Wim Van Petegem holds an MSc degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Ghent (Belgium), an MSc degree in Biomedical Engineering from the KU Leuven (Belgium) and a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from KU Leuven (1993). He worked at the University of Alberta, Edmonton (Canada), at the Open University of the Netherlands and at the Leuven University College (Belgium).

He is a regular panel member of review committees to assess quality of education in Flanders and the Netherlands. He is heavily engaged in development cooperation projects with the South and gives regularly trainings in e.g. South-Africa, Ecuador, Ethiopia, China, Philippines, etc. on innovation in education and digital competences for teachers and professional support staff. He is actively involved in different international networks of universities like SEFI, MEDEA, and EDEN. He has been attending meetings and conferences of EDEN since the late 1990’s. He served on the Board of directors from 2009 till 2018, and as Vice-President Research from 2016 till 2018. He is Fellow of the organization since 2007 and Senior Fellow since 2017, and he is member of the Fellow Council Board. Currently he is also editor-in-chief of EURODL.

Denise Whitelock is the Director for the Institute of Educational Technology at The Open University.  She is a Professor of Technology Enhanced Learning and has over twenty-five years’ experience in Artificial Intelligence for designing, researching and evaluating online and computer-based learning in Higher Education.   She recently led the UK’s contribution to the

Adaptive Trust e-Assessment System for Learning (TeSLA). The overall objective of the TeSLA project was to define and develop an e-assessment system, which ensures learners authentication and authorship in online and blended learning environments while avoiding the time and physical space limitations imposed by a face-to-face examination. She is currently the Editor of Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance & e-Learning. Her work has received international recognition through holding visiting Chairs at the Autonoma University, Barcelona and the British University in Dubai. Denise is currently a serving Board Member and Vice President Research for EDEN Digital Learning Europe. For complete publication list see: http://oro.open.ac.uk/view/person/dmw8.html

Mark Brown is Ireland’s first full Professor and Chair in Digital Learning. He is widely published with over 800 scholarly outputs. Markfirst attended the annual EDEN conference in 2011 when the event was hosted in Dublin. In 2013, he relocated from New Zealand to Ireland to establish the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL) at Dublin City University. Since then, he has actively contributed to EDEN online events and conferences. Over the past 8 years, Mark has served on both the EDEN UK Executive Committee and now on the Management Board for EDEN Digital Learning Europe. He is currently serving as Treasurer. Of particular note, is that Mark has played a lead role in helping to internationalise EDEN’s outreach, as evidenced by the inclusion of ODLAA (Australia), FLANZ (New Zealand) and USDLA (United States) in European Online and Distance Learning Week. In 2019, Mark was chair of the ICDE World Conference on Online Learning in Dublin, which included a successful EDEN pre-conference Research Workshop. Currently, Mark is well-known for his work in the burgeoning area of micro-credentials having served on the European Commission’s expert group and is currently EDEN’s academic lead for the EU-funded MicroCredX project.

Dr. Sandra Kucina Softic, Board member of EDEN Digital Learning Europe, Assistant Director at the University of Zagreb University Computing Centre (Croatia) and Head of the E-learning Centre. She has 25 years of experience working in higher education. Her work is focused on monitoring and fostering e-learning in Croatian higher education and providing support and advice to institutions, teachers and students in implementation of new technologies in learning and teaching. She was appointed Croatian representative in ET2020 Working group on Digital Skills and Technologies (2016-2018) and in ET2020 Working group on Digital Education: learning, teaching and Assessment (2018-2020). In 2018, she was appointed member of European Education and Training Expert Panel.

She has a MSc. in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom) and PhD in Information and Communication Technologies at the University of Zagreb (Croatia). In 2022 she was elected as Assistant Professor. She has been a member of EDEN Executive Committee since 2013; in 2014 she received the EDEN Fellow Title, and in 2022 she was awarded the title of the EDEN Senior Fellow. From 2019-2022 she was president of EDEN UK and is founding member of EDEN Digital Learning Europe.

Mart Laanpere is professor in mathematics and computing education in the Centre for Educational Technologies, Tallinn University, Estonia. He received MSc from the University of Twente (NL) and PhD from the Tallinn University. He was a co-founder and long time head of the Centre for Educational Technology in Tallinn University.

His main focus in research is conceptual design and analysis of affordances of technology-enhanced learning systems and tools, digital competence modelling and assessment, among others. He is a co-author of national digital competence test and several informatics textbooks for upper-secondary schools. Mart was also member of the steering group for Estonian Lifelong Learning Strategy 2020 where he led the development of the action plan for Digital Turn in Schools. He has been contributing as an expert to various European initiatives related to modeling and assessment of digital competence (DigComp, DigCompEdu, DigCompOrg, SELFIE for Schools, SELFIE for Teachers). Mart has also been consulting digital education innovation programs in Georgia, Serbia and Moldova.

