Emeritus Professor at the University of Hong Kong He was Chair Professor of Education, Dean of Education, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Senior Advisor to the Vice-Chancellor of the University. At the administrative level, he worked in human resources and campus IT, but his major contribution was in fund raising and networking. He started the Development Office at HKU, among the first in Asia. He is now Director of Education Policy Unit at the Faculty of Education. He taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education as Visiting Professor 1996-2007. In 1987, he pursued doctoral study at the London Institute of Education, in the realm of education policy and planning. His current attention is on the fundamental changes in society and their challenges to education, and focuses on learning as the core business of education. Recently, he is also involved in discussions about education reforms in the US, and is on the International Advisory Board of the National Council for Education and the Economy. Currently, he is member of the National Advisory Committee on Curriculum Reform in China. Locally he was member of the Education Commission and was instrumental in the comprehensive reform which started 1999. He is among the initiators of “Education 2.1”, an advocacy for reforms in education in Hong Kong. He publishes extensively, and has delivered over 200 keynotes in international meetings. He writes columns in Hong Kong Economic Journal Daily, Shanghai Educationand Escuela (Spain).

World Bank Education Specialist based in Beijing where he supports the Bank’s ongoing lending activities He contributes to client dialogue, and helps extend the Bank’s reach in China. Before working in China, Ning was also involved in the design and implementation of broader human development activities for the Bank’s Africa region: youth employment programs, social safety nets, and labor market analyses. Ning has both public and private sector experiences. Prior to joining the Bank, he worked as a researcher at the IMF. A Chinese national, Ning holds a Master of Public Administration in International Development from Harvard University.

Director of the Interdisciplinary Committee, Shanghai Teachers’ Research Association Former principle of Shanghai East Middle School. Specially-graded teachers in Shanghai. Host of prominent principle studio in Yangpu District, Shanghai. The first prominent principle of “the prominent principal and teachers” project of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission. Expert of Shanghai experimental demonstration high school planning. Educational Inspector of Shanghai Municipal People's Government.

Lead Education Specialist in the World Bank Dr. Liang joined the World Bank formally as a Young Professional in 1998 after graduating from Harvard University with a Doctor of Education Degree. Since then, she has led policy dialogue, research, and the World Bank’s education programs in Africa, Latin America, and East Asia countries. Ms. Liang has solid education policy research, program development, and implementation expertise in early childhood education, technical and vocational and higher education, education finance, and teacher development. She is widely published. Her most recent analytical work include Challenges and Opportunities in Early Childhood Education in Yunnan and Developing Skills for Economic Transformation and Social Harmony in China. She is also the lead author of the well-received World Bank’s report of How Shanghai Does It: Insights and Lessons from the Highest-Ranking Education System in the World. Ms. Liang is currently the World Bank’s Africa Regional Team Leader for the East and Southern Africa Higher Education Centers of Excellence Project, Skills for Africa Transformation and Regional Integration, and the Partnership for Applied Science, Engineering, and Technology (PASET). Prior to that, she was the team leader for World Bank’s education programs in China, Malaysia, Korea. Ms. Liang is passionate and committed to education development and to facilitating education partnership between East Asia, Africa, and other countries.

Executive Deputy Director and Professor at China Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking University His research interests include China's elite politics, economic growth, and fiscal system. His ongoing projects include one that examines how elite coalition building in Chinese legislature affects the education policy making and local implementation. He has published numerous academic articles in international and Chinese journals such as the American Political Science Review, Comparative Politics, Political Behavior, and China Quarterly.

President of Beijing Haidian Teachers Training College, Senior Teacher, Beijing special-grade teachers in Chemical Member of the Expert Committee of the Curriculum of Basic Education in the Ministry of Education, member of the National Primary and Secondary School Kindergarten Teacher Training Expert Group, member of the National Teacher Education Curriculum Resources Committee, Vice Chairman of the Academic Committee of the Chinese Education Society, member of the General High School Chemistry Curriculum Standards Group, and a member of Editorial Board of Chemistry Education. She has been engaged in chemical education, teacher education, science and technology education, innovative education and school management.

Education Expert at the World Bank office in Jakarta Javier has extensive experience as an education economist. Between 2012 and early 2017, Javier led the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IADB) education portfolio in El Salvador and Honduras, and supervised IADB’s education sector operations in Central America, Mexico and the Dominican Republic as the Focal Point for that region. He also worked extensively in Haiti. From 2007 to 2012, Javier worked at the World Bank in the education sector in East Asia and Latin America, focusing on Indonesia, the Dominican Republic and Mexico, and supporting operations and the research agenda across Latin America. Through his different assignments, Javier has been engaged in several aspects of education policy, including the provision of education services in rural areas, ICT in education, information systems and management, school finance, school to work transition, schools and violence, and, teacher policies. Prior to 2007, Javier worked as an economist at the Central Reserve Bank of Peru, the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the International Monetary Fund. Javier has taught at the undergraduate and graduate level at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP), Pacific University, University of Rochester, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, among others. He is currently assistant professor at PUCP (on leave). Javier produced publications in various fields of economics and economics of education. Among them, he co-authored: Achieving a World-Class Education in Brazil: The Pending Agenda (with Barbara Bruns and David Evans, World Bank, 2012), and Great Teachers: How to Raise Student Learning in Latin America (with Barbara Bruns, World Bank, 2014). He holds a Masters and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Rochester.

