Ayesha Khanna - Externships: Why Partnerships between corporations and schools is the best way to teach STEM #futureschools

Ayesha Khanna speaking at Future Schools

Khanna began by talking about the future of work. 47% of jobs will be automated.

Khanna is the Co-Founder and CEO of The Keys Academy and innovative enrichment hub who champions the concept of "externships" which allow secondary students to apply their learning to 21st century industries.

Our new colleagues and competitors are robots.

Our new tools are becoming increasing sophisticated and are reducing in cost.

I am not interested technology, I am interested in giving young people creative confidence. I LOVE this quote. Consider it stolen and appropriated.

Our new jobs are going to involve wearable technology and virtual reality.

We are going to live differently. Khanna gave the example of designer babies.

How we work will be different we are going to see "the rise of the connected freelancer" (another goody - thanks Ayesha!).

Telepresence is going to become increasingly normal.

Smart nano-workers. For example 'HourlyNerd' where you can pitch projects to freelance projects around the world.

We also face a future where cyborgs will become a reality and death is regarded as an illness or problem that can be solved.

Consider the driverless car or driverless trucks, how many people are impacted as a result of this, how many people lose jobs?

Khanna then spoke of John Seely Brown's concepts of homo sapien, homo faber and homo ludens. I need to get my head around this, but in the mean time here's an explanation I found - thanks Google.

Source: http://www.johnseelybrown.com/rlcspan.pdf

Khanna then talked of her concept of "externships" rather than students going in to a company and businesses not knowing what they are doing, students instead tackle a real problem that the company is tackling and students work on this outside of the company. Students still have to understand, deeply, the constraints of the company and the work on coming up with solutions. Another freakin' awesome idea. Mental note - appropriate this idea. Now.

This makes so much sense. They may not solve the problem, but they are exposed to the market, they develop an understanding of business and engage in authentic learning and genuine problem solving. What a bloody good example of win win!

Watch our Larry Rosenstock, I think I have a new educrush.

The are so many parallels between The Keys Academy and The Mind Lab, I love that Khanna even makes the same claim as Frances Valintine - these spaces only need to exist for a period of time. When schools catch up, they won't be needed.

I suspect it may take a little while to catch up with awesome women.

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