Today’s guest believes in the power of technology to solve the problems we face as a society and he has devoted his career to using technology to make purpose-driven learning count. For the last five years, Michael Robbins has led District of Learning, a technology-enabled ecosystem for 'any time, anywhere' learning in Washington DC, an initiative from the MacArthur Foundation. He also has experience as a senior advisor for the Obama administration, where Michael led work for the US Department of Education and the White House in community engagement and digital transformation in education. He has advised and collaborated with mayors, school superintendents, community organizers, nonprofit leaders, and corporate executives on a range of public initiatives. Today Michael joins us to explain how he believes that we can co-create solutions for our education crisis, transform learning with the power of data of ownership and technology, and come together to learn what we need for life in order to chart a better pathway for a digital society. To find out more about the decentralization of learning, how we can put power in the hands of individuals, and co-create a better future, tune in today!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Thoughts on Arthur Clarke’s third law and the gap between what’s happening in tech and what people understand.
• Michael’s background and his passion for the intersection between technology and education. 
• Michael’s belief in the power of technology to solve the problems we face as a society.
• The District of Learning project and its goal to decentralize learning and put power in the hands of individuals.
• The opportunities that lie in individual data ownership and especially learning data.
• The importance of thinking about different value models for how we generate income and value exchange, individually and collectively. 
• Ownership rights of ancient cultures that could merge well with society and digital rights.
• Insight into ‘Solid technology’ and ‘edge computing’ to claim power individually.
• The concept of semi-autonomous decentralized application systems for native democracy and justice and establishing governance. 
• How Learning Pathmakers is charting a path for a distributed learning ledger. 
• What 501 (c)(6) corporation status is and why Learning Pathmakers is pursuing it.
• Michael’s approach to decentralized education to make purpose-driven learning count all the time and everywhere.
• The need for a new generation of public-minded young people who are interested in inventing this next generation of digitally native governance. 

Tweetables:

“For me, the height of innovative achievement isn’t sending a billionaire into near space, it’s using the ingenuity that we have, our technology, our people, our commitment, to solve the problems that face us a society.” — Michael Robbins [0:05:38]

“Our schools have a lot of recovery to do but we also, in our educational approaches, have to prepare young people to be digital natives in a way that most people don’t even understand where this is heading.” — Michael Robbins [0:25:10]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Michael Robbins on LinkedIn 

Learning Pathmakers

MacArthur Foundation 

Open Badges  

Bahar Ansari

Bahar Ansari on LinkedIn

Bahar Ansari on Instagram