so um after that I wrote a poem for you
guys I’m gonna set the expectation down
here look it’s not great but I promise
you by the end your life will just be a
little bit better I stand on this stage
because I believe in one thing I believe
now we can change everything you’ve
heard this before it’s not something new
Malala yousafzai and Steve Jobs – but
what’s different today is that for me
and you the education we receive can
actually teach us how to we’re part of
this generation they call gen z they
describe us as fortunate but mostly
carefree carefree – the hell do they
even know what we face okay maybe not
war not fighting for peace but certainly
now more than ever fighting to find our
place because the jobs of tomorrow are
not like the jobs of today they created
technology that would take that away but
guys that’s great that was the missing
link
and now finally our minds are free to
really think think big think wide think
beyond humanly possible because for the
first time that’s actually plausible our
jobs are going to be to make impossible
possible it’s like when humans first
stood on two feet freeing our hands that
were once obsolete now we can focus on
the change we envision because today we
can make that decision so the jobs of
tomorrow are not going to be like the
jobs of today because we are going to
make them that way so I stand on the
stage because I believe in one thing I
believe now we can change everything
and that change begins with this now
that we know 2/3 of students today are
going to be working in jobs that don’t
even exist yet we need to be teaching
for tomorrow instead of teaching for
today we even you and I are currently
being prepared for jobs that probably
will no longer exist the factory model
of education that we receive now is
fortunately still based on industrial
principles from the last century to
improve efficiency all you have to do is
look into our classrooms rows of desks a
factory line of students so what they do
they made us sit in circles but rows of
unfortunately the system of priming us
to be workers in a labor economy has
reached its expiry date and as we dive
into this exciting age of big data and
tech this next era of education
certainly needs to keep up so that we
walk away with an education that
actually relates to the jobs of tomorrow
that we have future proof skills
entrepreneurial skills that don’t go out
of date in the past redefined
entrepreneurship is starting something
new and your business maybe but I
challenge us all to consider today that
entrepreneurship is the mindset of
constant problem-solving it’s the
capability to turn problem into
opportunity and the best part is that
there is no age race or experience
barrier to getting started so there is
no reason to not get started early now I
say this because at 19 I launched my own
startup to be able to teach high school
students entrepreneurship it’s been a
wildly successful program in high
schools where I’ve literally seen
students thinking transformed but for my
very eyes on the first day I tell them
this to be a good student we work hard
we get all the right answers we conform
our mind to pass the test to be a good
entrepreneur we work hard we make a heap
for mistakes
and we adapt our mind to be able to
question why there was one right answer
in the first place by teaching these my
students to think like entrepreneurs I’m
shifting their mindset from focusing on
achieving success to focusing on
learning from
is and they finally let go of this fear
of failure once I do is one very simple
exercise I pull out my phone and I asked
them what apps on my home screen do you
think a wildly successful Twitter they
say brilliant well Evan Williams before
he was co-founder of Twitter he actually
launched a podcasting platform called
O’Day oh right after they launched Apple
launched podcast in iTunes and took over
the whole market Adair died it was an
epic failure but an epic learning lesson
that poured into his next project
Twitter link didn’t they say even better
Reid Hoffman before he was crew found ur
linked in he launched an online dating
platform called social net social net in
its first month had five signups I don’t
even have five friends but even I could
do better than that a complete failure
but a complete success in terms of
getting Hoffman to realize that actually
we need a matchmaking platform for
professionals instead and by the time we
get through my whole phone it’s very
strikingly clear that even these
seemingly wildly successful ventures all
have failure stories behind them and
it’s when my students realize that
actually failure is not a penalty that’s
almost like something unlocks within
them and they’re finally set free set
free to dream big and to try anything
and to make their own ideas happen
because you regardless the outcome
they’re always going to succeed in
learning from that experience so now
sixteen-year-old students in my program
are practicing turning their ideas into
reality they’re launching online
communities that give minority as a
voice they’re selling out homemade meals
faster than their school canteen can
