it’s 2006 at the time I’m a high school
teacher in a small
mining town in the north of England it’s
lunchtime and because it’s raining
heavily outside in my classroom is that
a small group of students aged around 13
and I like these kids a lot being
teenagers and being naturally curious
about their teacher they asked me where
I live and I tell them that I live in
the nearest big city their eyes light up
they ask me what this city is like what
it’s like to live there they speak of it
as if it’s a far-off magical place it
was just a 20-minute drive away but
their worlds were so small that it may
as well have been New York or San
Francisco we then get unto the topic of
the future I asked them what they’d like
to be when they’re older and when they
answered my heart sank the first boy a
bright caring kid called Josh he tells
me that he’ll probably end up on welfare
just like his parents many of this tell
me that they actually hoped to be on
welfare when they’re older the rest they
had their sights set on low-paying local
service jobs many of the boys wanted to
be taxi drivers many of the girls wants
to be hair stylists you see they’ve
grown up in a town that had been left
behind and forgotten industry had moved
on and evolved things had changed
progress had happened and in the 1980s
their parents and grandparents had been
laid off from the coal mines and many of
them had not found new work and with the
kids in front of me that cycle was said
to continue when these kids looked
around them all they saw was a world
where the only possibilities were to be
a hairdresser be a taxi driver or to be
on welfare and it was the limit of all
they thought they could achieve that
conversation at lunchtime really stuck
with me 10 years later I live in a very
different world I live in San Francisco
worked for a large technology company
back then I was surrounded by the past
and the people held back by it but today
I’m surrounded by the future and the
people help who are helping to build it
and I’m here today having lived in an
experience both of these worlds that
rainy classroom at lunch time 10 years
ago and today living in Silicon Valley
and helping to build the future to talk
about how critical it is
we willfully set out to create a future
that works for everybody now it sure is
an exciting time today shopping malls
are closing and been replaced by slick
smartphone apps farmers using drones and
sensors and artificial intelligence to
increase their crop yields hailing a
taxi in the street kind of feels like a
relic from a bygone era all of a sudden
and especially in San Francisco
autonomous vehicles are actually
starting to roam our streets you see
lots of these around it’s an interesting
time because every industry – right now
is being transformed forever by
technology and every company whatever
its focus will soon be a technology
company at its core and in the coming
years whole new industries are going to
be spawned that we can’t even imagine
yet many of today’s jobs will disappear
or will be changed beyond recognition
by these forces and of course many new
jobs will emerge but they can look very
different and they’re gonna require very
different sets of skills from the jobs
of today industry is reinventing itself
and so too must those seeking work and
opportunity and stability but as those
kids and their grandparents and parents
knew when progress happens when things
change when industry shifts people and
areas can get left behind and as the
world moves ahead at this rapid pace
were at greater risk than ever before of
leaving hold sections of the population
whole areas behind and with recent
political history in mind it is sobering
to imagine how even deeper divisions how
an even bigger gap will affect our
country our communities and our world in
this new economy many people are left
wondering what is my place and the
answer all too often is that you don’t
have one what we want instead is a world
where instead of leaving people behind
technology brings people along for the
ride where it enables them and allows
them to fulfill their potential well I
think back to those students what
strikes me most is the amount of
unfulfilled potential they represented
smart bright creative kids with so much
to offer the world potential that was
hidden in planes
and potential there was destined to go
untapped but we know from history that
when we couldn’t alot came a potential
when we can unleash untapped pools of
talent it results in broad increases in
productivity and quality of life because
in a knowledge service is an information
economy this is where growth comes from
technology plus human potential so how
can we build this future what do we do
well it’s a really difficult problem
with lots of moving parts and it’s
difficult to tackle this and a 15-minute
talk but I wanted to cover some things
today I think we can start doing to
start working towards this feature first
we need to find an enable and embrace
new ways of working you see the way that
we work today hasn’t really changed in a
long time and it’s really a hangover
from a bygone era a past where we used
to drive to a physical office 9:00 to
5:00 where paper correspondents arrived
at our desks every day where the
landline telephone was a main keep main
connection to the world and where
collaboration and connection mainly took
place at the local level and none of
this is true today and our ability to
contribute and connect and collaborate