World Bank’s Lead of its Global Solutions Group on Tertiary Education Since July 2016 he also serves as the Lead Education Specialist for India, based in Delhi. In his capacity as the World Bank’s most senior official in tertiary education (also known as higher education in several countries), he serves as the institutional focal point on this topic, and provides advice and support to country-level related tertiary education projects that the Bank has in more than 60 countries. Before joining the World Bank in 2012, he served for 18 years as founding Executive Director of the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration, a network of more than 160 tertiary education institutions primarily from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, based at the University of Arizona (UA), where he also worked as Assistant Vice President. At UA, he was Affiliated Researcher at the Center for the Study of Higher Education, and Affiliate Faculty at the Center for Latin American Studies. Previously, he was an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow at the University of Massachusetts, and also, he has been Vice President for Administration and Academic Vice President at the University of the Americas in Mexico.

Executive President of Chinese Society of Educational Development Strategy. Co-chair of the Board of Directors of China Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking University Since June 2012, Professor and Director of the Institute of Higher Education and the Institute of Economics of Education at Peking University, Head of the Academic Program Evaluation Teams for Public Administration of the State Council Academic Commission of China, Team Leader for Educational Economics and Administration of China Education Research Planning Leadership Group, UNESCO Chair Professor on Higher Education in the Asia Pacific Weifang MIN received his Ph.D. in Economics of Education in 1987 from Stanford University. He was promoted to full professorship at Peking University in 1991 and became Executive Vice President of Peking University in 1996. He served as Chairman of Peking University Council from 2002 until 2011. His academic fields include economics of education, educational administration and policy analysis, higher education, and international comparative education. He has been principal investigator for more than 20 national and international education research projects, and has published more than 100 journal articles, books, conference papers.

Practice Manager for the East Asia & the Pacific region of the World Bank's education global practice He specializes in all areas of education, especially school-based management, demand-side financing and public-private partnerships. He managed education lending operations and analytical work programs in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, as well as a regional research project on the socioeconomic status of Latin America’s Indigenous Peoples, published as Indigenous Peoples, Poverty and Human Development in Latin America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). He is one of the main authors of the report, Lifelong Learning in the Global Knowledge Economy (World Bank, 2003). Mr. Patrinos has many publications in the academic and policy literature, with more than 40 journal articles. He is co-author of the books: Policy Analysis of Child Labor: A Comparative Study (St. Martin’s, 1999), Decentralization of Education: Demand-Side Financing (World Bank, 1997), and Indigenous People and Poverty in Latin America: An Empirical Analysis with George Psacharopoulos (World Bank/Ashgate, 1994). He has also worked in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America. He previously worked as an economist at the Economic Council of Canada. Mr. Patrinos received a doctorate from the University of Sussex.

Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Illinois. His areas of interest include Sociology and Economics of Education, and Analysis and Evaluation of Development Programs. Dr. Velez had a long trajectory at the World Bank in Washington D.C., Mexico City and in Beijing. Before joining the World Bank, Dr. Velez was Adjunct Director at Instituto Ser de Investigación in Bogotá, Colombia, his country of origin. Dr. Velez has also held an academic career. He has been a Visiting Professor at: Peking University, Beijing Normal University and Fudan University in China, Brown University and the University of Connecticut in USA; Kobe University in Japan; currently he is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University. Dr. Velez has written extensively on the subjects of Economics, Education, Development and Sociology (has published nine books and more than 90 articles in professional journals or as chapters in books, and research reports).

Deputy Director of Shanghai New Quality School Research Institute, Reporter of China Education Daily She has been working as an educational reporter for 25 years and served as deputy editor of Shanghai Educational Magazine. Since 2011, she has served as the deputy director of the Shanghai New Quality School Research Institute and cooperated with nearly 100 new quality schools and 17 regional promotion projects in Shanghai, which generated a large amount of research results. In 2013, she founded the Wemedia brand “Education Visibility”, tracked and recorded more than 20 of China’s most transformative schools, and conducted a number of collaborative research projects. Since 2015, she has devoted herself to research on the transformation and improvement of Chinese schools and the professional growth of Chinese primary and secondary school teachers.

Associate Professor at China Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking University He has a Ph.D. in Education Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He has been dedicated to researches in the access and quality of early childhood education for disadvantaged groups, provision of compulsory education for migrant children and the left-behind children. He has expertise in program evaluation and policy impact evaluation. He has been a Principal Investigator for various research projects sponsored by Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Education in China, The World Bank, UNICEF, China National Science Foundation and Social Science Foundation. He has published numerous academic articles in international journals including Social Science Research, Economics of Education Review, China Economics Review, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Comparative Economics, Comparative Education Review, World Bank Economic Review, Economic Development and Cultural Change as well as Chinese journals such us Peking University Education Review, China Economics of Education Review, etc.

