Author and policy analyst based in Australia

Presentation:
What will it take for education to be creative? (November 28, 9.35am)

Tom Bentley is a writer and policy adviser based in Melbourne, Australia.

From 2007-13 he was Deputy Chief of Staff and senior policy adviser to Julia Gillard. His policy responsibilities included school reform, innovation and industry policy, the Tasmanian Forestry Agreement and the Government’s white paper on Australia in the Asian Century.

He is currently an adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on education and innovation, and a visiting Professor at the Copenhagen Business School.

From 1999-2006 he was Director of Demos, an independent think tank based in London. His publications include Learning beyond the classroom: education for a changing world (Routledge, 1998); The Creative Age: knowledge and skills for a new economy (Demos, 1999); The Adaptive State (Demos 2003) and Letting go: complexity, individualism and the left (Renewal, 2002).

He has also worked in senior policy roles in the British and Victorian Governments and at ANZSOG, the Australia and New Zealand School of Government.

Secretary of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development

Deep Conversation:
‘Education: Learning to embrace the future’ (November 27, 12.00-2.00pm)

Presentation:
Why many shades of grey matters: thinking and learning for tomorrow’s challenges (November 28, 9.30am)

Richard has had a diverse career in the Victorian public service, a statutory utility regulator, the Australian Senate, public advocacy organisations, and the former State Electricity Commission of Victoria.

Richard has had extensive experience in responding to complex public policy challenges in a range of fields through the integrated application of various disciplines, tools and processes.  These include:

• Raising the sustainability of energy supply and use through technology innovation programs and market measures.
• Improving the quality, affordability and equity of energy supply through innovative market and regulatory design.
• Raising agricultural productivity through science, innovation and policy reform.
• Improving school performance, reforming Victoria’s vocational education sector and developing options and lifting educational gains from early childhood services.
• Strengthening the security of Melbourne’s public transport system.

Richard has also led or helped lead responses to many emergencies, including energy shortages, animal and plant diseases, agricultural pest incursions, the impact of bushfire and flood on regional communities, and open-cut mine collapses.

Richard holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of South Australia, a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Management from Monash University, and a Graduate Diploma in Company Directorship.

Richard has served on the High Level Consultative Committee on the Energy White Paper, and the Boards of the Australian Centre for Renewable Energy, the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership, and Schools Connect Australia.  He is also Chair of the Victorian Government’s Regional Management Forum for the Grampians region.

Digital Education Leader, learning futurist

Master Class:
‘Student led learning design’ (November 27, 9.15-11.15am)

Deep Conversation:
‘Education: Learning to embrace the future’ (November 27, 12.00-2.00pm)

Presentation:
Racing to the Future: Total Learning (November 28, 9.35am)

Professor at Bournemouth University, Chair in New Media Environments; One of the most influential academics in the field of technology and education globally.

Stephen is a Professor at Bournemouth University, and at Universidad Camilo José Cela, Madrid. He draws on a unique €250m portfolio of large scale, effective research projects, over 30 years. His eclectic research focus ranges from the design of schools and school fitments, through the implementation of ICT in learning, to addressing the new pedagogic needs of everyone from elite Olympic coaches to pre-school children.

He is described as “the most influential academic of recent years in the field of technology and education” by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) UK and “Europe’s leading online education expert” by Microsoft.

After secondary school teaching, Stephen founded and ran Ultralab for a quarter of a century, building it into one of the most respected research centres in e-learning in the world.

An early pioneer of educational multimedia, Stephen went on to pilot, and be the guiding

“father” of, early social networking in Learning too, with seminal projects including:

• The pre-internet Teletext and email social networking project *ESW in the 1980s,
• The groundbreaking nationwide Schools OnLine community for the UK Department of Trade and Industry in 1995/6
• Tesco Schoolnet 2000 from 1999 – the then Guinness Book of Record’s largest internet learning project in the world.
• In 2003 Stephen led the creation of the unique on-line, individually bespoke, work placed, research based, undergraduate degree Ultraversity.

In recognition of all this work, along with just 51 others including Damien Hirst, Jarvis Cocker, Harrison Ford, Lauren Bacall, Muhammad Ali, Stephen became an Apple Master in the 1990s and was awarded the Royal Television Society’s Judges’ Award for lifetime contribution to educational broadcasting. Stephen is a member of BAFTA’s Board of Trustees and Council having formerly chaired its Technical Innovation Jury.

Twitter: @stephenheppell

Founder and Director, Barefoot College

Deep Conversation:
‘Education: Learning to embrace the future’ (November 27, 12.00-2.00pm)

Presentation:
40 Years of innovation in Education – The Barefoot College (November 28, 9.35am)

Bunker Roy established the only fully solar electrified Barefoot College in the deserts of Rajasthan in India 40 years ago. It is the only College in India built by the poor and managed by the rural poor who earn less than $1/day. Named one of the 50 environmentalists who could save the planet by The Guardian.

Sanjit ‘Bunker’ Roy received his formal education in The Doon School (1956-62) and St. Stephens College Delhi University (1962-1967). He was the Indian National Squash Champion in 1965, 1967 and 1971. His “real” education started when he dug open wells for drinking water as an unskilled labourer for 5 years (1967-1971).

He established the only fully solar electrified Barefoot College in the deserts of Rajasthan in India 40 years ago. It is the only College in India built by the poor and managed by the rural poor who earn less than $1/day. Almost the only College left in India that respects and practices the work style and life style of Mahatma Gandhi. It is a College where the teacher is the learner and the learner the teacher.

It is the only College in India where traditional knowledge and practical skills of the poor are given more importance and priority than paper degrees or qualifications.  Prof. Roy is a great believer in Mark Twain who said, “Never Let School Interfere with your Education”.

In the 20 years that the demystified and decentralized community based Barefoot approach has been implemented in over 30 of the Least Developed Countries, a total of 36,000 houses in 1,024 villages have been solar electrified by nearly 300 illiterate rural grandmothers. Without using the written or spoken word they have been trained in 6 months using only sign language in India in the Barefoot College to be solar engineers under a scheme called ITEC of the Government of India.

Bunker Roy was identified as one of the 50 environmentalists who could save the planet by The Guardian in 2008 and as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2010.