remotely has reached new heights and the
world’s largest technology companies
like Facebook and Google and Microsoft
today are working on amazing new
technologies that are going to make this
even more immersive what you’re seeing
here is Facebook’s virtual meeting space
I’ve had a chance to try this on and
when you put the headset on your brain
believes you’re in the room with other
people it’s amazing and Facebook
actually did an early test but they had
a bug in the software when when people
landed in this space their hands were
actually connected to each other and so
people put the headset on and land in
the space and suddenly they’d be
face-to-face with somebody else with
their hands connected to them and they
noticed that it actually caused them to
blush in real life their brains believe
they’re in the space so if you get a
chance to try this I encourage you to
and soon you’ll be able to strap on a
$200 headset and be in the same space
with other people and I think if
companies embrace this kind of
technology and put new platforms and
procedures and hiring processes in place
it can really start to reverse the
trends that we’re seeing of opportunity
being concentrated in just a handful of
metro areas that’s really cool
and we know that for every good job that
we can keep in the local economy rather
than moving to one of those metro areas
it actually has a multiplier effect over
time creating additional jobs in the
local economy next and this is so
important to me as a former teacher we
really need to find and develop and
fully embrace new ways of learning it
used to be that you could develop a very
specific set of skills early in your
life you get a degree or diploma a
certificate and then pretty much rely on
that skill set for the rest of your life
until retirement and of course those
days are now gone and the credentials of
yesterday are really holding us back in
so many ways the opportunity that they
provide just doesn’t scale and often
they just exacerbate and multiply
already deep divisions in opportunity
students leaving school today will also
have five or more distinct careers
throughout their lives and reinvention
is really the new normal these kids are
going to have to reinvent themselves
throughout their lives and pick up new
skills align with the needs of industry
and we need education systems that allow
them to do this this is also the case
for all the workers that may be
displaced from their jobs today by
automation and perhaps for the first
time in their working lives they’re
going to have to reinvent themselves –
they’re going to have to learn entirely
new sets of skills in order to continue
supporting their families
we need employers to start looking at
the workforce today start identifying
sections of their working population
that might be affected by automation in
the future and to start proactively
helping them to develop future-proof
skills that align with their future
needs in the future needs of industry as
well and this is in the interests of all
of us but of course today anybody can
learn skills with a smartphone or a
tablet and that’s really amazing and
with the new technologies like virtual
reality this learning is going to become
even more immersive and engaging and
accessible at low cost but it’s often
not given as much currency as more
traditional forms of learning and we
need to turn that around
we need an employer’s to start giving
this informal and technology-based
learning more currency because it’s much
more scalable and the best thing your
schools can do is to ignite a lifelong
love of learning in students that’s
going to see them through this lifetime
of change and disruption and reinvention
but none of this matters if your world
is so small that you don’t believe
there’s anything out there for you if
you’re a high school student leaving
school in a small rural town or in
distressed urban community if you’re a
person who’s been displaced from their
job by automation if you don’t believe
in your heart that you’re worthy and
capable of making a contribution and if
you believe the opportunity is for other
people in faraway cities are not people
like you then all the work and learning
opportunities in the world will make any
difference
and there’s something we can all do to
help many of the people in this audience
and watching this talk came from
communities where opportunity wasn’t
widespread communities that are at risk
of being chained to the past if this is
you I believe that we have a
responsibility to go back into our
communities to connect with people to
mentor people to help light a path to
opportunity for people who may not be
able to see it today if you think that
there was probably somebody in your past
that did this for you and now is the
time to be that person for others I’d
like to see and I really believe that we
can build a world where in the future
when a teacher sits down with some
students on a rainy lunchtime in a
classroom and asked them what they’d
like to be when they’re older but that
teacher gets a very different response
than I did ten years ago a world where
students futures are full of excitement
and abundance and opportunity whether in
love with learning and they know how to
use tools that I can let them redevelop
their skills over their lifetimes where
they know there are good jobs they can
get right where they are I believe we
can build that world and you can always
part of it thank you
[Applause]