even open for the day all because the
only way that they can make is if they
didn’t try in the first place and
once I’ve unlocked this fail-fast
mentality in my students then they can
become infinite learners now schools
attempts to teach us just that that
learning is a life long journey but only
after you can figure out how to find X
of course but being an infinite learner
means more than just a lifelong journey
it means that you’re also open to
learning from anyone anywhere now now
that sounds like super counterintuitive
that to be the expert you actually
listen and value people with less
experience and less knowledge than you
but I tell my students this that if you
walk into a room and you already think
that you’re the smartest person there
you’ve already proven that you’re not
because there’s always something you can
learn from others like last month I was
in Australia’s first startup accelerator
for migrant and Refugee or social
entrepreneurs there was not a single
founder who shared the same idea who
shared the same background age or even
the same set of languages that I did in
fact we were probably so diverse we
but I learned more about my own idea in
my own startup and the future of that
from a few days of talking to them then
a whole month of going at it alone and
researching the heck out of the
education space because the best
entrepreneurs know this to always talk
to people to speak to people because
there is a power in naivety when people
don’t yet know what you know they also
don’t yet know what can’t exist on what
barriers there are they’re a blank
canvas that goes well what if and when
we’re able to learn from everyone around
us that is when we have an infinite
amount of resources to be able to learn
for life and it is this infinite learner
trait that actually makes entrepreneurs
so successful at business because we
take the time to listen to our customers
our competition our collaborators even
just last month I had one of my students
launch her pilot test of selling healthy
snacks in her school locker room and the
first day all the students came up to
her or like how much money did you make
and her simple reply was you know thirty
dollars but that actually didn’t matter
all I wanted was your feedback and to
see if it actually tasted good now in
the measure of success shifts from the
dollar signs and the number of customers
to the learning opportunities to be able
to improve that’s where my students
realize that they can grow into infinite
learners now being entrepreneurial you
have to always put yourself in other
people always look at problems and other
people’s perspective that’s just the
basic principle of understanding a
customer put yourself in their shoes but
it’s also the mindset that we need to
improve the education that already
exists in classrooms today because the
best way to get someone to learn
something is to make them experience it
from the other side so I used to have
students who came to class late every
single lesson but instead of marking off
the role and punishing them if they had
three strikes I would make them through
a
30 minute group task where they had to
arrange it and have to achieve something
in that time now they’re on the other
side of the fence now they understand
how value every how valuable every
minute is and now they know how
frustrating it is when someone turns up
late for no reason
now they’ve learnt themselves never to
be late again I used to have students
who would walk in and complain that math
class was useless that finding X would
get them nowhere in life but instead of
telling them that hey look it would
probably be beneficial for your future I
showed them that it was going to be
essential simply about only one thing
trying to get them to balance a balance
sheet it was hard now they’re on the
other side of the fence and they
understand how mind-blowing ly
frustrating it is when things literally
don’t add up now they’ve learned for
themselves that there are real life
implications for what they’re learning
in the classroom and they go back to
math class inspired to find X I say
being entrepreneurial is often like the
last missing piece of the puzzle
that piece of the puzzle where you’ve
already searched the whole house and you
are certain that your brother has hidden
it from you but then you reach into your
back pocket and it was there all along
because the industrial model of
Education actually equips us
exceptionally well with the knowledge
that we need to solve future problems
it’s just missing that last little piece
of how we’re going to solve them and why
should we well in this next era of
Education why entrepreneurial thinking
needs to exist in high schools is
because young people are now more
powerful than ever today but also
because young people can no longer
afford to not take action right now over
50 percent of the world population is
under 30 never before have we had this
much of the world’s population as young
people never before have we had a whole
generation with the power of number
to be able to actually change the world
