Tell us a little about yourself.
I have been an entrepreneur since 1989, working with media, innovation and creativity, have written 11 books about human mind, innovation and growth mindset, plus a few on Italian cuisine. I have also consulted various companies on creative processes, studied the future of office work and taught disruptive innovation in Aalto University in Helsinki. However, for the past 4 years I have been concentrating only on education – and I love it.
Why do you like to work at HundrED?
Probably my biggest passion all my life has been making great things and meaningful change happen and if you want to do something worthwhile in your life, there is no better place to start than in schools. I believe that the lasting change starts with education and these days great examples of this can be found in all continents.
Why should we change our schools?
Whenever we are talking about ”changing our schools” we should always start with the fundamental question: what is the purpose of school? If you ask me, it is helping kids flourish in life, no matter what happens. To make this happen, we have to deeply understand how the world will (or might) look like in 2030 and 2040. It is virtually impossible to find an expert who doesn't think that there are massive changes ahead of us. And when the world changes, schools need to adapt. Which of course, is a really, really complicated task.
Why is innovation in education crucial today?
I think the word ”innovation” has a slightly negative connotation in education and I can understand why. People are pushing too many untested things to schools and teachers hate it. But in these cases, we are no longer talking about innovations. An innovation solves a real problem, has been tested with good results and has the capacity to work in various environments – and this is exactly what we need in education. Impactful and scalable innovations that help kids flourish– instead of some gimmicks.
Three HundrED innovations you love.
This is really difficult since I love them all, but for example, these three excite me in all their simplicity.
