In this special episode of Below the Fold, Dr. Dala Kakos, an education innovation leader at ECHD, shares a human-first perspective on AI in schools. Through decades of experience in education systems across the UAE, U.S., and beyond, Dr. Dala unpacks how AI can help personalize learning, empower teachers, and nurture emotional resilience—if it’s designed around the real needs of students. From policy to the classroom, she makes one thing clear: education reform must start with empathy.
Key Topics Covered:
About the Guest
Dr. Dala Kakos is a leading voice in student-first AI policy. As an expert at the Emirates Council for Digital Education (ECHD), she works with public and private sector partners to create sustainable, inclusive, and joyful education systems for the future.
Produced in collaboration with:
@BelowTheFoldPodcast, @DATEwithTECH, @launchfoundry, @DubaiAIFestival, @DubaiAICampus, and Trescon
📍 Dubai AI Festival at DIFC Innovation Hub
Dr. Dala - Full Video Edited
[00:00:00] Hi, my name's Will Snow and we are live from the Dubai AI Festival. We are doing Date with Tech in association with Trescon, Below the Fold and Launch Foundry. Today I'd like to welcome Dr. Dala Kakos. Welcome. Thank you Will. It's a pleasure to be here. Fantastic to have you. Let's start with something a bit more personal.
You are Dr. Dala Kakos. Who is that without the doctor in front? Oh, that's a great question. I am a little bit of a nerd because I love what I do. I'm truly happy with helping support education development in the country because I am a high school graduate from this country as well. So I went to high school here.
Half my life was in the US and half my life was here, and the half here was an amazing [00:01:00] experience. not just of the school and the curriculum, but the teachers, friendships, activities, everything. it, it's sometimes said that, oh, we didn't graduate from somewhere in the west or somewhere.
That's, a bit more, I was here in the eighties, we didn't have movie cinemas yet. Abu Dhabi, we didn't have, like it malls. But I loved my upbringing because of my school and and because of where I was in that. So part of that was you can have an amazing, fulfilling education outside of what people usually consider the West or the North Hemisphere, and you can still think of it as a privilege.
And this is why I wanted to dedicate my life to continue to do that. so I went back to my career, but without that, I'm actually a certified bean to bar chocolate maker that's oh, wonderful. In passion. everybody loves chocolate. I've just refined it to a bit of an art and a skill, looking into it in terms of, health [00:02:00] wise and, and bean to bar and curating that in terms of, working with farmers and things like that, going forward.
And then, I'm a mom, so I have two kids in the education. System here. one is in middle school and one is in elementary. And, I feel like what I do, makes a difference, not just for them, but hopefully for everybody. Amazing. I gotta have say the chocolate piece surprise me, but that's such a nice way to express yourself as well.
Like it's a bit of a creative piece. Yeah. I didn't hike Monk and Manjaro, but I can make chocolate. I'll take it. And you brought up your career, your journey is, a very interesting one. how's that gone for you and, how have you managed to specialize in AI and in the education space? it came about by chance.
I think everybody who ended up in AI is a bit by chance, isn't it? So for me, my, my experience was I really wanted to, I started with the World Bank Institute and we worked with developing countries in terms of, ICT. Back then it was called ICT. [00:03:00] So it and tech and education, and. Forging those together to enable more support, reaching out to teachers, helping them feel supported through online training, et cetera, et cetera.
So that was the first sort of, seed that was planted back when I was in my first master's in, in Washington DC. that sort of. Develop naturally, if you will. And, and along the way, I dedicated, purposefully my career into understanding the, nuances of the users. So the stakeholders are the students, the teachers.
I cannot as a, a government policy maker and official say. This is what you do without ever truly being in their shoes and understanding what they need. And that's always what we revert back to is what do they need, what do they want? And honestly, I'll tell you a secret, the kids know and they know faster than anybody else, so they can provide so many answers that.[00:04:00]
big four consulting companies could probably take months to do. Yeah. the students and the kids would know, in a day what to tell you and how to make it solved. part of that was I looked into other countries. I did a special mission to Cuba. As Cuba has a free healthcare system.
It's something that was very interesting. Coming from the US and in a US education system where, there's different sort of payment schemes for schooling and then in Cuba you can get a PhD absolutely for free. And what they did with that knowledge, that talent and how they shipped that abroad.
So we looked at everything from people of determination, how they were taught from KG all up to adults and early learning. So it was a great way of looking at things, not just from an eagle eye view, but from a. Ground view upwards as well. So that's what I wanted to do in order to proceed to this stage of my life.
