1. education

Global Education Futures:
Co-Creating A Thriving Global
Educational Ecosystem
Moscow / Silicon Valley / Kazan / San Paolo / Singapore / Davos
Who Are We?
Global Education Futures (GEF) is an international
collaborative platform that involves shapers & sherpahs of global
education – education thought leaders, education innovators,
edtech startup founders and education impact investors,
administrators of top international educational institutions,
regulators on national and supranational level etc. – to discuss
and implement the future design of global educational
ecosystem.
Why Global Education?
As founders of GEF, we start from the premises that education – as a way
to teach new ideas & concepts, new patterns of action, new methods of
thinking and new ways of being – holds the greatest potential to change
the world.
In coming decades, technological advents can render over a half of all jobs
obsolete, and the structure of world’s economy will shift dramatically. Environmental
hazards, coupled with increased demand for food, water, and energy, will call for
rebalancing our relationship with the planet. International conflicts and economic
crises will destabilize the global order. Organizations & individuals will turn
increasingly incapable to handle the rate of accelerating changes.
To cope with the ‘shock of the future’, we will all need new skills and knowledge, as
well as greater scale of collaboration. We need education that anticipates, prepares
and builds the world of the future.
Where is The Power of Transformation?
Education worldwide is at the brink of transformation forced by
wave of new technologies and powerful social shifts. The
emerging forms are learner-centered creative collaborative
communities that replace ‘industrial’ education hierarchies of the
past. Yet pathways to this new state are unclear.
Global Education Futures is a grass-root initiative to draft such
pathways and catalyze systemic innovations to help education
meet the challenges of the 21-century.
Global Education Futures Cause
Global Education Futures will work towards the world
where education ….
… prepares us for the future that we anticipate and desire, as co-creators of this future
… recognizes a unique talent in each of us and tries to elevate everyone to their fullest
potential and maturity
… tries to meet various learner needs for skills and information that we have at different
stages of our life – not only for our profession, but for our relationships, well-being, and
personal growth
… works to make our families, communities, cities, nations, and world as a whole more
harmonious and sustainable
… becomes a natural and integral part of our life from birth until the late days of our life,
and helps us experience the joy of learning, discovery, achievement, sharing, creativity,
and connectedness
GEF Founders Approach: Vision into Action
Global Education Futures is launched by people who have developed the unique set of
capabilities at the nexus of envisioning, nurturing and enacting transformation of local,
regional & national education ecosystems at different time horizons.
Some of our work in Russia & emerging economies included
Vision creation:
+20 years
•  Education
•  Skills
2035 Foresight
2030 Foresight
•  NeuroWeb
Foresight
Road-mapping:
+5-10 years
System of Qualifications
& Competencies Roadmap
Launch & mentoring
of projects & strategies:
+2-5 years
•  National
•  Acceleration
•  Roadmaps
•  Creation
for creation of new
industries including talent
creation strategies (Children
Goods & Services industry,
Preventive Medicine sector,
Neuro-Electronics sector, ...)
•  Sectorial
TVET & HE strategies in
aerospace, transportation, food
processing, precision
engineering, …
•  etc.
& mentoring of
over 50 startups in education
of new educational
institutions & innovative
programs
•  Strategies
of top 20 national
universities
•  Advising
to K12 schools
•  Education
innovator contests
•  Hackathons
•  Startup
schools
•  Talented
•  etc.
/ pre-accelerators
youth forums
How Will GEF Work?
We aim to build GEF as an international initiative that uses proven approaches
to address challenges of global education ecosystem
1
4
GEF Forums:
a series of participatory
events where collective
vision is created
GEF Future Learning
Challenge:
an ‘open-source’ startup
contest ‘from the future’
2
GEF Agenda:
a co-created transmedia
product on the future
of education
3
5
GEF Education Program:
an educational leadership
program on collaboration
practices
GEF Online:
(forthcoming) online
platform for GEF
community
1. Forum Series
Global Education Futures Forums is a collaborative un-conference series where the
participants co-own the agenda and the outcome, to co-create maps of the future of
education and propose actionable initiatives.
Unconventional mix of participants
Participatory group work process
We invite participants that represent critical
forces shaping education worldwide: education
innovators and thought leaders, EdTech startup
founders and investors, regional & national
regulators, policy advisors, and others.
