When Education matters most: when you are living a System Shift, the Past stops being the key source of guidance for the Present & Future

For all of us – leaders, practitioners, entrepreneurs, educators, program managers, technologists – busying ourselves with our urban futures, the truth is staring us in the face: our original education no longer is the academic source of guidance to the skills and knowledge we need to get it right. Digitalization has had a profound impact on our communities, our cities, our nations in ways we could not truly foretell. It has resulted in nothing less than a System Shift, complete with new (types of) services, new (types of) jobs, new(types) of companies, new values, new patterns of interaction at almost any level of our societies and our cities in particular. And to make it even more complex: Digitalization is giving birth to yet new System Shifts. Think Artificial Intelligence and the complete virtualization of ‘things urban’ as we enter the age of the metaverse or multiverse or whatever label one prefers: these technology developments enter our lives as a storm we need to embrace, full of opportunities, yet almost impossible to walk away from if one were to wish doing so. These developments again shake the system of the urban fabric to its core to the point the boundaries of what we call ‘urban’ and ‘not-so-urban’ starts to blur. Our generation(s) are facing a multiple System Shifts that happen to power all transition journeys our communities and or organizations face: Climate change, the energy transition, the emergence of the circular economy and digitalization itself. Have you ever been part of an event or exchange on matters of urban innovation and digitalization that you felt you were really short of the knowledge needed to make a sensible contribution? Well, I have. I suppose we all have. Two things come to our aid best. First, understanding it’s not always what you know but who you know: we cannot digest all the know-how required to get the future job done, but we can surround ourselves with the right people that sit on a chunk of the skills and know-how we seek. Second, we got to systematically educate ourselves. Our diplomas and certificates of education past may no longer be sufficient. If you live in times of a System Shift, the past ceases to be a source of guidance for the present & future. We have to dare to learn – in formal and informal ways. Education that matters to us, you, your challenges and aspirations – in the understanding that there is no one size fits all in our educational needs, just ike our cities are all unique, addressing unique challenges and leveraging varying comparative advantages. Education that talks to the here and nowright up till the edge of the future – ranging from the philosophical and technical to the highly social and applicable. Education that by definition is as multi-disciplinary as are the System Shifts.

And here is why I am such a firm believer that we made the right choice inbuilding the Urban Innovators Academic Leadership Program.

Launched by Urban Innovators Global in partnership with Bable Smart Cities,the program is able to build fully tailored education programs, onsite andonline, around the needs of a given team, organization, community, city –globally. The global network of contributors to the program consists of both experts and educators, and many of them are both – a notable key differentiator. Being a great expert does not equal being a great educator, and vice versa. At the same time, the network consists of so many peers – fellow public sector leaders, technologists, design-thinkers, city designers, architects, sociologists, data engineers, and so on, that the program is so much more than a school. It is also a community, a family of sorts. Let me add a personal perspective: I have worked for universities, something I continue to love doing. I have built dedicated urban innovation skills development programs before –and they proved effective. But this is the first time the best of the best of worlds is coming together, per the Urban Innovators Academic Leadership Program. Diverse, addressing any type of leader and practitioners, across thepublic and private sectors. A program that helps us expand what you know, but also who you know. A programs that helps us build a shared language, a shared way forward. We have to learn to grow comfortable with being uncomfortableas we address the massive system shifts we are currently navigating. To educate ourselves, our teams, our organizations, our communities: nothing could be more important.

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