Amazing. Thank you. very interesting. and tell me, so this lens that you, you've taken from, [00:05:00] obviously from an education background, stumbled across ai. how is that impacting our schools and what particular section of it is it impacting the most? I love that question because it's impacting learning the most.
There's two ways AI can actually support learning and one is in schools, the operative, the administrative, the, just the paperwork that they get bogged down with. Yeah. That is one way, very easy, tick the box way of getting it in there and helping. I. Not just the admin and teams there, but the teachers as well.
'cause they get a lot of paperwork. But, the other way is the more nuanced and challenging way, which is to support learning and make it more customized and personalized. So we hear that a lot, but how does that actually look on the ground for a student whom, for example, might not be engaged at all in the classroom and want to learn?
So the teacher now has a new responsibility and the school. Can be defined very differently. So in terms of [00:06:00] focus time, if the teacher gets the focus time of 10 minutes from that student onto the content they wish to share with them to that day, and I say share not teach, because it is very different in terms of the dynamic as well.
The teacher is now no longer the knowledge transfer person. It is the teacher is more of a manager and a support and, an activity based, cooperative. Coach, if you will. Yes. And that's something that we need to develop into, because right now everybody is in their sort of slot and the change is the challenge.
But to get there needs. The students because they've already started using i ai. Yeah. They know how to use it. Now. What we'd love is for that to be coming out into the open of the classroom and for everyone to be discussing how they use it, how can they can use it more for learning and less for not learning, if you will.
And, and how it impacts in a, helps teachers, not just the students themselves. [00:07:00] The main thing we wanna see also is that it will give mental resilience and emotional support so that students when faced with challenges going forward, and in order for them to be future ready, critical thinking, creativity, mental resilience is one of those skills going forward that they truly need to have and be armed with.
In learning in their school with the help of the teachers. So even the core sort of three Rs reading, writing, arithmetic, can be changed into creative thinking, critical thinking, and And the emotional resilience going forward. So this is something that's been changing and I think ai, especially post covid, has allowed us to, move into that very swiftly and experimentation is happening with the students trying, like I said, so moving forward, it would be just supporting that experimentation in a more.
I guess framework basis for schools to say, yeah, okay, we can use AI and [00:08:00] students can use ai, and this is how we're going to do it together, and that's the next step. Very much embraced. Correct. Yeah. And I think you highlighted a very important piece there is basically keeping the human in the loop and how teachers evolve.
how do you see that happening? obviously a lot of people are intimidating, intimidated by happen, what's happening. True. but yeah, what is what is gonna be the role specifically for teachers and how do they take this transition on? I think teachers get to be students again, and they all had their careers.
They all had their, university majors. They all were learners before, and this gives them the opportunity to learn again and to help themselves in that learning. So going forward. Teachers can actually have fun with what they're going to design for the class because they have more support with the mundane tasks that surround preparing a lesson plan.
So instead of researching for hours on the internet for a lesson plan activity for those [00:09:00] students who need something that is group based, for example, that's aligned to that concept and lesson, that goal that they need to achieve for that. Day or week, they can have AI come up with 10 solutions, 10 options for that right then and there.
And they can pick and choose. And then they can ask for details of what sort of things they need within the parameters they have. So for example, if an activity needs equipment and they can't afford to have it, or the school doesn't have it at that moment, then they can say, without the equipment, what other class options and activity options can I give to the students?
So this way, if there's a. Let's say students with five different abilities in classroom. One that prefers video-based learning, one that prefers group-based learning, let's say two. 'cause they need to be in a group, right? And then one that is a challenge and has a special determination needs one that is not necessarily as fluent in English, for example.
And the lesson is in English that day. That teacher now is tasked with at least four different activities to handle and [00:10:00] customize for the student. AI helps make sure that actually happens within 10 minutes of their lesson planning, and they can go forward with more energy to engage with the students instead of just getting a headache and getting tired from researching.
That's incredible. Yeah. Really acting as a tool and allowing the teachers to have a way to express their creativity as well. Yes. I see that and I love that. Yeah. And you touched on something very interesting is really what does this mean for our kids? I've obviously got a five-year-old at school.
How is this gonna change for them? Because the interaction, everyone's worried that it's shifting to away from humans, right? What does this look like for our children? that's a great question because I think that the children already know. So one of the biggest trends is that they identify themselves as dual identities.
So what we say is AI is one sort of plane of being. I. And we in the real world are another plane. They consider it the same plane. They consider it a duality of identity already, so that's something that they [00:11:00] can easily switch into and out of. At the same time, they also know that there's hallucination happening and there's AI bias, and they do constantly question the information that's given to them, to the point where we might actually have to guide them up to when to stop.
