Michael Xiao Attends “Legacy & Future” Entrepreneur Salon and Moderates Education Roundtable

Starting with Children’s Interests and Bringing Chinese into Real Projects

During the event, Michael Xiao introduced Canada Dexin Academy’s educational approach.

Canada Dexin Academy begins with themes that interest children, incorporating music, song and dance, crafts, games, and art into Chinese learning. It emphasizes applying what is learned and introduces project-based course design.

Through complete, authentic small projects, children can move through a process of generating ideas, discussing and negotiating, working as a team, carrying out a plan, solving problems, completing an outcome, and presenting it publicly.

In this process, Chinese is not only the subject being learned. It gradually becomes a tool for children to communicate, collaborate, and express ideas with their peers.

Michael Xiao also invited attending entrepreneurs to explore future collaboration. The aim is to connect with more local Chinese Canadian businesses and professionals, and to transform their expertise, real cases, industry settings, and human resources into learning projects children can take part in—creating more connections between school education and society.

In the AI Era, What Matters More Than Knowing How to Use a Tool?

During the education roundtable, participants discussed talent needs in the AI era, the core abilities children may need in the future, connections between school and society, and how businesses can participate in the growth of the next generation.

Guests from technology, investment, and other fields drew on their own industry experience to share observations about future education from the perspectives of hiring, technological development, and long-term talent development.

Participants observed that as artificial intelligence becomes more capable of organizing information, writing, programming, design, and some knowledge-based work, the way businesses assess human value may also change.

Beyond mastering a particular tool, the ability to discover and frame problems, judge information, understand needs, and use AI to address real problems will become increasingly important.

AI can improve execution efficiency, but creativity, judgment, communication, collaboration, responsibility, and the ability to turn an idea into reality still need to be developed through real experience.

Future education therefore needs to pay closer attention to whether children can think, collaborate, choose, create, and act.

Businesses Can Also Be Part of the Learning Environment

In discussing the relationship between business and education, participants noted that the value businesses can contribute is not limited to financial support.

Industry experience, real projects, professional talent, and social settings accumulated over time are themselves valuable educational resources.

When these resources are developed with educational organizations and redesigned as age-appropriate small projects, they can help children encounter society earlier.

Children can gain experiences beyond the school classroom; businesses can deepen their community connections with families and the next generation by participating in community education.

Participants also suggested that sustained relationships among schools, families, businesses, and professionals can create a richer environment for the next generation than one-time educational activities alone.

Beginning with Chinese Education and Connecting to a Wider World

The “Legacy & Future” Entrepreneur Salon also offered Canada Dexin Academy a new starting point for dialogue and collaboration with businesses in different fields.

Canada Dexin Academy hopes to continue building on Chinese education and use project courses to connect with more real industries and community resources. Children can learn Chinese and use it, while gradually learning how to apply knowledge in the real world.

Through collaboration with local Chinese Canadian businesses, professionals, and community organizations, we hope to create more opportunities for children to discover interests, understand society, participate in projects, and present outcomes—while exploring new possibilities for education in the AI era.