if we want to make a huge difference it
makes efficient sense to engage the
power of young people but it’s estimated
we only have at best a 23 year window to
do something with that power before the
impacts of an increasingly aging
population set in and we get outnumbered
by the 60-year overs so it’s in
everyone’s best interest to be educating
majority of the population to be solving
problems we’re all going to face but
whilst young people have more power than
ever today we are also
disproportionately impacted by all of
the world’s challenges 40% of the
world’s unemployed young people
forty-five percent of the world’s
homeless young people almost 50% of the
world currently living in extreme
poverty today our young people if we are
developing the solutions for our
generation
then who is we live in this hyper
connected world where at the touch of a
button we can be streamed to a brother
nation but young people are more
emotionally disconnected than ever we
live in a world of abundance where we
literally have enough food to feed every
single mouth on this planet yet one in
every two children still goes to bed
hungry at night we live in a
technological age where we have
literally figured out how to turn sewage
I’m talking like feces into drinking
water yet one in every five children in
the world still doesn’t have access to
clean water now if we are developing the
solutions to our problems for our
generation then who is
we need visionaries leaders and
changemakers to solve the global
challenges we’re going to face in the
next twenty three years we need to teach
and grow young minds to question that
surely there’s got to be a better way
surely there is a solution and when
other people question well what if it
doesn’t work instead we’ve got to hear
well what if it does because
entrepreneurship
is not about creating companies
entrepreneurship is about creating
change and so in this next era in
education we need to instill this
mindset of problem-solving because to be
quite honest it’s not very hard to
identify a problem in this world I mean
just go try and connect to the Monash
Wi-Fi roving there but to really deep
dive and understand why that problem
exists why does half of why do half of
the children under 5 in this world still
go to bed hungry at night and to solve
that root cause of the problem it’s
actually really freaking hard well
because they don’t have access to food
well why don’t they have access to food
because the crops don’t grow when it
doesn’t rain but instead of having these
band-aid solutions that merely scratch
the surface of the problem well here’s a
food handout for the day but we
fundraised for we’re going to have
systemic solutions that change the way
we live across the world no here is a
genetically modified crop that doesn’t
need rain to grow that is the
opportunity that awaits our generation
our future of work and our jobs are
going to be to identify those problems
that need to be solved to create
opportunities that don’t even exist yet
and to redesign the way that we work at
mass scale and the best part is it’s
already happening in the world around us
because when I say solving the problem
of middle class inequality what comes to
mind
probably not air B&B but that’s exactly
why it can exist today see 10 years ago
in 2008 the global financial crisis hit
Americans heart especially the middle
class who got who many of whom got laid
off the only reason that air B&B was one
of the very few benches that could take
off after the global financial crisis
and actually had home owners allow
strangers to come and sleep in their
homes was because middle-class home
owners needed that income after they got
laid off
it’s a real problem it’s an obvious
problem now a B&B is the shared economy
solution to for the Heather is hard done
by the global financial crisis but it’s
well disguised to us as a solution to
our travel and accommodation problems so
it’s possible it’s very possible to
solve some of the toughest challenges
were going to face with entrepreneurial
thinking young people are more important
and have more power than ever but we
need to be better prepared to think more
entrepreneurial e to change the way we
accept the world the jobs of tomorrow
are not like the jobs of today but we
should be excited that the future is
going that way there is so much to learn
and much more to learn
let’s start by teaching Gen Z to
understand that we’re the leaders with a
big task at hand to create a future
where problems are solved ideas are
nurtured and everyone’s involved
starting from nothing is already miles
ahead of not starting at all and waiting
to be led but let’s talk about those
two-thirds of jobs that don’t exist yet
because you and I are going to be in
them don’t forget today’s program is
tomorrow’s hologram –is the world now
more than ever is only limited by our
imagination because young people have
the absolute power of creation so dream
of the world that you want to be in
because today we can make that change
begin so I stand on the stage because I
believe in one thing I believe now we can change everything thank you
