Prof. Asha Kanwar became President and Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) on 1 June 2012. She has served COL for nine years, first as an Education Specialist – Higher Education and Policy and then as its Vice President for six years. Before joining COL, Prof. Kanwar was a consultant in open and distance learning at UNESCO’s Regional Office for Education in Africa (BREDA) in Dakar, Senegal and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Indira Gandhi National Open University. She has over 30 years of experience in teaching, research and administration.

Ph.D., Stanford University, Administration and Policy Analysis, 1991 Research Interests: Diversity and educational reform; variable consequences of specific educational policies and practices for students traditionally marginalized by mainstream educational settings; collaborative approaches to school leadership and educational decision-making. Professor Merchant conducts ongoing consultation on educational leadership and training world-wide, including a number of Chinese universities such as Eastern China Normal University in Shanghai and Peking University in Beijing. Her keynote speech would focus on educational leadership core qualities, characteristics and competencies across various cultural contexts and their applications to open and distance education.

Diana Laurillard is Professor of Learning with Digital Technologies, leading externally-funded research projects on developing a learning design support environment for teachers, and on developing software interventions for learners with low numeracy and dyscalculia. She was previously Head of the e-Learning Strategy Unit at the Department for Education and Skills, and served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for learning technologies and teaching at The Open University. Her book Rethinking university teaching: A conversational framework for the effective use of learning technologies is one of the most widely cited in the field.

Prof Li Chen is a PhD supervisor. She is vice president of Beijing Normal University and the executive director of Beijing Institute for The Learning City at Beijing Normal University. She is the president of Society of International Chinese in Educational Technology (SICET) . She is the leader of master program and PhD program of Distance Education in Beijing Normal University. She is in charge of the course The Foundation of Distance Education for undergraduate student in Educational Technology. Her research is mainly focusing on Interaction principle in Distance learning, and policy research in Lifelong learning and Distance Learning. She is deep engaged in policy consulting in Distance Education and lifelong learning. She has authored and published more than 10 books and 100 papers.