One of the points I’ve been mulling over since Tuesday is education. Sam Pitroda (a key figure in the development of India’s Telecoms/Technology industry) pointed out that the education strategy for this generation is being planned by 60 year old Civil Servants with a near obsolete world view. He used the example of his 6 year old granddaughter, able to google for any information she’s interested in and therefore able to skip ahead of set curricula – and set expectations.

Perhaps the place where most innovation is necessary is the classroom. Reading about the One Laptop Per Child project (and its perceived failure) has made me consider whether a similar programme would benefit UK children – where a ‘learn by doing’ approach and a radical computing device could help our children leap frog the office based paradigm presented by current PCs and instead use their collective creativity to make something new together. This would inculcate innovation better than just teaching them to use what’s already out there.

I feel that I’m going to have to think about this more but reading this Business Week article will give a bit of background to the OLPC project – and a perspective on why it might be seen to have failed.

We were thinking of Facebook and Google – cases where innovation seems to be quite capable of happening without a particular financial strategy. A case of ‘use-value’ triumphing over immediate economic value. And that creativity of thought is often stifled by financial strategy and planning (like funding applications for artists).

Just a wee thought from a bunch of grannies nattering over coffee…now back to work…

The interesting thing

What did other people think?