From May 14 to 17, 2025, a delegation from Moscow City University participated in the World Digital Education Conference (WDEC), held in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. The event was organized by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, Central China Normal University (an MCU partner), and the World Digital Education Alliance (WDEA), which MCU joined in January 2023.
The WDEC is one of the largest international events indigital education, gathering over 1,000 representatives of leading universities, international organisations, government agencies and companies from more than 30 countries. The programme of the event included plenary sessions, thematic panels, a showcase of advancements in digital education, and meetings of the WDEA executive board.
At the conference’s opening ceremony, keynote speeches were delivered by Huai Jinpeng, Minister of Education of the P.R.C., Wang Zhonglin, Secretary of the CPC Hubei Provincial Committee, Xia Lixin, Secretary of the Party Committee, and Li Hongfei, Vice President, from Central China Normal University. They emphasized the strategic role of international cooperation in advancing the digital transformation of education and integrating AI into the learning process.
Additional remarks were given by Alexander Tsuladze, Minister of Education, Science and Youth of Georgia, Thomas J. Sargent, Nobel Laureate in Economics and Professor at New York University, John Edward Hopcroft, Turing Award Laureate and Professor Emeritus at Cornell University, along with other representatives from foreign government and educational institutions.
Igor Remorenko, Rector of Moscow City University, participated in the session “Transformation of Teachers’ Roles and Enhancement of Abilities in the Intelligent Era” with a report titled “AI in the Analysis of Model Training Sessions”. He was the sole representative from Russia invited by the Ministry of Education of the P.R.C. and the WDEC organising committee to speak as a keynote speaker. In his speech, he outlined MCU’s approach to teacher education through AI technologies and introduced the Digital Mirror system, which evaluates student activities and provides feedback across various indicators.
The MCU was also represented at the conference by Roman Kupriyanov, Head of the Department of Information Technologies and Services, Vadim Grinshkun, Professor of the Department of Education Informatisation, Daria Milyaeva, Head of the International Relations Department, and Oksana Malykh, Head of Chinese Language Department.
The conference also featured research presentations by prominent international experts in digital education and AI. Among them were Nigel Harkness, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Newcastle University, who presented on “Empowering University Educators for the Future in the Age of AI”, and David Hang Wei Loong, Professor at the the National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore, with the report on “Beyond AI: Teachers in Support of Intelligence Augmentation in the Age of Digital Education.”
As part of the event, the Moscow City University delegation participated in the meetings of the General Assembly and the Executive Council of the WDEA, where the future directions of the Alliance’s work, the strategy for establishing the Standardisation Committee, the approval of the Charter and the plan of joint initiatives for 2025-2026 were discussed.
At the same time, representatives of the Moscow City University visited the National Engineering Research Center of Educational Big Data at the Central China Normal University. The delegation explored the center’s key focus areas and its innovative use of AI to analyze educational data. Particular attention was given to technologies for processing information to support educational decision-making, forecast learning paths, and assess student progress.
In parallel with the participation in the WDEC, Roman Kupriyanov delivered a presentation at the 3rd AIREA Forum “AI & Education,” hosted by the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK), an MCU partner. His report “Beyond Traditional Assessments: How AI Transforms Teachers’ Pre-Service Training and Assessment at Moscow City University” aroused great interest from an international audience.
The forum also included participants from MCU partner institutions such as Lingnan University and Central China Normal University, as well as heads and researchers from foreign educational and scientific centers: Humboldt University of Berlin (Germany), Muroran Institute of Technology (Japan), Charles Darwin University (Australia), etc.
MCU’s participation in the WDEC conference and related events confirmed the university’s growing role as one of the leaders in the digital transformation of teacher education and further solidified its presence on the international academic stage. Sharing expertise with leading international institutions and expanding professional networks have paved the way for new opportunities in collaborative projects, academic mobility, and research partnerships.
Photo: WDEC, MCU