Participatory process is based on the proven
methodology of Rapid Foresight and enriched
with world’s latest innovations in multistakeholder dialogues. It will help our groups to
crystallize our collective knowledge and act
upon it.
Challenging questions
Our collective discussions will be built around
most challenging problems of the future
identified in the Future Agenda for Global
Education, and fine-tuned with the help of our
Advisory Board
Drive towards actionable outcomes
Our work should bring out:
• Actionable vision, startup & project ideas
generated by the attendees
• Future Learning Challenge that should become
a call to action for broad international
innovator community
Vision building process: Timeline of Global Education Futures Forums 2015
GEF - California
1-4 April 2015
Menlo Park, CA,
California, USA
Outcome:
‘map of future’
of emerging
global education
ecosystem
(towards humancentered life-long
learning)
Perspective:
life-long
relationship of
individuals and
education
ecosystems
GEF - Kazan
22-23 May
2015
Kazan, Russia
GEF - Brazil
12-14 August
2015
São Paulo, Brazil
GEF - Singapore
November
2015
Singapore
Outcome:
‘map of future’
of global
professional
education (TVET
& higher
education)
Outcome:
Discussion of
future skills &
professional
education +
BRICS projects
initiatives
Held during
World Skills Russia
Held during
World Skills
International
Outcome:
‘map of future’
of approaches
& governance
mechanisms
to creating local
& national
education
ecosystems
Perspective: education ecosystems
demanded by business / economy
Perspective:
education
ecosystems
demanded by
(local) societies
& governments
World
Economic
Forum
January 2016
Davos
Presentation
of Global GEF
report
2. Global Education Futures Agenda: Brief History of Our Work in Education
As a ‘stepping stone’ towards the Global Education Futures Forum, we offer the results of our work with
the innovative community of educators in Russia & emerging economies since 2007 that bridge visioncreation & practice of educational innovations:
Year
Mapping the future of education
Applications of the Map
2007-09
•  Several forums & first Russian barcamps on
the future of education and hi-tech
•  ‘Metagame’ foresights at MGIMO
•  Student projects / our own EdTech startups
2010-12
•  First Russian education foresight at Educamp
2010.
•  First Russian ‘map of the future of education’
•  First Russian foresight on higher education
perspectives
•  First EdTech startup pre-accelerator
•  Several student forums & startup schools
•  Development projects by leader teams of top 50
Russian universities @ Skolkovo
2012-14
•  First Russian Skills foresight (and one of the
largest globally) across 26 sectors
•  Published a ‘best-selling’ Atlas of Jobs of the
Future
•  TVET & Higher Education reform strategies for
transport sector, aerospace sector & children goods
industry.
•  Interactive career-orientation games for high-school
students.
2013-14
•  Map of the future of Global Education
•  Report on Global Education Futures Agenda
(1st edition)
• 
• 
• 
• 
Development strategies of top 15 universities
First startup accelerator for 40 edtech startups
First Russian EdTech hackathon @ Skoltech
First nation-wide contest of educational innovations
(Institute of Education – HSE)
Global Education Futures Agenda: 2014 report
In 2013-14 we created Future Agendas for Global Education, a summary of our work with thousands of
Russian & international education innovators, and the pinnacle of our work on mapping the future of
education.
Brief version of the Report is available for download at www.edu2035.org.
Long version and the map will be available at the GEF-California Forum.
Education Futures 2030 Map:
200+ trends, technologies &
educational formats that will inform
global education agenda
Education Futures Report:
150+ pages of one of the most
comprehensive studies globally about the
future of education
(forthcoming in early 2015: web & iPad application & interactive games)
Global Education Futures Agenda as developed by GEF community
Next version of GEF Agenda will be co-created by the participating
community of global education leaders.
Global Education
Futures Agenda v1
(2014)
Results of our earlier
collaboration with thousands of
Russian & international
educators will be used to frame
(some of the) questions & initial
statements for discussion
Global Education
Futures Forums (2015)
Group work during Forums will
produce three collaborative
reports:
•  Future of learner centered
life-long learning
•  Future of skills &
professional education
•  Future of regional &
national educational
ecosystems
Global Education
Futures Agenda v2
(2016)
Report of Forum results will be
written & edited with the
support of interested Advisory
Board members & Forum
participants.
All contributing attendees will
be listed in the Report.
