9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Ian Goldin) Great, thank you: it's [br]wonderful to be with educators

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
who care about the intersection[br]of learning and technology,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because that's going to shape the future.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Whether we're able [br]to get this right or not

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
will determine whether we have[br]a glorious 21st century

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or a period of unmitigated risks.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The walls are coming down everywhere and[br]it's difficult to not think about this,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
being so close to it, here in Berlin,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
25 years ago, these walls coming down.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But it's not just about physical walls[br]coming down,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it's about mental walls,[br]it's about financial walls,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it's about technological walls.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
All the walls are coming down,[br]and it's that...

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
which makes this the most exciting century [br]in the history of humanity.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It changes all of our lives[br]in surprising ways.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And it's certainly changed mine.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was living in Paris [br]when this wall came down.

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

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

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But within 6 months, I would, [br]much to my surprise,

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

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

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But he was released [br]because the Cold War ended.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And the defining feature of this period[br]we live in our lives

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is that what happens elsewhere will[br]dramatically affect us in new ways.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's this change that results [br]from the walls coming down.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And it's this change that will shape[br]education going forward

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and technological progress.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And of course, the other fundamental [br]period of -- in this time --

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is technology, technology, [br]which got off the ground

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
at the same time as the Berlin Wall[br]came down, over 25 years.

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This exponential growth in[br]virtual connectivity.

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

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whereas we had a world, only 30 years ago,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of well less than a billion [br]connected people.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Four billion more literate[br]connected people in the world,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and this is the engine of change,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where the people in the slums of Mumbai,[br]Soweto's Al Pano (check)

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or in apartments in Berlin,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they will contribute to change [br]in surprising new ways.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
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[br]of exceptional capabilities, which I do,

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

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But I also believe in collective genius,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the capabilities of people [br]coming together,

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to form teams, [br]to learn from each other

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
through the methods that [br]we learned about this morning.

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and in other ways.

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So new cures for cancer being developed[br]in 24-hour cycles around the world.

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

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and all over, in real time.

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There is no sleep on innovation any more.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And that's the power, the engine,[br]which brings change.

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So if you think you've seen [br]a lot of change

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be ready for much more surprises.

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This is the slowest time in history[br]you will know.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's going to get faster,[br]the pace of change greater,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the surprises more intense.

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It's always going to be

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
more and more difficult [br]to predict what's next.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Uncertainty will grow because[br]the pace of change is growing.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Because the walls have come down,

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there are two billion more people [br]in the world since 1990.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And that's because ideas have traveled,[br]simple ideas,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
like washing your hands prevents[br]contagious diseases;

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
really complicated ideas[br]like those embedded in vaccines...

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in new cures for cancer[br]and many other things.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Two billion more people coming together,[br]most of them now urbanized,

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and even those that aren't[br]physically together,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
virtually together.

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A quite extraordinary moment[br]in human history,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
one where we've come together[br]as a community,

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like we were 150'000 years ago,[br]when we lived in villages together,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
our ancestors in East Africa,[br]and the dispersed around the world

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and now, reconnected.

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And it's this reconnection which,[br]I believe, gives us the potential.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But do we learn from it?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And are we able to think of ourselves[br]in new ways,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because we're connecting in new ways?

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Is this wall coming down changing the way[br]we are and we think?

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Or do we still think like individualists[br]in our nation states,

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pursuing our own self-interest[br]and those of our countries,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
not realizing that now,[br]we are in a different game?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now we're in a game in which[br]we have to cooperate,

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where we have to think about others,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where our actions, for the first time,[br]spill over in dramatic new ways

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and affect people [br]on the other side of the planet.

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This pace of education means that [br]not only are we liberating ourselves,

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but we're liberating people from[br]all sorts of past habits.

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And this change is leading [br]to quick changes in social norms.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Acceptance of gay marriage [br]is one of those,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but there'll be many, many, many others.

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And so, what we think about [br]as normal today...

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will seem very strange [br]in a few years' time:

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the space of change driven by education,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
more doctorates being created [br]in China now...

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
than in the rest of the world [br]put together every year,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
more scientists alive today...

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
than all the scientists [br]that ever lived in history,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
more literate people alive today...

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
than all the literate people [br]that ever lived in history.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This is the engine of change.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But it's not simply about [br]more and more progress.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's not simply that we know...

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that this is going to get [br]better and better.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's about what's next.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We don't know what the future holds.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We live in this extraordinary moment [br]of our lives...

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where we've seen exponential growth[br]in income: that's red.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And we seen this most rapid [br]increase in population,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and income growth, even more rapid[br]than population growth, which is why

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
people have escaped poverty at a pace[br]that has never happened in history.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Despite the world's population increasing[br]by two billion over the last 25 years,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the number of desperately poor people[br]has gone down by about 300 million.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This has never happened before.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This is an incredible time, by far [br]the best time to be alive.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Just while you're here, your average [br]life expectancy should increase...

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
by about 10 hours.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That's the pace of progress.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
What you're learning,[br]and what's happening in the labs.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And it's that which makes me [br]incredibly optimistic.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This is the age of discovery,[br]this is the new Renaissance.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This is a period of creativity[br]and technological change...

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
which hasn't been seen for 500 years.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This is from my stem cell lab[br]in the Oxford Martin School:

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the lab technician's skin[br]turned into a heart cell.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And this is one of the [br]extraordinary things that's happening...

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that makes one so excited [br]about the future.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
A future of rising life expectancy,[br]so children being born today...

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in Berlin or elsewhere in Europe,[br]will have life expectancies well over 100,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and not having to worry about the things[br]that I worry about,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
like Alzeheimer's, Parkinson's and dementia.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But what skills are they learning today[br]that will help them shape this future?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Prepare for it