Questioning and actually consider it fact. So that's where we would come in and help develop that framework of, how to use AI in schools, for example, what sort of process to go through. so with regards to students, I think that the best thing they can do is be allowed to experiment. And part of prompt based engineering and learning, teaching prompting to students is that they need to be allowed to experiment and find out that, when I prompted with a very vague, request.
To the LLM, that response wasn't half as good as when I said, you are this kind of person. This is your viewpoint, this is your setting. This is the question I need to do, and this is how I want you to give me the answer. So when they realize, the more nuanced they get with their request, the more [00:12:00] aligned they are with what they need from the ai, then that becomes a different plane of.
Of learning and working. I love the idea, though, that right now if a teacher teaches them about, for example, world War II and they're not interested in, for example, the side of industrialization to World War ii, they're interested in how the, bags and the boxes of food were packed and delivered to the soldiers.
And what sort of like. Treats they had in those lunchboxes. 'cause that they had, like m and ms were invented during a war in order for it not to melt and to give them, more, encouragement and support for the troops overseas. So if they're interested in that's something they can easily check within ai.
in the class while the teacher's telling them about the different countries. And then she might mention that they used to ship, how do you say, rations to the troops? What sort of rations? Oh, was there chocolate? Talking about chocolate macular. What kind? Yeah, it's there. So this is [00:13:00] what I would've done in a World War II lesson or segment in my class.
They get to deep dive in the skills and the topics of interest that they want to learn about, so that actually helps them develop their talent, and AI can help them. One of the biggest goals we should look at in learning today and in order for them to become mentally resilient is for them. To support and develop their talents.
So usually we focus on their weaknesses. We flag weaknesses. You're failing math, that's a problem. We gotta talk to the principal. What are they excelling at? It might not even be math, science, literature, all of that stuff that you usually see in a school. They need to find their talent. We need to help them find their talent as teachers, as parents, as community.
And then they get AI to give them chances to support that and develop it further on. And this is the hope. A hundred percent. And you're really nurturing the strengths and we're trying Yeah. Yeah. on this, I'm fascinated by the subject and I know there's obviously traditional education. what are we seeing in the space with [00:14:00] where AI is applied now? Like I've heard of students finishing a day in two hours and then focusing on their specific, like paths and what their strengths are. Yeah. Do you see that as the future of education here in the UAE? I love that you referenced that school.
I, I won't say the name of the school just in case, but we did interview the founder of that school recently, and it was so interesting because he actually asked the students, what would you want out of an ideal school? And they're like, no school. So he is okay, if we need some school. Two hours of purely online learning with an AI tutor.
And then the teachers are no longer teachers, like I mentioned, they're coaches and guides, and they're more emotional support during that two hours. And then in the four hours after they do a range of activities, field trips, group projects, their entrepreneurs, one of their students has earned a million dollars on an app that they developed, et cetera, et cetera.
So students today want that. if you think about university, even university students are challenging right now as we speak. Four years in a root in a classroom [00:15:00] is not gonna happen. So right now the duality of hybrid learning, that extension of independence, that's something that will trickle down into schools and we're already seeing it, as you just mentioned in that school.
So I think a combination of provision of these education providers is what the fu the near future will bring in the far future. All schools will have that option. All schools will have an option of, if you wanna be in Timbuktu for a semester, by all means go for it. And we will count it as learning credit, because you're gonna sit and apply it via AI to all of the courses you're learning in class.
So for example, the EU is working on a university curriculum that expands all EU countries. They currently have a program that's three or four countries that have merged into one. Diploma, if you will. Sure. Now they're working on it to be all eu. This is part of the future collaboration, coordination, enabling facilitation of student mobility so that they can do things with their lives in the [00:16:00] meantime, because students not only identify themselves as half digital half.
Real analog, as they call it, but they also identify entrepreneurs very early on. how many kids have sold, lemonade on the sidewalk? Yeah. So that's part of it. Nurturing that, nurturing their talent. So if they love music and are in a band, they can definitely, the question for mom and dad is how the heck are they gonna pay their bills when they grow up?
AI can help you because those specialized careers might not exist yet, but it will help them develop. Skills such as music engineering, music and app building, or that's something they can do now very easily, but in terms of teaching and seeing the need to spread, that what's missing? They're very good at finding that out, and they're very good at wanting to become an entrepreneur and have a solution for that very quickly.
Yeah, it's amazing. I'm really coaching my son to be similar, like I'd rather think out of the box. also be aware of I guess the economics of things and become an entrepreneur [00:17:00] and really, I dunno if you've heard of the lost Generation. It's the generation between the everything changing that are currently going through the school systems and education systems.
