Distance Learning and Artificial Intelligence: New Challenges for Donald School Educational Activities

and content, the structure and coordination within and between different departments and levels of government, policy-making institutions, programs for implementation, and measures for assessment. At the international level, it has profound implications for our conception of multilateralism and the type, structure, and relationship between the complex array of international institutions established to foster peace and human security for "we the people." COVID-19 is a call for new ways of thinking, knowing, educating, decision-making, and practical execution of measures to promote human security for the common good. Humanity is called on today to change many things, but most of all, our understanding of the world we live in, our place in it, and our relationship to it and to one another. Within our learned societies group, we have incredibly active Ian Donald Inter-University School of Ultrasound. With its 142 schools worldwide, Donald School is the most dynamic educational platform in the world. Of course, endless pandemic strongly affected regular activities, which in 2019 had more than 11,000 participants worldwide. Board of the Donald School was, however, very active in organizing 16 webinars and the most actual topics in both developed and developing countries (Table 1). Thousands of participants took part in our distance learning program. We also did not stop producing new books within the Donald School library. The list of published books during the pandemic is listed in Table 2. However, we are very much aware that nobody on the ground can seriously predict the end of pandemics. Of course, we are missing our direct physical contact with participants very strongly. We understand that teaching is a transmission of enthusiasm and that the intellectual charm of the speakers in direct contact with participants cannot be replaced successfully. However, the reality is different. We will have to adapt to the new distance learning program within Donald School and the International Academy of COVID-19 pandemic had suddenly turned the highly globalized world into the lockdown when not only international travel was warranted but, in many instances, free movements within the countries and even within the neighborhood. Human rights were challenged during the fight against the new virus, but the pandemic has also raised questions about the obligations of each individual to protect others. Politics, science, and often the church were on the collision paths. Keeping in mind the diversity of the world ́s societies in economic, religious, political, and environmental issues, we should not be surprised about the confusion and controversies in people ́s minds and behavior regarding vaccination that is supposed to be one of the ways how to fight the Sars-CoV-2 virus. Furthermore, even the most prestigious medical journals are not immune to publishing publications with gross scientific fraud. COVID-19 pandemic, apart from the death toll and destroyed economies, has changed the world in a previously unseen way of great magnitude. For almost 2 years, every single person has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in one way or another. This global disaster has changed the world not only temporarily but in many manners permanently. High mortality and morbidity rate, economic and social impacts are the most significant short-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, regardless of the unknown end of the pandemic, it will have vast and long-lasting effects on every segment of life. In an elegant recent editorial, Cadmus sends a message that the unanticipated consequences of COVID-19 are impacting every sector, field of activity, and level of global society today. They are raising unemployment and inequality, compelling adoption of unconventional economic policies, polarizing societies, activating political extremism, aggravating competitive nationalism, contesting the veracity of scientific knowledge, undermining international cooperation, and the functioning of the multilateral system. At a more fundamental level, the pandemic has exposed a plethora of hidden threats to human well-being which challenge prevailing notions of security, laid bare the inadequacy of partial theories, revealed the limitations of narrowly framed sectoral policies and strategies implemented by specialized agencies, and highlighted fundamental questions regarding the complex, interconnected nature of the social reality on which our understanding of the world and ourselves is based. The pandemic thus reiterates the need for fundamental changes in theory, intellectual disciplines, educational curricula Professor Emeritus, Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Corresponding Author: Asim Kurjak, Ljubinkovac stube 1, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia, e-mail: asim.kurjak1@yahoo.com How to cite this article: Kurjak A. Distance Learning and Artificial Intelligence: New Challenges for Donald School Educational Activities. Donald School J Ultrasound Obstet Gynecol 2021;15(4):323–325. Source of support: Nil Conflict of interest: None Distance Learning and Artificial Intelligence: New Challenges for Donald School Educational Activities