"Can Education Shape a New Prosperity for All?" ALISON CEO & Founder Mike Feerick will speak at the International Forum of the Americas today in Montreal, Canada

    MONTREAL, QC, June 17, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The theme of this year's conference, 'Shaping A New Era of Prosperity', will examine, among many topics, how free education can chart a course to long-term prosperity against a backdrop of disruptive technology, slower economic growth and political uncertainty.

"Free online education," said Mr Feerick ahead of the conference, "Can profoundly disrupt the huge inefficiencies within the legacy education and training systems we endure today."

Through free online-learning platforms such as ALISON, society has the power to make all learning, certification, learning management, and the publishing of high quality courseware free of charge to the world user at a basic level. This can change our world.

Commenting on his participation in the conference, Mr Feerick also stated that, "The invitation to speak before such an influential group of global leading business people and government policy makers is a privilege, but also a responsibility. Individuals who put themselves forward to lead innovation and disruption need to take time to explain to other leaders about new technologies and business models and their potential. Often, as is the case in the education industry, there are powerful interest groups who enjoy the status quo and who have no interest in disrupting the old models."

The panel will be moderated by Alan Shepard, President and Vice-Chancellor, Concordia University. Panelists include Stavos N. Yiannouka, CEO, World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE); Cecilla D' Oliveira, Associate Dean, Digital Learning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Robert Beauchemin, CEO, KnowledgeOne.

About ALISON
ALISON is the global leader in free online certified skills training for the workplace with 7 million registered learners, 800,000 graduates worldwide and a further 250,000+ signing up each month to learn for free on the platform. Pioneering the MOOC (Massive Open Online Courseware) movement in 2007, ALISON provides 750+ free online courses at diploma and certificate level. ALISON is changing how the world learns through its free learning ecology. The company has received a number of awards for its pioneering work, including a UNESCO Award for Innovation in ICT for Education in 2011 and the World Innovation Summit for Education Award (WISE) in 2013.

ALISON is the first free online learning platform that has been able to develop a scalable. sustainable, self ­funding model. The ALISON free learning ecology is supported by a combination of advertising revenue and income from parchment sales and innovative learning products such as ALISON Study Groups ­ a free learning management system developed by ALISON. Headquartered in Galway, Ireland, ALISON is a for­ profit social enterprise founded by Mike Feerick.

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