Report will be widely
distributed and presented in
notable conferences, including
World Economic Forum 2016
3. Future Learning Challenge
Challenges are known as one of the best ways to stimulate innovation. Majority of innovation
challenges in education try to address ‘problems of the present’ (i.e. mending the existing system)
instead of ‘needs of the future’ (with few exceptions, e.g. Xprize Learning). And none of
competitions are co-designed by the community of visionaries.
During Rapid Foresight session, GEF-California participants together will co-design the first global
open-source learning innovation challenge ‘from the future’, based on the vision that will emerge
during the session.
Vision
of Education
2035
& projects that
can establish it
Criteria
for startups
& innovations
that match
the vision
April 2015
(during
GEF-California)
Competition
announced
(Partner – HSEInstitute of
Education)
May 2015
Selection
of candidates
(5-10 teams)
& acceleration
Oct & Nov 2015
Final winner
announcement
May 2016
4 & 5 (past mid-2015): Education Program & Online Community
GEF
Education
Program
In late 2015:
•  pilot program for leaders of European / Eurasian education institutions &
startups (up to 30 participants)
•  program agenda & structure will be built upon the results of GEF-California,
GEF-Kazan, presentation of the results at GEF-Brazil
•  main focus of the program: new collaborative practices in education (incl.
connected learning), and organization of creative collaborative communities
In 2016:
•  scaling up the program to include other regions and broader agenda
GEF Online
Global Education Futures will use an online platform
•  to keep the connections within practitioners’ community that will arise from
Forums
•  to conduct conversations on the future of education (including the
discussion of GEF Forums results)
•  to share best & innovative practices in education between community
members, including sharing of their own project experiences
Full scale platform will be established after mid-2015; first mailing lists and
online discussions will be launched prior to GEF-California in March’15
GEF Key Activities and Tangible Outcomes in 2015/16
Series of Global Education Futures forums
structured participatory process in theme-focused
groups supported by facilitators
California
Kazan
San-Paulo
Future Learning Challenge
Collaborative Education Program
Singapore
Outcome 1: Report 2016 on the Global Education
Futures, including:
•  ‘Map of the future’ (existing, emerging and potential
formats and elements of curriculum that works towards
the desirable futures of education & Future Skills)
•  Model of Human Learning Lifecycle (incl. formats &
focal elements of curriculum that can work across
lifecycle)
•  Integration solutions: tools that can integrate local
ecosystems and enhance global ecosystem
Outcome 2:
•  Pilot of the ‘open source’ startup challenge ‘from the
future’
•  6-10 teams selected in Oct 2015 for acceleration
•  2-3 teams selected in May 2016 as winners of the
challenge
Outcome 3:
•  Pilot education program on collaborative education
(up to 30 participants from European education
institutions)
•  Full scale in 2016
Advisory Board
Composition of the Advisory Board is defined by following criteria:
•  representations of multiple forces that shape the global education
•  thought leadership in one or several aspects of the future of education (including new
pedagogy, new curriculum, new forms of education, and new competencies / values
brought in the design of education)
•  perspectives from different regions of the world, including Russia, United States, European
Union, East Asia, and more
Functions of the Advisory Board:
•  Recommendations on priorities and the strategy of GEF
•  Recommendations on agenda of GEF Forums
•  References of experts that should be attracted as participants of GEF Forums and
contributors to other projects (e.g. Agenda, Challenge etc.)
•  Support in implementation of GEF project components
Selected List of Advisory Board Members
Simon Bartley
President, World
Skills
Leah Rosovsky
VP Strategy,
Harvard University
Dirk Van Damme
Head of Center for
Education Research
& Innovation,
OECD
Tan Oon Seng
Director,
Singapore
National Institute
of Education
Manuel Heitor
Director,
IN+ Center,
Technology
University of Lisbon
Alexander Laszlo
Chair of Board of
Trustees, Intl
Society for System
Sciences
Claudio Naranjo
Founder of
SAT Institute
Tim Unwin
Secretary General,
Commonwealth
Telecommunication
Organization
Tom Vander Ark
Founder, Getting
Smart
& Partner, Learn
Capital
Henry Etzkowitz,
Professor,
Stanford University,
& Founder, Triple Helix
Association
See full list at edu2035.org
Project Organization & Governance
Advisory Board: Agenda Setting
Sponsors & Content Partners
Execution Team
Operator & Sponsor
… to be extended
Specific Regional Session
Partners