Konstantinos Doukas is the founder and Chairman of SoFIA (School of the Future International Academy), an International NGO which focuses on supporting educational institutions and schools that wish to excel academically and operationally, by using global best practices and innovative methodologies.
He is also the President and CEO of Doukas School, a private education institution with a tradition of more than 100 years.
As a third-generation owner, previously or parallel with his work at the school, Konstantinos held several teaching, research and administrative positions mainly in the private sector, specifically as Systems Manager Assistant at the TC Computer Lab of Columbia University (NYC), Scientific Consultant to Project Athena at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston, MA), President & CEO, at the Information Society SA (www.ktpae.gr) and several boards of directors positions.
You organised the session called “Information Session about Free Mentoring for School Leaders program – Measure , Design, Implement” on 24 January as a part of the LearningPlanet Festival. What was your overall experience like and what were some key learnings for you?
It was an honor for SoFIA to participate in this year’s LearningPlanet Festival. It was an excellent way to celebrate the International Education Day. I represented SoFIA in the event, speaking to the audience about the importance of focusing on capacity building of school leaders as they are the agents of change and improvements in their institutions.
I presented one of the most popular programs that we run in our organization, our Mentoring for School Leaders Program.
As I explained to the attendees in our session, this program gives school leaders from all around the world a unique opportunity to use our School Self-Assessment tool and reflect on what works well in their organizations and what challenges they are facing. After using the tool, SoFIA connects school leaders with education experts from around the world to give them personalized advice and mentoring on how to evolve and improve their operations. Participating in the event was a great experience for me as it gave me the chance to make our program known and raise awareness on the necessity of providing school leaders around the world with mentoring opportunities that will help them evolve fast.
Can you tell us more about School Of The Future International Academy? What are some projects you are currently working on?
School of the Future International Academy (SoFIA) is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization which by using a unique, carefully designed, awarded and certified education and administration model, supports educational organizations to achieve excellent academic and operational results. We are registered in London, UK but we operate globally. We envision a world where education through its continuous evolvement and transformation will support every student to achieve his/her dreams and goals.
To serve our vision, we organize a number of programs and activities. Apart from the Mentoring for School Leaders program that I mentioned before, we also organize a number of free, online workshops and professional development opportunities for school leaders and teachers on various topics that we see that the global educational community is interested in. You can watch past training programs that we organized on our YouTube channel. We also produce a podcast called Edtransformed where we are hosting discussions with experts, academics or education professionals speaking about their areas of expertise or sharing personal stories of how they navigated through challenges and became better at what they do.
Finally, SoFIA organizes an annual online summit called Bridge the Gap. In this event we are exploring a gap (or an issue) that affects the global educational community and with the help of academics, experts and individuals that have personal experience on the topic we try to suggest new approaches on challenges.
Last year’s Bridge the Gap, for example, organized together with The Varkey Foundation and sponsored by Microsoft, was focusing on Girls’ Inclusivity in Education and it was a vibrant and informative discussion on the reasons behind more and more girls around the world seem to be left out of schools and what have different communities around the world done in order to keep female students in schools. You can also see Bridge the Gap 2022 and all other Bridge the Gap events on our YouTube channel.
What are some next steps for you with LearningPlanet?
The team of SoFIA and myself are all very excited to be a LearningPlanet Alliance partner. We have already met very inspiring organizations from the network and we have been amazed by the efforts that several organizations do in order to help Education evolve.
Our ambition is to be in touch with even more school leaders from around the world who are interested in participating in our Mentoring for School Leaders program. We have planned a Circle with the LearningPlanet Alliance where we will provide our program to members of the community. I would like to stress that this is a free program that school leaders can take advantage of in order to receive personalized mentoring.
We welcome and encourage anyone who would be interested in the program or would like to recommend the program to school leaders from their network to contact us either by completing this form or at [email protected]. We are also open to collaboration ideas from people of the community. Don’t hesitate to contact us with initiatives that we could contribute to.
