I must say, this is my first time in Taiwan
Actually, my first in Asia.
I'm really excited.
and, um, thank you.
I've only been here for two days, but
謝謝你們的邀請 (Thank you for your invitation)
我很榮幸來到這裡 (It's my pleasure to be here)
Before I speak I’ve got something important to say.
This is ted, so they told me to be very brief and to the point, concise.
so I promise I'll as brief as possible
no matter how long it takes.
I come from a conference that was held in Doha, Qatar
At the international education resources network summit
one of the most important conference in the world about education.
And I've done in a couple of other times.
So
right.
successful running around the world
everything was laid out for me
not.
and I come from a small village in the north of Italy.
from a lower middle class family
actually to be perfectly honest, to European standard ,pretty poor family
and if I look back in my past I realize
that very few would bet on me.
I was, you know, one of the losers
I was kind of a nerd.
And proud of it, it was fun.
still am. so um.
But i mean, the school environment was really tough.
you have to fight your way out.
When I say fight, I don't mean in the metaphorical term.
I mean, literally, fight.
And as you can tell
it is me right there
the tough looking one
that. yeah
I was clearly the strongest and the biggest of the whole bunch.
no problem for me there
when I was 14 I had to decide the high school to attend
And my teacher, he said to my mom
Ms...I'm sorry but your son is not one of the smart kids
not the one. He's, you know, kind of stupid
he was asking weird questions.
You should just send him to work.
You know, don't bother send him to school
Certainly don't send him to Ginnasio, the toughest school in the country.
I mean, ever
So my parents have been obviously the awesome parents they are
They didn't listen the piles of nonsense
And they send me precisely to the school that they said I'll never be able to make it.
And two years later I was given a chance
I won a full scholarship for a very prestigious school.
In the north of Italy, closely to Slovenia, it's called United World College
Its mission was to make education a force to unite people,
nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future.
Just like my previous school. same thing.
Yeah I was kind of like that.
But this is my turning point.
In that school I had amazing teachers.
They were the best.
Because more than just teachers,
they were mentors.
They were guides, and they were friends.
They told us that we could be everything we wanted
We could do anything in our lives.
If we believe we can do it,
if we had a plan
and if we acted on it
right and making peace on earth was not a hippie dream
It could have been a reality.
So that gave me the vision and the strength
to take on many challenges that have gone through my life.
It brought me where I am today.
If I'd listened to my teacher back in my previous school
I am probably sweeping the floor of the school by now.
But how many kids didn't have this opportunity?
It's nice to say the success story of one guy
How many people are stuck in the small town
with uninspired teachers, violent classmates
and no hope on the horizon
In the past of couples of years I traveled extensively in many countries
many continents,schools, universities
fortune 500 companies
And I can tell you that my story actually is not my story
It's maybe your story, or maybe your story
It's story of thousands of people that I spoke to individually
They came up to me and said
I have the same thing
Thank you
And theses are just the ones I spoke to in person
It's probably millions of people
or hundred of millions people. Who knows?
This is a tragedy, right?
Why is this happening?
And many people ask the question
Are we preparing children for the uncertain future that lies ahead?
But before we can answer this question,
I think we first must address two very important issues.
The first is do we even know what we are looking for?
What's the purpose.
What is education for?
Because if we don't agree what education is for
then we can never say we're doing a good or a poor job
I am going to tell you what education was for.
Education was created for making factory workers
See at the end of 18th century. industrialization has the problem
They really had a hard time convincing people to leave the open fields and come to work at a factory
with dark rooms,10~12 hour a day, 10 ~12 hours a day,
repeating the same monotonous
mindless task over and over, obeying every order
without ever questioning anything and never complain about it.
I mean you can see why they had trouble finding volunteers.
I'm sure you have seen the historical reenactment by Mr.Chaplin
So they created something called public educations
and placed you at where you are strictly separated by a year
where you have to follow orders
never question authority and do just what you're told.
sit down and shut up until you're told otherwise
just obey orders.
we spent the first three years of our lives
learning how to walk and talk, kind of useful skills I would say
and for the rest we're told sit down and shut up.
and yeah that sounds like a great idea
I'm gonna do that.
just follow as exactly as instructed, never question authority
I remember in the elementary school
one day the teacher told us
now children,whatever I ask
I want all you to answer at once
understood? ok
So how much is six times four?
and we all said, at once!
See for the purpose that we set out for two hundred years ago
the education system is doing fine.
In fact, it's working perfectly
creating obedient workers
The trouble is
This approach is no longer useful
It was never humane to begin with
but it was economically advantageous.
And now, it's neither.
So are we preparing children for the uncertain future that lies ahead?
The second problem is this:
no matter the supposed expert would like to tell you
Believe me,
there are many of them,
nobody really knows what the future is going to look like five years from now
and let alone ten or twenty years which is when a child who's now in kindergarten
will graduate and will have to find a job.
What about the rest?What about the hundreds of millions of people
who are working today and who could be out of a job
because they are displaced by robotics and artificial intelligence five, ten or twenty years from now
I hear that some guy wrote a book about that
about robots will stealing your job.
you can read for free at the PirateBay
It's illegal. It's creative commons open knowledge.
So we only know one thing for certain
that the only constant is change.
After all, Entropy is not what used to be
Change will always come
and most likely at an increasing pace
With this in mind
I think we must do three things.
The first, we must prepare to accept change in stead of fighting it
I've been afraid of changes many times
I didn't want to change school, I didn't want to change jobs
Let me tell you
whenever I was afraid to do something
I didn't want to change
Those are by far the most depressing moments of my life
Being afraid is not nice
It's paralyzing
Because when you are afraid, you're afraid to fail
You're afraid that yeah, I would not make it to that school
I would not win the scholarship
I would not be able to change up and find something else.