teacher in a small
mining town in the north of England it’s
lunchtime and because it’s raining
heavily outside in my classroom is that
a small group of students aged around 13
and I like these kids a lot being
teenagers and being naturally curious
about their teacher they asked me where
I live and I tell them that I live in
the nearest big city their eyes light up
they ask me what this city is like what
it’s like to live there they speak of it
as if it’s a far-off magical place it
was just a 20-minute drive away but
their worlds were so small that it may
as well have been New York or San
Francisco we then get unto the topic of
the future I asked them what they’d like
to be when they’re older and when they
answered my heart sank the first boy a
bright caring kid called Josh he tells
me that he’ll probably end up on welfare
just like his parents many of this tell
me that they actually hoped to be on
welfare when they’re older the rest they
had their sights set on low-paying local
service jobs many of the boys wanted to
be taxi drivers many of the girls wants
to be hair stylists you see they’ve
grown up in a town that had been left
behind and forgotten industry had moved
on and evolved things had changed
progress had happened and in the 1980s
their parents and grandparents had been
laid off from the coal mines and many of
them had not found new work and with the
kids in front of me that cycle was said
to continue when these kids looked
around them all they saw was a world
where the only possibilities were to be
a hairdresser be a taxi driver or to be
on welfare and it was the limit of all
they thought they could achieve that
conversation at lunchtime really stuck
with me 10 years later I live in a very
different world I live in San Francisco
worked for a large technology company
back then I was surrounded by the past
and the people held back by it but today
I’m surrounded by the future and the
people help who are helping to build it
and I’m here today having lived in an
experience both of these worlds that
rainy classroom at lunch time 10 years
ago and today living in Silicon Valley
and helping to build the future to talk
about how critical it is
we willfully set out to create a future
that works for everybody now it sure is
an exciting time today shopping malls
are closing and been replaced by slick
smartphone apps farmers using drones and
sensors and artificial intelligence to
increase their crop yields hailing a
taxi in the street kind of feels like a
relic from a bygone era all of a sudden
and especially in San Francisco
autonomous vehicles are actually
starting to roam our streets you see
lots of these around it’s an interesting
time because every industry – right now
is being transformed forever by
technology and every company whatever
its focus will soon be a technology
company at its core and in the coming
years whole new industries are going to
be spawned that we can’t even imagine
yet many of today’s jobs will disappear
or will be changed beyond recognition
by these forces and of course many new
jobs will emerge but they can look very
different and they’re gonna require very
different sets of skills from the jobs
of today industry is reinventing itself
and so too must those seeking work and
opportunity and stability but as those
kids and their grandparents and parents
knew when progress happens when things
change when industry shifts people and
areas can get left behind and as the
world moves ahead at this rapid pace
were at greater risk than ever before of
leaving hold sections of the population
whole areas behind and with recent
political history in mind it is sobering
to imagine how even deeper divisions how
an even bigger gap will affect our
country our communities and our world in
this new economy many people are left
wondering what is my place and the
answer all too often is that you don’t
have one what we want instead is a world
where instead of leaving people behind
technology brings people along for the
ride where it enables them and allows
them to fulfill their potential well I
think back to those students what
strikes me most is the amount of
unfulfilled potential they represented
smart bright creative kids with so much
to offer the world potential that was
hidden in planes
and potential there was destined to go
untapped but we know from history that
when we couldn’t alot came a potential
when we can unleash untapped pools of
talent it results in broad increases in
productivity and quality of life because
in a knowledge service is an information
economy this is where growth comes from
technology plus human potential so how
can we build this future what do we do
well it’s a really difficult problem
with lots of moving parts and it’s
difficult to tackle this and a 15-minute
talk but I wanted to cover some things
today I think we can start doing to
start working towards this feature first
we need to find an enable and embrace
new ways of working you see the way that
we work today hasn’t really changed in a
long time and it’s really a hangover
from a bygone era a past where we used
to drive to a physical office 9:00 to
5:00 where paper correspondents arrived
at our desks every day where the
landline telephone was a main keep main
connection to the world and where
collaboration and connection mainly took
place at the local level and none of
this is true today and our ability to
contribute and connect and collaborate
remotely has reached new heights and the