And we know like from a career perspective, like they're looking at. Potentially the white collar jobs, being hald. Like how do you think those, that sort of generation can cope with what's coming? that's a really good question. Again, I think that the installation of critical skills that are re that should be redefined.
We have redefined in the government already. like we said, the emotional resilience is key. Yeah. Because, and also lifelong learning and the dedication to lifelong learning. So what we've been finding is that some students, a lot of students say, we don't wanna learn. Now we want AI to be there so that when we want to learn or when we need to learn.
For example, if you had mentioned a specific institution or school, and I have two minutes before I walk into the studio, I can use AI to learn now when I need it. They want that [00:18:00] In that light upskilling, making sure that they're aligned to their career. It's more like internships. They want to try things and then they find something that they're really good at and they'll continue onwards with a company or by themselves and break off and become entrepreneurs in that field.
But knowledge is no longer a challenge. So it's just about what they are passionate enough to stick with going forward. Fantastic. And then it comes back to your previous answer of just like really sticking on the strengths, right? Yes. Building on the strengths. Yes. Which is fantastic, and I, agree on the approach a hundred percent.
Thank you. Yeah. let's, talk about implementing these kind of things. have you got an example? Any kind of, where you've faced resistance when introducing this change? the resistance isn't from the thought. It never is. Everyone has good intentions. Everyone wants the students to be happy.
Parents, teachers, principals, college, chancellors and provosts. Everyone wants 'em to be happy because at the end of the day when [00:19:00] they're happy, everyone's happy. In terms of going ahead though, I think that the biggest challenge in implementation has been fear, Fear to break away from the tradition and fear to implement something that you might not be used to, because everyone doesn't wanna look bad.
Yeah. Teachers are used to being an authority figure in this, in the head of the classroom, the front of the classroom, just changing it to make it, for example, group based where they're sitting on the table with the students. That's a change. that's a change of. Perspective identity, and we need to support them and say, we understand because that is a change and it's something that they need to welcome as part of their new identity.
That changeover of identity definition for them, for students, for the parents who are like, where are the grades? I only see, numbers. What do these numbers mean? I'm used to grades. That's happening now and that's something that's being challenged. A lot by parents. I am, I'm honestly touting for example, that the first four years of college, [00:20:00] it doesn't necessarily have to be, you know what a lot of parents do is they put a lot of pressure on themselves and their children to go to a very good university.
Yeah. To me, that is not the priority. The priority is. That they're happy that they get into a college and that they do okay in the college enough that they know what to do with their lives and they get a chance to have internships and work experiences to experience it. The next thing of the terminal sort of degree that is actually easier to get into.
So a master's at Harvard is an easier, less competitive degree because of their distance and their options for building up on courses and then getting a degree after that. That's actually easier in a way than getting going to Harvard for an undergrad. And at the end of the day, people look at where you went for your terminal degree, where you went last.
so students are never really the challenge in terms of adoption of new change. It's the adults amazing. I could really have this interview [00:21:00] for an hour. oh, thank, I appreciate it. we love what we do. where I work at EHCD, it's a great place to be because we work constantly with all of the entities and everyone is collaborating in an environment where students come first.
And we are always putting that as our tagline going forward. Because at the end of the day, that's who we are surfing. Yeah. And if you had one last message for both teachers out there and parents What would that be? Instill strength and happiness, because that's the most important thing.
when it comes down to challenges in anything, life learning, work, upskilling when the student or the child or child sits there with themselves. And developing that sense of self away from, a screen, that's important too, because they need to be able to sit with themselves and say, who am I without a screen telling them who they are.
So that's quite important going forward in order for their mental [00:22:00] resilience to guide them through everything. In order for them to come out at the end smiling. Because with the health rates, if you look at, depression rates based on social media, the, unfortunately mortality, if you look at the scales, the reason, the number one reason for, for mortality rates, that's something that is suicide.
So these are very heavy things that we need to take into account when we think well, do we pressure our children? How, what do we. Focus on with them, are grades that important? Is completing this that important or is it. Are they happy and are they flourishing in their talent and that they can do very well and pass with flying colors if we break away from some of the traditional notions of what means a pass and a fail.
I love that. And it's really talks to kids finding their passion. and operating, which is really where their strengths are. Yeah. and through that we naturally go there. Yeah. And they'll live a lovely life, right? Yes. That's the concept. Yeah. And that's okay. [00:23:00] Yeah. And that's okay.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Dr. D Kako, thank you so much. Thank you Will, for joining us. Oh, it was a pleasure. Such a lovely conversation. Thank you for the time. Great to be here. Awesome. Take care.