< Previousa father I and many others around the world including royal households, world leaders, and visionary billionaire polymaths, as well as parents, students, and teachers, see the urgent need to modernise our industrial age education system which for the most part, and as many accept and admit, has changed little in what it teaches and how it teaches our children in almost two centuries. With the global rate of change accelerating, driven by new technologies and an increasingly digital and virtual connected society, the need to modernise what we teach students and how we teach them so that they can be future ready and prepared for everything the future throws their way is greater than ever, and in the vacuum of government and examination board leadership we and our partners have decided to forge ahead, light the way, and create a curriculum that makes sure everyone is prepared and that in the future noone is out skilled, surprised, or left behind. A HUMAN SOFTWARE UPGRADE In futurist circles one of the most popular sayings states that while technology is evolving at an exponential rate the human brain hasn’t had a software update for over 300,000 years but my reply to this point of view is that education is our software upgrade. After all, it is education that has given us the mental tool kit and skills we needed to help us envision and develop our collective futures whether it’s the discover of and invention of fire, the wheel, electricity, the loom, or the tractor, or whether it’s the development of Artificial Intelligence, autonomous companies and vehicles, genetic engineering, or millions of other world changing innovations. Furthermore, the benefits of education persist through the generations, like a pebble thrown into a lake the ripple effects radiate and have far reaching effects which not only magnify its importance in our society but also its impact. As the world evolves around us we and our education systems need to evolve to, and that is why I created this Codex, XPotential University, and the 311 Institute’s Exponential Futures Curriculum (EFC). Notes: 40311institute.comMATTHEW GRIFFIN 311INSTITUTE.com OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES PROGRESS THROUGH KNOWLEDGE . PROSPERITY THROUGH PEACE . STRENGTH THROUGH UNITY . - MATTHEW GRIFFIN . CEO . 311 INSTITUTETHE TIME TRAVELLER’S VIEW AI Art. Generated by MidJourney AIH AVE YOU ever taken time to consider what life will be like in the future? Say, for example, 5, 10, 20 or even 50 years out? Bearing in mind that in 10 or so years time your students will be entering the full time workforce, and that in another 50 they might still be working - albeit as they keep one eye on retirement. If you’re like most people then it’s likely you have given the future more than just a passing thought, but it’s also highly likely you spend much more of your time thinking about the near term than the medium or long term future. When it comes to our children’s education though I would argue we need to be thinking near, medium and long term, because while we’re busying ourselves in the here and now our children are in an education system that’s trying to prepare them for, among other things, life long careers that will span 50 years. And a lot will change in just the next decade - let alone the next 50 years. Putting that into perspective if your son or daughter are10 years old today then, depending on the country you live in, they’ll be aiming to retire around the year 2080, or perhaps even later - dates that are beyond even the scope of even this Codex. And if you consider just how much life has changed in the last 50 years, bearing in mind that change over the last few decades has been comparatively modest, compared to what’s coming at least, then soon you’ll likely come to the realisation that life in 2050, let alone in 2070 or 2080, will make today look positively primitive. LIFE IN THE FUTURE In order to try to put some of this in change in perspective I’m going to try and put it in context for you, with a twist at the end. Imagine you’re born with an inherited genetic disease, a terrible disease like Hunter’s Syndrome, but the technology exists to edit it right out of your genes in vivo, and suddenly you no longer die at the age of 20 but 80. Or imagine that the DNA in your cells has been programmed to not just identify diseases like Cancer in your body but also programmed to produce the drugs needed to eliminate them on the spot, while elsewhere nano-machines with enzyme engines navigate around your bloodstream looking for other signs of trouble. Imagine a world where people and 43311institute.commachines communicate with each other telepathically, where we can upload information to our minds, and not from text books or videos, while machines stream our memories to the internet, and where bacteria are our computing devices, storing our movies and processing information at a speed and scale we’ve never seen before. Imagine a world where products are printed and assembled using tractor beams, and where your clothes and food are all made in your own home, on demand, where the only cow you’ll see is in a museum, and where the world’s largest organisations and transportation systems are all fully autonomous. And this is just the beginning. But what about the twist I mentioned? Well, the twist is that all of this is already here, done and demonstrated and you can see it for yourselves. As a consequence, if you think the world your children are going to grow up in will resemble today’s then short term at least you’ll be right, but as all these breakthroughs become increasingly commercialised and mature your children’s future will make ours feel like the Stone Age - this is the future I’m trying to help prepare our children for. Notes: 44311institute.comMATTHEW GRIFFIN 311INSTITUTE.com IN THE FUTURE WE WILL NEED TO ADAPT AND LEARN AT EXTREME SPEEDTHE TIME TRAVELLER’S DILEMMAI N MANY respects it can be said that we have trouble predicting the future - the further out we travel along the time line and the broader our area of interest the fuzzier and more inaccurate our predictions become. But what if we looked at things from a different perspective, what if we based our information on what really occurred in the future, not just an extrapolation of data, but data based on actual, observed fact? In short, what if instead of being futurists we were time travellers with the power to go back in time with our perfect knowledge of today’s world and we tried to use that knowledge to help the people in the past prepare for today’s reality from the ultimate perspective - a Time Travellers perspective? Ironically, even though you might think that being blessed with this perfect knowledge would be the best solution to helping us design the right fit education and training systems we need you might be surprised by the challenges we face. In today’s world, as certain jobs types begin to dead end we know, for a fact, that there is a huge demand for Cyber Security experts and Data Scientists across a wide range of sectors. Armed with this knowledge our time traveller steps into his time machine, sets the digital dial to the year 1980 and careers back in time through his inter-stellar wormhole. Now, standing in his old schools assembly hall listening to the headmaster run through the daily roster he raises his hand from the margins, announces his presence, and boldly sets about regaling everyone about the fantastic tales of the future and what jobs there’ll be when they all get there. “There will be a huge demand for Cyber Security experts, and the pay will be great,” he announces assertively. “What’s a Cyber Security expert?” hollers back the headmaster from across the hall. “They’re people who help protect computers, data, and networks from cyber criminals who are using the internet to gain access to them so they can steal information and secrets for financial gain and other malicious purposes,” he answers. “Sounds great,” says the headmaster, “but just tell me one thing... What’s the internet?” As our Time Traveller tells the assembly 47311institute.comabout the future, the role the internet plays in society and how it helps billions of people and millions of companies connect with one another he looks at their quizzical faces and with some trepidation the prospect slowly dawns on him that they think he’s quite mad. His grand aspirations of helping these children, their teachers, and the politicians of the time navigate and prosper in the future jobs market begin to unravel in front of his very eyes. To people living just a few decades ago a tale like this would seem fantastical. Trapped by our linear view of the world I’d have to ask you what would you have thought if he was addressing you? If you’d had the power to change the education system, or the curriculum then, would you have, could you have? As the pace of global technological development and disruption continues to accelerate ironically our own minds and biases could turn out to be our own worst enemies, and if we’re going to give our children the best chance of prospering in the future we also have to change our thinking and embrace a futures mindset. This is the Time Traveller’s Dilemma. Notes: 48311institute.comNotes: 49311institute.comNext >