(Ian Goldin) Great, thank you: it's wonderful to be with educators
who care about the intersection of learning and technology,
because that's going to shape the future.
Whether we're able to get this right or not
will determine whether we have a glorious 21st century
or a period of unmitigated risks.
The walls are coming down everywhere and it's difficult to not think about this,
being so close to it, here in Berlin,
25 years ago, these walls coming down.
But it's not just about physical walls coming down,
it's about mental walls, it's about financial walls,
it's about technological walls.
All the walls are coming down, and it's that
which makes this the most exciting century in the history of humanity.
It changes all of our lives in surprising ways.
And it's certainly changed mine.
I was living in Paris when this wall came down.
I didn't imagine that it would touch me personally.
I thought it was about Eastern Europe, about the Cold War, about something else.
But within 6 months, I would, much to my surprise,
I was invited to have dinner with President Mandela in Paris.
He wasn't president then, he had just been released from prison.
But he was released because the Cold War ended.
And the defining feature of this period we live in our lives
is what happens elsewhere will dramatically affect us in new ways.
It's this change that results from the walls coming down.
And it's this chance that will shape education going forward
and technological progress.
And of course, the other fundamental period of -- in this time --
is technology, technology, which got off the ground
at the same time as the Berlin Wall came down, over 25 years.
This exponential growth in virtual connectivity.