Director and Professor of China Institute for Educational Finance Research (CIEFR), Peking University She has a Ph.D. in education from the University of California, Berkeley. Her major research interests include education finance, economics of education and education policy. She is currently the Chairwoman of the Association of Education Finance, Chinese Society of Educational Development Strategy, and Deputy Director of China Democratic League Education Committee. She is also the youngest member of China’s State Education Advisory Committee. Professor Wang has chaired a number of research projects commissioned by Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Education, and international projects cooperated with World Bank and UN agencies, etc. She has published Public Education Explanation, Comparative Studies of Public Educational Expenditure Statistics and Policy Advisory Reports Regarding China’s Education Finance. Meanwhile, she is the author of numerous articles on the financing of education and educational reform.

Senior Education Specialist in the World Bank’s Education Global Practice She leads the Education Staff Development Program (ESDP), the flagship training program within the World Bank Group which has become the core program for developing education-related technical competencies and skills for World Bank staff, development partners and policymakers. Her areas of expertise include capacity building and training, skills development, vocational and technical education, secondary education, public-private partnerships and decentralization. Her work experience spans across Africa, East and South Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Middle East and North Africa, and the Pacific for over 25 years. Wang has authored and co-authored several books and articles, including Education in a Changing World: Flexibility, Skills, and Employability, which was translated into Chinese and has been cited widely in the media in Australia, China and the United States. She holds a Ph.D. in International Education and Development from the University of Pittsburgh.

Deputy Director and Associate Professor at China Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking University He graduated from Peking University with a Ph.D. in Law and has been a visiting scholar in Stanford University. His research focuses on education finance and law, fiscal and tax law. He was PI of The Central and Local Relationship Ruled by Law—Fiscal Dimension, project commissioned by China National Social Science Foundation, and Student Loan Repayment, Risk Control and Guarantee Institutions, project commissioned by Ministry of Education, among a number of research projects of which he has chaired. He has published The Central and Local Relationship Ruled by Law—Fiscal Dimension, and his articles are published in international and Chinese journals.

Director of Curriculum Development Office, Institute of General Education, Shanghai Academy of Educational Sciences; Joint Ph.D. of the University of Wisconsin; Principle Investigator of Shanghai Educational Science major project on learning basic literacy; Member of the expert working committee of Shanghai basic education curriculum reform.

Senior Education Specialist of the World Bank Office, Beijing She is responsible for coordinating the Bank's operations and analytical work in education in China. As a senior education specialist, Liping’s professional interests lie principally in basic education, vocational education and teacher education. In addition to research activities, she ever managed the Bank’s Youth Engagement Program, involved in the implementation of the Basic Education Project, designed and implemented the Vocational Education and Training Projects, Skill Development for Migrant Workers and School Reconstruction of Earthquake Recovery Project. She also managed some technical assistance operations on teacher policy, migrant children, quality assessment for basic education, and early child development. Prior to joining the World Bank, she worked in the Ministry of Education for policy-making research and was responsible for Campus Recruitment Program in a Human Resource Company. Liping holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Beijing Normal University and an EMBA from Nanyang Technology University of Singapore.

Co-founder & CEO, Onion Math Linfeng Yang is the co-founder and CEO of Onion Math, one of the largest online self-learning platforms for K-12 students in China. Before founding Onion Math, Linfeng worked for the Boston Consulting Group, and co-founded Sunshine Library Rural Digital Education Initiative focusing on leveraging information technology to bring quality education to rural schools. Linfeng holds a Bachelor’s degree on computer science from Harvard University.

Associate Professor at Graduate School of Education, Peking University She is a Research Associate at China Institute for Education Finance Research. Her research interests include economics of education, education finance, vocational education and student financial aid. At present, she involves in projects related to comparative analysis of national skill formation system, and skill shortage management. She receives research grants from National Science Foundation, National Social Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Ministry of Education. She publishes widely in peer reviewed international and domestic journals.

Professor at Institute of Vocational and Adult Education, Beijing Normal University He is also a member of the China Vocational and Technical Education Association, a member of the Academic Committee, a deputy director of the Teaching Work Committee, a director of the Teaching Process Research Association; a member of the Expert Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security; a director of the International Modern Apprenticeship Research Network; and a director of the Asian Vocational Education Research Association. Editorial Board of Journals such as Journal of Asian Vocational Education and Training. His research interests include vocational teaching theory, vocational education curriculum development and teaching design, vocational and vocational qualification research, occupational science, teaching evaluation and ability assessment, international vocational education research, and specialized development of vocational education teachers. He has presided over a number of major projects and projects such as the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the European Union and UNESCO, and has published many articles. More than 100 papers have been published in important academic journals at home and abroad.