At Netexplo 2018…
Once again in Paris to attend the Netexplo Innovation Forum, the annual event that brings together innovation teachers from around the world at the UNESCO headquarters to analyze trends and try to understand where we are headed.
The Netexplo observatory is like radar: the teachers taking part in the initiative ask our students from all over the world to identify innovative projects, usually less than two years old, which can range from startups to work in university departments, initiatives in well-established companies, etc., which are then shortlisted, and then a list is drawn up that we vote on. Finally, 10 projects are discussed in Paris and attendees vote based on those that seem most interesting.
This year brought a pleasant surprise: there is always healthy competition among the teachers to see who gets to place more projects in the final stages, and this year, the winners have been students from my Innovation course on the IE Business School International MBA. In the final phase, two of the 10 selected projects, Wysker and Cataki, came from the selection made by my students, with the second emerging as the winner in the vote by attendees. In a later entry I will analyze them in some detail. This is all largely honorary and I see it as mostly probabilistic (this year I taught two groups, and the composition of my students was enormously diverse, with participants from all around the world), but it is gratifying to think that from the wide selection of students from business schools around the world I teach and try to convey ideas and concepts to about innovation, they have been able to make a major contribution. Thank you, class!
This year in Paris, I was asked to give my impressions on stage of 360ed, a lovely virtual and augmented edtech project from Myanmar, whose founder, Harvard graduate Hla Hla Win, has managed to put together an ambitious project in what must be a challenging environment, involving children using Android terminals and cardboard viewers, and that represents an important step forward in teacher training and materials development.
Meanwhile, at the Advisory Committee, which I sat on for the last three years, we continued last year’s conversations about artificial intelligence and machine learning, from which has emerged a book, “Thoughts on AI”, for which I have written a chapter about which I will provide more information as soon as it is available for download.
Must dash, I’m off to Les Échos for a summary session of the event. More to follow soon.
(En español, aquí)