You know. They were right. I was stupid
I couldn't learn. I couldn't learn lalalalaal
It's a downward spiral.
We live in a society that stigmatizes mistakes.
We've been living in where failure is not an option
And that we should play safe
Study something that will get you a safe job
Work for a big company, look for stability
But you see, in the future of great uncertainty
Stability is the illusion of the unimaginative.
lifelong. I think we must move away from the idea that teaching is for adults, and learning is for kids.
Learning is a lifelong experience.
And anybody can be a mentor,
a teacher, or a friend to someone else.
Or a guide.
In our strictly individualistic society,
our personal success is imperative
So we have standardized tests
we try to get the best grades
at the best school
so we can get to the best university
and then we can get to best job and outcompete everyone else and be successful.
But in a collaborative society
your accomplishments. An accomplished individual is one that contribute the most
both of their personal development as well as that of their fellow human beings.
When I was at school I remember that
the way I learned best was not when the teacher was talking
was when one of my classmates would come up to me and say
hey how? this is how you do it ?
Like in five minutes we would solve something that in 2 hours of lesson that nobody understood
and I thought why can't we just get to that
Those 5 minutes of peer learning
and when I was teaching someone else
I was really testing my ability of understanding and reciprocating that
And also it was much more fun and engaging
It was rewarding to be able to teach to someone
you can see in their eyes like there've been going like tho sfor 2 hours
and you teach them in two minutes
and their eyes go like
yeah! I get it
It's fun, right?
And we need time to experiment
to make mistakes, to teach yourself, to teach others
maybe with interesting problems
not, here's the vacuum. Imagine this idealized
no no no, real life problems
Problems that have many solutions
maybe no optimal solutions
maybe no one know what the answer is
maybe there are no answers. Who knows?
Fun and challenging problems
and the process of discovery just like they were saying
"starve them, not stuff them."
The speaker before me.
It's exactly right
Discovery. Learning is a process that happens when you're interested and engaged.
Not when you're receiving
This way, you foster an innate curiosity
that is inside all of us.
And finally I think we must develop a stronger culture of grit
Grit means passion. It means perseverance. It means never giving up.
The determination
So many people see my success story
and they wonder what's different about me
Am I special?
no
Do I come from a rich family?
No
Am I some sort of genius? Nonsense, my teacher said that I was too stupid too learn
So what's different?
It's very simple
I had somebody who believe in me
And I never gave up
That's it
Studies has shown that intelligence, talent
and social status have very little correlation with your long term success in life
So if you can find the person
If you can find somebody who believes in you
Somebody who can look at you in the eye
and tell you that you're not stupid
you're not crazy
go for it
THAT changes everything
everything
My drive has always been to fix stuff.
and whenever I saw something I want to be there to fix it, or make it better
or finding it get more optimal resolutions.
whenever I saw a toy or a desk and bicycle
or the school or politics in Italy.
I want to fix everything
didn't matter what it was
couldn't help it
and when I was twelve I saw this thing, this computer
which I could program myself
and it will do stuff for me
and I was like holy cow
this is amazing
Seriously, I didn't have any money
I didn't have any resources, I don't have any budget
But suddenly, I could solve humongous problems
that used to required thousands of people
just by myself
the only thing I needed was
determination, passion, interest, and patience. lots of patience.
but then
when I found a community of activists, of hackers, of makers
people who challenge me, people who inspire me
everything got so much better, so much faster, so much quicker
and so much more interesting and engaging.
It increased my range, in orders of magnitude
and we need to foster our creativity.
I think that has a lot to do with mentorship
with guidance
First I had my parents who believed in me
And then, my school, the college
and then countless other people to which
I owe everything
everything that I am now
there are many people here on the stage
you can see them
not crazy, I don't really see them
but you know what I mean
I am standing on their shoulders
If it hadn't been for them, I would not be here now
talking to you
and technology is now making this process easier, more skills available than ever.
Because your mentor doesn't have to be in the same village, doesn't have to be in the same town
or even the same country
doesn't even have to speak the same language
we can't forget that only 6% of the world speak English natively
and 73% of the world doesn't understand any English
But now technology is taking down all these barriers.
For the first time in human history
we have the technological tools to bring about a revolution in education
But it won't come by itself
We need people too
and also we need the right mindset
So that's my project, esplori
Imagine if the sum of human knowledge were available to everyone, on earth,
anywhere on earth, to everyone in any language on video
and imagine you could be a farmer in India
or a hacker in Taiwan
or a solar engineer in Ecuador
Imagine if you can teach your skill to anybody
regardless where they are, or what language they speak
or how rich they are
wouldn't it be great?
But better yet, what if you can be a guide
what if you could be a mentor
to someone who hasn't figured out yet what they want to do
whenever I travel, I see thousands and thousands of young people
kids who tell me that I don't know what to do
but I need to decide my university and my parents are telling me this and my job and blalalalala
They don't have the time to think, to experiment
They don't have any guidance
What if we could use technology to make that happen easily
Imagine a strong community of dedicated individuals
who want to help each other
who are solving challenging and fun problems
everything that I have talked about until now in this 13 minutes
Everything that I've learned in my life
everything that I am
is right here in this project
so this is it
It's my mission, my passion.
It's my drive.
It's what keeps me awake at night at 3 a.m and happy to do it
and with your help
I think we can make it.
So that's my part
and since this is a conference about education
here's your homework
If you can inspire somebody
to follow their passion
If you can give them a chance
and make them feel special
I can tell you. In fact, I can guarantee you
from personal experience
You will have saved a life.
So off you go
save a life