Polona Baloh Kremavc has been serving as the Director of DOBA Business School Academic Programs since 2021. She manages and elevates the institution’s online study program offerings and coordinates the development of online studies in the direction of pedagogical innovations and the use of new technologies. Her previous roles at DOBA Business School include Director of Strategic Development and Public Relations and Director of International Markets and Head of Marketing. Polona is currently an active lecturer at DOBA Business School, specializing in the field of working with different target groups and in the field of online education.

She holds a B.A. from University of Ljubljana, The Faculty of Arts and is an active member of the Managers’ Association of Slovenia, Slovenian Business Club in Serbia, and the American Chamber of Commerce – AmCham Slovenia.

Vlad Mihaescu has a Ph.D. in educational and technological models of MOOCs and has more than 20 years of experience as a trainer and teacher in areas like multimedia technologies, social media, e-tourism, e-learning, usability, entrepreneurship, programming, soft skills, leadership, and project management. Author of over 50 scientific papers and book chapters published in international conferences and journals, Vlad is involved in several European research projects in the field of eLearning, digital culture, digital entrepreneurship, innovation and tech transfer. He is also an associate professor for UPT. For 15 years, Vlad has been part of the technical support team of the UPT Virtual Campus (Moodle). Since 2020, Vlad has served as a member of EDEN’s NAP (Network of Academics and Professionals), holding the position of Chair of the Steering Committee between 2020-2023. He was an ex-officio member of the Executive Board of EDEN UK from 2020-2022, then being elected as a member of EDEN DLE‘s Management Board from 2022. In these capacities he has been organizing several workshops, webinars, and participating as a speaker or moderator in EDEN events. Vlad was the Local Conference Manager for EDEN’s AC in 2020 and also part of the Local Organization Team of EDEN‘s RW in 2024. Vlad is also the Vice-President of the UPT Senate.

Dr Duart holds a doctorate in Pedagogy from Ramon Llull University (URL), Barcelona, and a Master in Business Administration from ESADE Business School, Barcelona. He qualified from the University of Barcelona (UB) with a bachelor’s degree in History and in Education, and also has a teaching qualification.

He is former vice president for Postgraduate Studies and Lifelong Learning, and former director of the International Graduate Institute at the Open University of Catalonia, UOC (2007-2013). The UOC is a benchmark online university, internationally recognised for quality e-learning, and Dr Duart has played an active role in the development of its educational model, which makes intensive use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Today he is research professor in Educational Sciences and Technology department at the UOC.

He was the founder and director of the UNESCO Chair in e-Learning (2002-2009) and academic director of the I International Seminar “Leading Universities in the Knowledge Society”. He is the editor-in-chief of the “International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education” ethe.uoc.edu. (Former RUSC. Universities and Knowledge Society Journal, rusc.uoc.edu) a journal published by Springer and co-edited by UOC and Universidad de los Andes (Colombia).

Josep M. Duart served as EDEN DLE President in 2021-2024.

Antonella Poce currently holds the role of full professor in Experimental Pedagogy at the Department of Education and Humanities of the University Roma Tor Vergata, where she is the head of the INTELLECT Research Center (Center for Museum Heritage Education, Well-being and Technology in Education). She is the Head of the joint degree one-year post graduate courses “Museum Education. General Aspects”, “Heritage Education and Digital Technologies”, and of the joint degree two-years post graduate course “Advanced Studies in Museum Education”. She is author of different publications of national and international relevance on the topics of innovation, assessment and use of technology in teaching and learning, in the context of heritage experience. She took part in different national and European research projects on digital learning, soft skills development, critical thinking promotion and evaluation, use of heritage for fostering social inclusion. She has been a member of EDEN since 2009. In 2016 she was awarded the title of EDEN Fellow and in 2020 the title of EDEN Senior Fellow. From 2017 to 2020 she has been President of  EDEN – NAP Network of Academics and Professionals.

Alfredo Soeiro is a Civil Engineer (UPorto) and Ph.D. (UFlorida), associate professor at UPorto, former Pro-Rector of UPorto, past president of IACEE, of AUPEC and of SEFI. Member of Management Board of EDEN DLE, Secretary General of AECEF and vice-president of ISHCCO. Member of the Scientific and Advisory Board of the European University EELISA, mentor of Global Talent Mentoring, evaluator of Erasmus+ and of accreditation agencies and member of FEANI Strategic Task Force. 

Airina Volungeviciene has been working among leading researchers, methodology specialists and policy makers in the area of distance learning development in Lithuania since 1998. Having graduated her first master degree at Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), she spent 11 years working at Kaunas University of Technology as distance learning methodology specialists and researcher. She coordinated numerous international projects in the area of distance education, worked on national study and strategy for distance learning network development in Lithuania, promoted methodological activities in Lithuanian Distance and eLearning (LieDM) network.