guys I’m gonna set the expectation down
here look it’s not great but I promise
you by the end your life will just be a
little bit better I stand on this stage
because I believe in one thing I believe
now we can change everything you’ve
heard this before it’s not something new
Malala yousafzai and Steve Jobs – but
what’s different today is that for me
and you the education we receive can
actually teach us how to we’re part of
this generation they call gen z they
describe us as fortunate but mostly
carefree carefree – the hell do they
even know what we face okay maybe not
war not fighting for peace but certainly
now more than ever fighting to find our
place because the jobs of tomorrow are
not like the jobs of today they created
technology that would take that away but
guys that’s great that was the missing
link
and now finally our minds are free to
really think think big think wide think
beyond humanly possible because for the
first time that’s actually plausible our
jobs are going to be to make impossible
possible it’s like when humans first
stood on two feet freeing our hands that
were once obsolete now we can focus on
the change we envision because today we
can make that decision so the jobs of
tomorrow are not going to be like the
jobs of today because we are going to
make them that way so I stand on the
stage because I believe in one thing I
believe now we can change everything
and that change begins with this now
that we know 2/3 of students today are
going to be working in jobs that don’t
even exist yet we need to be teaching
for tomorrow instead of teaching for
today we even you and I are currently
being prepared for jobs that probably
will no longer exist the factory model
of education that we receive now is
fortunately still based on industrial
principles from the last century to
improve efficiency all you have to do is
look into our classrooms rows of desks a
factory line of students so what they do
they made us sit in circles but rows of
unfortunately the system of priming us
to be workers in a labor economy has
reached its expiry date and as we dive
into this exciting age of big data and
tech this next era of education
certainly needs to keep up so that we
walk away with an education that
actually relates to the jobs of tomorrow
that we have future proof skills
entrepreneurial skills that don’t go out
of date in the past redefined
entrepreneurship is starting something
new and your business maybe but I
challenge us all to consider today that
entrepreneurship is the mindset of
constant problem-solving it’s the
capability to turn problem into
opportunity and the best part is that
there is no age race or experience
barrier to getting started so there is
no reason to not get started early now I
say this because at 19 I launched my own
startup to be able to teach high school
students entrepreneurship it’s been a
wildly successful program in high
schools where I’ve literally seen
students thinking transformed but for my
very eyes on the first day I tell them
this to be a good student we work hard
we get all the right answers we conform
our mind to pass the test to be a good
entrepreneur we work hard we make a heap
for mistakes
and we adapt our mind to be able to
question why there was one right answer
in the first place by teaching these my
students to think like entrepreneurs I’m
shifting their mindset from focusing on
achieving success to focusing on
learning from
is and they finally let go of this fear
of failure once I do is one very simple
exercise I pull out my phone and I asked
them what apps on my home screen do you
think a wildly successful Twitter they
say brilliant well Evan Williams before
he was co-founder of Twitter he actually
launched a podcasting platform called
O’Day oh right after they launched Apple
launched podcast in iTunes and took over
the whole market Adair died it was an
epic failure but an epic learning lesson
that poured into his next project
Twitter link didn’t they say even better
Reid Hoffman before he was crew found ur
linked in he launched an online dating
platform called social net social net in
its first month had five signups I don’t
even have five friends but even I could
do better than that a complete failure
but a complete success in terms of
getting Hoffman to realize that actually
we need a matchmaking platform for
professionals instead and by the time we
get through my whole phone it’s very
strikingly clear that even these
seemingly wildly successful ventures all
have failure stories behind them and
it’s when my students realize that
actually failure is not a penalty that’s
almost like something unlocks within
them and they’re finally set free set
free to dream big and to try anything
and to make their own ideas happen
because you regardless the outcome
they’re always going to succeed in
learning from that experience so now
sixteen-year-old students in my program
are practicing turning their ideas into
reality they’re launching online
communities that give minority as a
voice they’re selling out homemade meals
faster than their school canteen can
even open for the day all because the
