WEBVTT

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(Ian Goldin) Great, thank you: it's 
wonderful to be with educators

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who care about the intersection
of learning and technology,

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because that's going to shape the future.

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Whether we're able 
to get this right or not

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will determine whether we have
a glorious 21st century

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or a period of unmitigated risks.

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The walls are coming down everywhere
and it's difficult to not think about this,

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being so close to it, here in Berlin,

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25 years ago, these walls coming down.

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But it's not just about physical walls
coming down,

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it's about mental walls,
it's about financial walls,

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it's about technological walls.

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All the walls are coming down,
and it's that

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that makes this the most exciting century 
in the history of humanity.

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It changes all of our lives
in surprising ways.

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And it has certainly changed mine.

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I was living in Paris 
when this wall came down.

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I didn't imagine that it would touch me
personally.

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I thought it was about Eastern Europe,
about the Cold War, about something else.

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But within 6 months, I would, 
much to my surprise,

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I was invited to have dinner with
President Mandela in Paris.

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He wasn't president then, 
he had just been released from prison.

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But he was released 
because the Cold War ended.

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And the defining feature of this period
we live in our lives

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is that what happens elsewhere will
dramatically affect us in new ways.

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It's this change that results 
from the walls coming down.

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And it's this change that will shape
education going forward

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and technological progress.

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And of course, the other fundamental 
period of -- in this time --

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is technology, technology, 
which got off the ground

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at the same time as the Berlin Wall
came down, over 25 years.

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This exponential growth in
virtual connectivity.

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And now we have a world of 5 billion
literate, educated people

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whereas we had a world, only 30 years ago,

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of well less than a billion 
connected people

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4 billion more literate connected people
in the world,

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and this is the engine of change,

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where the people in the slums of Mumbai,
Soweto's Al Pano (check)

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or in apartments in Berlin,

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they will contribute to change 
in surprising new ways.

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And they're coming together.

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There is a release of individual genius.

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If you believe in the random distribution
of exceptional capabilities, which I do,

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there is just more people out there,
educated, connected, giving, learning.

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But I also believe in collective genius,

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the capabilities of people 
coming together,

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to form teams, to learn from each other

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through the methods that 
we learned about this morning.

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and in other ways.

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So new cures for cancer being developed
in 24 hours cycles around the world.

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My lab in Oxford doing this with people 
in Beijing and San Francisco, in Palo Alto

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and all over, in real time.

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There is no sleep on innovation any more.

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And that's the power, the engine,
which brings change. 3:01