Deep Conversation with

Geoff Mulgan (UK), Thomas Frey (USA), Scott Anthony (Singapore), Adam Kahane (Canada) and the audience. Moderator: Beverley O’Connor.

28 November (12.15pm – 2.15pm)

People plus technology breaks cartels. Everyone from the music industry to tin pot dictators are coming to realise this. But the structures and strictures of our formal education system are under threat too, and probably about time. There have been few stronger cartels than the university system. Suddenly, children, undergraduates, mums, CEOs, everyone are realising that they have options when it comes to learning and they are increasingly reaching out for those new options. This has the potential for a bottom-up revolution in our learning lives, a pedagogic Egypt so to speak. It may be the death of education as we know it, but rather excitingly it looks already like a true dawn of learning.

• How long can we keep doing things that are convenient but clearly not effective?
• Less than half a dozen countries dominate car manufacture, or movie making, or aircraft production. Which 5 countries will be the dominant ones in learning? And what will the others do then?
• How did education go, so quickly, in so many countries, from being an investment to being a cost? And what will the consequence be?