Very Interesting - Grand Challenge Summit today at Wellsley

Today I attended this Grand Challenge Summit at Wellesley, sponsored by Wellesley, Olin and Babson. I was invited because Intuit has hired interns from Olin for the last 3 summers. I had not done my homework prior to the summit, as to what the 14 Grand Challenges are, and will be doing that reading in the next few days.

What was clear, very early on, is that there were a lot of academics attending. There were also quite a few students from the three schools, and a few industry folks like myself. I have some friends who work in colleges and universities and I have had discussions with them about the culture of academia. It is very different from any culture that I have worked in before.

One of the comments that a woman from Harvard made to me on the bus ride from Olin to Wellesley was "Professors don't go through any training on education or how to teach." She said it so matter of fact, and I paused a minute before I burst out laughing and started shaking my head. Seriously? Those individuals, who stand up in front of millions of students all over the world, do not have training in training, or training in education. They are rewarded for research and teaching is a means to an end, of getting the research and being able to do the research.

There were lots of statistics about the future that were quoted. The one that stuck with me is that by 2019, 50% of education will be online education. It was pretty funny to watch a room full of academics squirm in their seats when this prediction was quoted. One man refuted this with all kinds of opinion, and I leaned to my colleague and said "A little bit of resistance, maybe, or job nervousness about job security."

There were some great speakers, some great videos of Grand Challenge students projects, some interesting panels including one of the three presidents of the institutions, Linda Wertheimer and Paul Romer.

I came away with a new desire to help with educational reform, after my efforts have been exhausted with health reform. There is a lot of work to be done in this world and it is being done by a lot of smart people.

A half day out of the office, and I was pretty happy to return this afternoon to my cozy office in corporate America, armed with some new thoughts about education, engineering, culture, innovation, collaboration and Grand Challenges.