature top academicians from Harvard University, Dartmouth College, University of Michigan, Cornell University and Carnegie Mellon University

3 December, 2025, Bengaluru: The Centre for Software and Information Technology Management (CSITM) will host a panel discussion titled, ‘Educating for the Unknown: Can AI Prepare Us for Jobs Yet Unimagined?’, on 18th December 2025, from 7.30 pm.

To register, those interested need to click this link. Those who register, will be sent a Zoom link for the webinar.

The session will feature Dr. Christopher Dede, Senior Research Fellow, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Associate Director for Research, National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education, Harvard University; Dr. David Kotz, Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellow, Imperial College London, Pat and John Rosenwald Professor of Computer Science, Dartmouth College; Dr. Kentaro Toyama, W. K. Kellogg Professor of Community Information and Professor of Information, University of Michigan, Fellow, Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values, MIT, and Dr. René F. Kizilcec, Associate Professor of Information Science, Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, Director, Future of Learning Lab, Cornell University. The session will be moderated by Dr. Nupoor Ranade, Assistant Professor, Rhetoric and Technical Communication, Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University.

CSTIM will conduct the seminar as part of its initiative to promote dissemination and application of knowledge for the benefit of academics and professionals from all walks of industry. The panel discussion will be followed by a Q&A session.

Abstract

New technologies are remaking the world at breakneck speed, and yet big questions stand before us. Some of these include, how do we prepare students for jobs that do not exist yet? Can artificial intelligence help us learn, teach and make better decisions in ways that genuinely support human lives? Or is technology evolving so quickly that those of us in education may struggle to keep up, risking an inability to meet the emerging needs of future learners? With emerging changes in classrooms, workplaces and societies, other questions arise, such as, can the technologies currently available to educators, including both traditional digital tools and the newer generation of AI systems, truly guide us into an uncertain future, and what does it mean to educate the unknown?

Over the last decade, landmark research from the learning sciences, artificial intelligence and digital society have demonstrated the potential of technology to personalize learning, predict student progress, and create fully immersive environments that adapt to each learner. Research within smart learning systems, responsible AI, educational data science and digital inclusion have enabled power and underscored the limits of AI in real settings. At the same time, scholars working on community development, social change, online learning, privacy and human-machine interaction warn us that technology cannot fix deep structural challenges alone. Together, these insights help us understand where AI can meaningfully support teaching and where strong human judgment and ethics remain essential.

The world's leading scholars and thought leaders will come together in this session to consider these urgent questions – from how generative AI is reshaping teaching and learning, whether learning analytics can predict success with reliability, what the ethical dilemmas are when AI is used to personalize education on a scale – to how new technologies can support student well-being. The session also seeks to examine whether AI-powered tools can prepare learners for careers that do not exist yet, and what educators, institutions and societies must do today to shape a future where technology helps every learner thrive.

Speaker Profiles

Dr. Chris Dede is a Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and formerly the Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies. His scholarship spans emerging technologies, policy and leadership in education. He has served as Chair of the Teaching and Learning Department and is a recipient of multiple honors, including Fellowships from the American Educational Research Association, the Online Learning Consortium, and the Immersive Learning Research Network.

He co-founded the Silver Lining for Learning initiative and serves as an Advisor to the Alliance for the Future of Digital Learning. He is also Co-principal Investigator and Associate Director for Research at the NSF-funded National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education. His recent co-edited books cover online professional development in STEM, immersive learning technologies, learning engineering and lifelong learning for the digital economy.

Dr. David Kotz is the Pat and John Rosenwald Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Dartmouth College and, for academic year 2025-26, a Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellow at Imperial College London and a Visiting Professor at University College London. As a tenured member of the Dartmouth faculty, he served more than two decades in administrative roles as Provost, Associate Dean and Center Director.

His current research involves security and privacy in smart homes and wireless networks. He has published over 270 refereed papers, received 12 patents, obtained $89m in grant funding, delivered over 200 invited lectures and mentored over 100 research students and postdocs. He is an AAAS Fellow, an ACM Fellow, an IEEE Fellow and an elected member of Phi Beta Kappa. He was a Visiting Professor at ETH Zürich (2019-20) and a Fulbright Fellow to India (2008-09). He received his AB in Computer Science and Physics from Dartmouth in 1986, and his PhD in Computer Science from Duke University in 1991.

Dr. Kentaro Toyama is W. K. Kellogg Professor of Community Information at the University of Michigan School of Information and a fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT. He conducts interdisciplinary research to understand how digital technology can and cannot support community development and social change.

In previous roles, Dr. Toyama was Co-founder and Assistant Managing Director of Microsoft Research India; a research scientist in computer vision and artificial intelligence at MSR Redmond, and a calculus lecturer at Ashesi University in Ghana. He is the author of ‘Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology’.

Dr. Rene Kizilcec is an Associate Professor in the Bowers College of Computing and Information Science at Cornell University, where he directs the Cornell Future of Learning Lab and the National Tutoring Observatory. Dr. Kizilcec studies behavioral, psychological and computational aspects of technology in education to inform practices and policies that promote learning, equity, and academic and career success.  His work has appeared in Science and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, won multiple awards, and is funded by the NSF, Schmidt Futures Foundation and Jacobs Foundation. He holds a PhD in Communication and M Sc in Statistics from Stanford University.

Dr. Nupoor Ranade is an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Technical Communication at Carnegie Mellon University. Through her teaching, she tries to build a bridge between academia and industry and help students develop professional networks, while they also contribute to the community that they are part of. 

She has authored multiple papers published in journals including Technical Communication, AI & Society, Communication Design Quarterly, and IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication. Her research interests include technical communication practice and pedagogy, professional writing and editing, inclusive design, and ethics of AI.