only way that they can make is if they
didn’t try in the first place and
once I’ve unlocked this fail-fast
mentality in my students then they can
become infinite learners now schools
attempts to teach us just that that
learning is a life long journey but only
after you can figure out how to find X
of course but being an infinite learner
means more than just a lifelong journey
it means that you’re also open to
learning from anyone anywhere now now
that sounds like super counterintuitive
that to be the expert you actually
listen and value people with less
experience and less knowledge than you
but I tell my students this that if you
walk into a room and you already think
that you’re the smartest person there
you’ve already proven that you’re not
because there’s always something you can
learn from others like last month I was
in Australia’s first startup accelerator
for migrant and Refugee or social
entrepreneurs there was not a single
founder who shared the same idea who
shared the same background age or even
the same set of languages that I did in
fact we were probably so diverse we
but I learned more about my own idea in
my own startup and the future of that
from a few days of talking to them then
a whole month of going at it alone and
researching the heck out of the
education space because the best
entrepreneurs know this to always talk
to people to speak to people because
there is a power in naivety when people
don’t yet know what you know they also
don’t yet know what can’t exist on what
barriers there are they’re a blank
canvas that goes well what if and when
we’re able to learn from everyone around
us that is when we have an infinite
amount of resources to be able to learn
for life and it is this infinite learner
trait that actually makes entrepreneurs
so successful at business because we
take the time to listen to our customers
our competition our collaborators even
just last month I had one of my students
launch her pilot test of selling healthy
snacks in her school locker room and the
first day all the students came up to
her or like how much money did you make
and her simple reply was you know thirty
dollars but that actually didn’t matter
all I wanted was your feedback and to
see if it actually tasted good now in
the measure of success shifts from the
dollar signs and the number of customers
to the learning opportunities to be able
to improve that’s where my students
realize that they can grow into infinite
learners now being entrepreneurial you
have to always put yourself in other
people always look at problems and other
people’s perspective that’s just the
basic principle of understanding a
customer put yourself in their shoes but
it’s also the mindset that we need to
improve the education that already
exists in classrooms today because the
best way to get someone to learn
something is to make them experience it
from the other side so I used to have
students who came to class late every
single lesson but instead of marking off
the role and punishing them if they had
three strikes I would make them through
a
30 minute group task where they had to
arrange it and have to achieve something
in that time now they’re on the other
side of the fence now they understand
how value every how valuable every
minute is and now they know how
frustrating it is when someone turns up
late for no reason
now they’ve learnt themselves never to
be late again I used to have students
who would walk in and complain that math
class was useless that finding X would
get them nowhere in life but instead of
telling them that hey look it would
probably be beneficial for your future I
showed them that it was going to be
essential simply about only one thing
trying to get them to balance a balance
sheet it was hard now they’re on the
other side of the fence and they
understand how mind-blowing ly
frustrating it is when things literally
don’t add up now they’ve learned for
themselves that there are real life
implications for what they’re learning
in the classroom and they go back to
math class inspired to find X I say
being entrepreneurial is often like the
last missing piece of the puzzle
that piece of the puzzle where you’ve
already searched the whole house and you
are certain that your brother has hidden
it from you but then you reach into your
back pocket and it was there all along
because the industrial model of
Education actually equips us
exceptionally well with the knowledge
that we need to solve future problems
it’s just missing that last little piece
of how we’re going to solve them and why
should we well in this next era of
Education why entrepreneurial thinking
needs to exist in high schools is
because young people are now more
powerful than ever today but also
because young people can no longer
afford to not take action right now over
50 percent of the world population is
under 30 never before have we had this
much of the world’s population as young
people never before have we had a whole
generation with the power of number
to be able to actually change the world
if we want to make a huge difference it
makes efficient sense to engage the
