Education Amplified

This year I plan to start sharing insights into my work. In particular, those activities I think need to be communicated with our wider community, shared and amplified!

To begin with I want to introduce an amazing team and emerging story in the education sector. I had the pleasure of facilitating a workshop with the Music Industry College (MIC) and Starving Kids Records in early January 2013. Our objective was to explore the future of education and how MIC can best position itself to tackle the challenges ahead.

The workshop looked at the trends and patterns changing the way we educate our children, the way we learn, and an audacious ambition from the founders of MIC to be a catalyst for positive change in Australia. In order to do this we needed to look at MIC itself, in the context of its current environment (its vision, its strengths and weaknesses) and explore where this environment and the "customers" of MIC are heading.

I quickly learnt the Music Industry College itself is an "outsider". It plays to a different beat and a different drum, compared with its traditional peers in the modern synchronous education system. It is an innovative new hybrid action based learning educational facility in Brisbane, Australia, offering Year 11 and 12 students (Seniors) the opportunity to study for their QCE (the piece of paper that gives economic value to education) in a tertiary-style environment. MIC's focus is to empower young people to succeed in the music industry and in life. A deep learning experience, which gives students unparalleled practical experience, readying them for the real world.

On the day we explored issues being debated the world over, at all levels in and around the education system. From instituions such as the Centre for American Progress to Google! The four big technology disruptors (namely, cloud computing, social software, mobility, and big data) featured prominently, in particular the business model of Khan Academy. Check it out.

I'll post more about this workshop, our findings and outcomes in the near future. If you are interested in this topic, be sure to check out Khan Academy founder, Salman Khan's recent book on the topic "The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined".

Redesigning the future

The Great Recovery is a project by the RSA, working in partnership with the Technology Strategy Board, to redesign the linear model of how we 'create-take-make-dispose' of things (products). 

As the project's website states, our current linear model of ‘take-make-dispose’ is throwing up major economic and environmental challenges. Risk to our supply chain is increasing, and the cost of materials is rising sharply, putting pressure on businesses to change. We need to shift towards more circular systems and good design thinking is pivotal to this transition.

In order to make this shift, designers need to consider the system as a whole rather than focus on individual components or products. True co-creation is crucial from those involved in these lifecycles: designers and material experts, manufacturers and resource managers, brands and retailers, consumers, policy makers and government, investors & academics all working together.

This project represents an effort to not only redesign a real system and an opportunity to redesign the modern-day 'growth model' underpinned by the fundamentals of modern neoclassical economic thinking.

The Circular Economy

Looking into patterns or trends in the recycling sector, it is obvious some operators are adapting and integrating with technologies that support the type of collaborative consumption and behaviour-shifts evident across other industries. The evolving conversations around sustainable cities for example, see a great deal of emphasis on behaviour change by design. Where a community's physical enviornment is not designed around  physical objects but rather around behaviors (the interaction between things).

If you're interested in closed loop recycling or the circular economy, check out the below quick read.

A Blueprint For A Circular Economy: Reusing And Refurbishing For Prosperity

Important question: How can we maintain global prosperity when natural resources are increasingly scarce, the planet is in increasing disrepair? Here is one view of the world to answer this age old question: