SingularityU Summit - Day ONE

Today has finally arrived.  We have been excitedly awaiting this summit and today we were not disappointed.  Although a bit jaded, by little sleep last night from another large 'shake-up' north of Christchurch, we managed to absorb the tone of the summit this afternoon.  I feel very privileged to be able to attend this inaugrual event along with 7 students ranging from year 8 to 12, as well as some illustrious staff from our Leadership Team and School Trust Board.

The theme of this summit is "Understand, Adapt & Thrive"
'Disruption' is different to 'Innovation' and can be define in the image below.


Gordon Moore's Law is not new, and Moore was not the first to explain how change behaves.  The exponential curve has been long associated with the rate at which technology is changing and impacting on simple daily tasks.



For example: Folding a piece of paper in half.  Initially, the task seems easy. As you continue to fold the same piece of paper in half, the task becomes increasingly more difficult. There comes a critical point, where progress may appear slow before taking off at an exponential rate.  Solving this point of difficulty often requires a change in the way we have executed the task to achieve forward progress.

So, how should we prepare children for the future?
The future is no longer represented as a linear progression with certainty. Instead, the future holds energy and excitement, as well as the fear of the unknown.   Teaching students using the 20th century model, is less likely to prepare them for what they may face in the future. Our education system needs to expose students to develop co-operative skills, and allow them to own their mistakes.  Teachers and parents are doing our girls no favours by removing the hurdles that enable us to grow through experience.  Being challenged to solve problems is the better way to prepare our young minds. The feeling of success is so much more rewarding when a student shows perseverance, even though the final outcome may not be perfect.  Our future will be built on many cycles of learning experiences.  Creativity and project-based learning can provide the type of thinking that will prepare our girls to make an impact on their communities.



How does looking back to help us develop our focus forward?  Well, how does the spice and ice trade help us work out our future direction? If we dig a bit deeper, then we discover that spice does not preserve food - yet ice does.  So these trades are not about spice or ice, but more about food preservation.  Similarly, we need to look at what industry we are really fighting for?

Will jobs be lost?  Yes, but disruptive technology can also provide more economic gain than economic loss.  No doubt computers, robots and artificial intelligence can learn to respond like a human.

• Does this mean that humans will likely be replaced by robots? Yes!  
• Will robots be smarter and better than humans in the same job? Yes! 
• Does this mean that all jobs should be done by robots or artificial intelligence? No!  

We are human.

Just because artificial intelligence and robots can do the job better, 

does not mean that they should necessarily replace a human.  

There are simply some jobs, where we expect to have a relationship with a human, 

even though a machine is more efficient and smarter.

Technology should allow us to be more human!