power of young people but it’s estimated
we only have at best a 23 year window to
do something with that power before the
impacts of an increasingly aging
population set in and we get outnumbered
by the 60-year overs so it’s in
everyone’s best interest to be educating
majority of the population to be solving
problems we’re all going to face but
whilst young people have more power than
ever today we are also
disproportionately impacted by all of
the world’s challenges 40% of the
world’s unemployed young people
forty-five percent of the world’s
homeless young people almost 50% of the
world currently living in extreme
poverty today our young people if we are
developing the solutions for our
generation
then who is we live in this hyper
connected world where at the touch of a
button we can be streamed to a brother
nation but young people are more
emotionally disconnected than ever we
live in a world of abundance where we
literally have enough food to feed every
single mouth on this planet yet one in
every two children still goes to bed
hungry at night we live in a
technological age where we have
literally figured out how to turn sewage
I’m talking like feces into drinking
water yet one in every five children in
the world still doesn’t have access to
clean water now if we are developing the
solutions to our problems for our
generation then who is
we need visionaries leaders and
changemakers to solve the global
challenges we’re going to face in the
next twenty three years we need to teach
and grow young minds to question that
surely there’s got to be a better way
surely there is a solution and when
other people question well what if it
doesn’t work instead we’ve got to hear
well what if it does because
entrepreneurship
is not about creating companies
entrepreneurship is about creating
change and so in this next era in
education we need to instill this
mindset of problem-solving because to be
quite honest it’s not very hard to
identify a problem in this world I mean
just go try and connect to the Monash
Wi-Fi roving there but to really deep
dive and understand why that problem
exists why does half of why do half of
the children under 5 in this world still
go to bed hungry at night and to solve
that root cause of the problem it’s
actually really freaking hard well
because they don’t have access to food
well why don’t they have access to food
because the crops don’t grow when it
doesn’t rain but instead of having these
band-aid solutions that merely scratch
the surface of the problem well here’s a
food handout for the day but we
fundraised for we’re going to have
systemic solutions that change the way
we live across the world no here is a
genetically modified crop that doesn’t
need rain to grow that is the
opportunity that awaits our generation
our future of work and our jobs are
going to be to identify those problems
that need to be solved to create
opportunities that don’t even exist yet
and to redesign the way that we work at
mass scale and the best part is it’s
already happening in the world around us
because when I say solving the problem
of middle class inequality what comes to
mind
probably not air B&B but that’s exactly
why it can exist today see 10 years ago
in 2008 the global financial crisis hit
Americans heart especially the middle
class who got who many of whom got laid
off the only reason that air B&B was one
of the very few benches that could take
off after the global financial crisis
and actually had home owners allow
strangers to come and sleep in their
homes was because middle-class home
owners needed that income after they got
laid off
it’s a real problem it’s an obvious
problem now a B&B is the shared economy
solution to for the Heather is hard done
by the global financial crisis but it’s
well disguised to us as a solution to
our travel and accommodation problems so
it’s possible it’s very possible to
solve some of the toughest challenges
were going to face with entrepreneurial
thinking young people are more important
and have more power than ever but we
need to be better prepared to think more
entrepreneurial e to change the way we
accept the world the jobs of tomorrow
are not like the jobs of today but we
should be excited that the future is
going that way there is so much to learn
and much more to learn
let’s start by teaching Gen Z to
understand that we’re the leaders with a
big task at hand to create a future
where problems are solved ideas are
nurtured and everyone’s involved
starting from nothing is already miles
ahead of not starting at all and waiting
to be led but let’s talk about those
two-thirds of jobs that don’t exist yet
because you and I are going to be in
them don’t forget today’s program is
tomorrow’s hologram –is the world now
more than ever is only limited by our
imagination because young people have
the absolute power of creation so dream
of the world that you want to be in
because today we can make that change
begin so I stand on the stage because I
believe in one thing I believe now we can change everything thank you
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