More than 50 of Asia's leading educators are gathered in Shanghai for the inaugural IBM Asia Pacific Reinventing Education Summit.

The two-day Summit will address the challenges facing educators across Asia Pacific, offer delegates the opportunity to share experiences and the opportunity to hear from leading thinkers on the future of education. Delegates attending the Summit are drawn from 13 different countries and include leaders of government departments, education associations, universities and think tanks as well as school principals, university deans and education academics.

As part of the Summit, delegates will be able to join local school children between the ages of 11 and 14 who will gather for The Science and Future of Gaming event, a recent addition to IBM's volunteer "On Demand Community" program which encourages IBM employees to work with local school communities to help teach, inspire and support students. The Science and Future of Gaming event focuses on demonstrating to children how they can have an exciting and varied career in science and technology.

Speakers include Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, of Harvard University; Distinguished Professor Yong Zhao, the executive director for the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence; Tom Bentley, founding director of the United Kingdom's Demos Think Tank; and Stanley Litow, vice president, Corporate Community Relations and Corporate Affairs and President of the IBM Foundation.

The summit aims to devise a collaborative response to this challenge and leverage new technologies to find the best way forward for each country.

IBM says it invests around US$100 million annually worldwide in education programs.