Catz Alumna Speaks on Microsoft Education Panel

In January this year, Catz alumna Michaela Brady (2017, MSc Social Science of the Internet) presented on a panel at Microsoft Education’s Transformation in Leadership Forum, part of Bett 2019. Bett is a large annual showcase in the education technology industry, bringing together leading ed-tech companies, start ups and customers from across the world. Michaela took part in a panel on ‘Trends in Transformation – Social and Emotional Learning’, which focused on technological innovations and how they are being implemented to improve student wellbeing and social-emotional learning.
Michaela was approached to speak on the panel after being a finalist at the 2018 Microsoft Imagine Cup, a global competition where, each year, thousands of computer science students present new applications they have designed. Michaela presented her idea for an app, Common Room, which centralises mental health support services within universities.

Having experience in creating education technology from a psychological background, Michaela was asked to speak on the Microsoft panel to give her insights on the subject from a psychology-in-tech perspective. Other panellists included Dan Ayoub, a member of the Microsoft Education team at their U.S. headquarters in Washington, and Leticia Ahumada, a teacher who uses Minecraft to teach students in Spain.

Speaking about the event, Michaela said she was ‘delighted to have had the chance to discuss the insights gained from pitching Common Room regarding the ethical concerns of implementing technology in the classroom, especially that pertaining to mental health,’ in particular, ‘the issues students face at different stages of education and how we can best support them, as well as how Common Room aims to support them through an AI-enabled triage service.’