world’s largest technology companies
like Facebook and Google and Microsoft
today are working on amazing new
technologies that are going to make this
even more immersive what you’re seeing
here is Facebook’s virtual meeting space
I’ve had a chance to try this on and
when you put the headset on your brain
believes you’re in the room with other
people it’s amazing and Facebook
actually did an early test but they had
a bug in the software when when people
landed in this space their hands were
actually connected to each other and so
people put the headset on and land in
the space and suddenly they’d be
face-to-face with somebody else with
their hands connected to them and they
noticed that it actually caused them to
blush in real life their brains believe
they’re in the space so if you get a
chance to try this I encourage you to
and soon you’ll be able to strap on a
$200 headset and be in the same space
with other people and I think if
companies embrace this kind of
technology and put new platforms and
procedures and hiring processes in place
it can really start to reverse the
trends that we’re seeing of opportunity
being concentrated in just a handful of
metro areas that’s really cool
and we know that for every good job that
we can keep in the local economy rather
than moving to one of those metro areas
it actually has a multiplier effect over
time creating additional jobs in the
local economy next and this is so
important to me as a former teacher we
really need to find and develop and
fully embrace new ways of learning it
used to be that you could develop a very
specific set of skills early in your
life you get a degree or diploma a
certificate and then pretty much rely on
that skill set for the rest of your life
until retirement and of course those
days are now gone and the credentials of
yesterday are really holding us back in
so many ways the opportunity that they
provide just doesn’t scale and often
they just exacerbate and multiply
already deep divisions in opportunity
students leaving school today will also
have five or more distinct careers
throughout their lives and reinvention
is really the new normal these kids are
going to have to reinvent themselves
throughout their lives and pick up new
skills align with the needs of industry
and we need education systems that allow
them to do this this is also the case
for all the workers that may be
displaced from their jobs today by
automation and perhaps for the first
time in their working lives they’re
going to have to reinvent themselves –
they’re going to have to learn entirely
new sets of skills in order to continue
supporting their families
we need employers to start looking at
the workforce today start identifying
sections of their working population
that might be affected by automation in
the future and to start proactively
helping them to develop future-proof
skills that align with their future
needs in the future needs of industry as
well and this is in the interests of all
of us but of course today anybody can
learn skills with a smartphone or a
tablet and that’s really amazing and
with the new technologies like virtual
reality this learning is going to become
even more immersive and engaging and
accessible at low cost but it’s often
not given as much currency as more
traditional forms of learning and we
need to turn that around
we need an employer’s to start giving
this informal and technology-based
learning more currency because it’s much
more scalable and the best thing your
schools can do is to ignite a lifelong
love of learning in students that’s
going to see them through this lifetime
of change and disruption and reinvention
but none of this matters if your world
is so small that you don’t believe
there’s anything out there for you if
you’re a high school student leaving
school in a small rural town or in
distressed urban community if you’re a
person who’s been displaced from their
job by automation if you don’t believe
in your heart that you’re worthy and
capable of making a contribution and if
you believe the opportunity is for other
people in faraway cities are not people
like you then all the work and learning
opportunities in the world will make any
difference
and there’s something we can all do to
help many of the people in this audience
and watching this talk came from
communities where opportunity wasn’t
widespread communities that are at risk
of being chained to the past if this is
you I believe that we have a
responsibility to go back into our
communities to connect with people to
mentor people to help light a path to
opportunity for people who may not be
able to see it today if you think that
there was probably somebody in your past
that did this for you and now is the
time to be that person for others I’d
like to see and I really believe that we
can build a world where in the future
when a teacher sits down with some
students on a rainy lunchtime in a
classroom and asked them what they’d
like to be when they’re older but that
teacher gets a very different response
than I did ten years ago a world where
students futures are full of excitement
and abundance and opportunity whether in
love with learning and they know how to
use tools that I can let them redevelop
their skills over their lifetimes where
they know there are good jobs they can
get right where they are I believe we
can build that world and you can always
part of it thank you
[Applause]
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