The theme of the 24th ICDE World Conference is “Expanding Horizons – New Approaches to Open and Distance Learning”. This conference provides a forum for sharing of ideas on redefining the roles and strategies of ODL in promoting cross-nation human capacity building. The conference discusses issues and challenges for ODL under the following sub-themes:

* ODL and human capacity building
* ODL in a changing world
* Quality and ODL – the way forward
* Management and strategic development of ODL
* Open Educational Resources (OER) in a global world
* International development and distance learning

The 24th ICDE World Conference features 8 keynote speeches, 297 paper presentations in 9 parallel sessions, and about 150 posters.
Other Programs

The conference includes Pre/Post-conference workshops with separate registration and payment. Possible themes of the workshops include “Best Practices in ICT-based ODL Management” and “Revisiting Open Educational Resources (OER)”.

The conference will be attended by distinguished speakers and world class educational experts in the field of open and distance learning (ODL).

Keynote Speakers

1. Minister/Vice Minister of National Education of the Republic of Indonesia *
2. Duk Hoon Kwak – President and CEO of Educational Broadcast Service (EBS), Korea
3. Lawrence Lessig – Lawyer, Activist and Founder of Creative Commons *
4. Susan D’Antoni - Executive Director, International OER Initiative, Athabasca University, Canada*
5. Gráinne Conole – Professor of e-learning, The Open University, United Kingdom

Discussion Panelists

1. Julie Feilberg – Chair of Executive Board of Norway Opening Universities, Norway*
2. Onno W. Purbo – IT Expert and Activist, Indonesia
3. Naveed M. Malik – Rector of Virtual University of Pakistan *
4. Barney Pityana – Former Principal and Vice Chancellor of UNISA, South Africa
5. Claudio Rama – Head, Observatorio of Virtual Education for the Latin America Region
6. Liu Dailin – Professor at Open University of China

*) to be confirmed