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Director’s Message

The greatest gift I have received in my life is the gift of diversity. I am a product and a beneficiary of it. Raised in Asia and educated in the US, I have taught and lived all over the country and the world.

My diverse life journey has not only motivated my research in collaborative engineering and design innovation but shaped my core belief that diversity is the greatest resource of humanity. Divergent thought, opinions, backgrounds, beliefs, give context to our experience and shape our perspectives for the better.

And yet, divisive political, technical, and social silos segregate learners across opinion fault lines and turn friends into thought enemies. Cross and counter purposes thrive while creativity and collaboration are stunted.

We know this undermines the prospect of a brighter future, where challenges and wicked problems must be confronted with the best ideas and solutions. With common purpose and mutual understanding, even our greatest enemy can become our greatest teacher. Our collective diversity is our superpower.

Rather than preaching it as an abstract concept, I see diversity as a mindset that can be used to innovate many practices. As an educator, my goal is to create an educational environment where diverse ideas are nurtured and every learner flourishes. I believe that when young people learn together, they change the world. This is the mission of iPodia. Learning Together for a Better World.

iPodia uses advanced technology to exponentialize the value of diversity and enhance the quality of learning. By connecting students with peers across the globe in a “Classrooms without Borders” platform, we have changed the learning ecosystem, accelerated traditional learning dynamics, and generated a new fabric of knowledge based on contextual understanding, global perspectives, and leadership competency. Our “Learning through Diversity” pedagogy create new value for all learners.

iPodia was born out of foresight to confront the problems and capture the opportunities of glocal learning (i.e., global learning on a local campus) in the Internet era. We systematically innovate the program to advance technology-enabled learning by focusing on future demands, needs, and challenges. Our research and development in technology and pedagogy are synchronized for continual iterations to create a new learning paradigm.

Technology and globalization are indeed making the world flatter each day. However, our world will not be truly transformed until the world of education becomes globally accessible and individually inclusive.

We look forward to a future when campus becomes not an ivory tower for the few but a gateway to the world for the many. We aim to invigorate education and learning to become the most relevant and transformative pathway to a better life for young people and a brighter future for all.

Thank you for this opportunity to share the benefits of diversity with the next generation!

Stephen Lu