Opinion
What are we discovering about the speed of change—by aligning governments; industries; academia and ‘future talent’ together?
This was a primary question going into the tenth Future Talent Council summit–which took place in Stockholm a fortnight ago.
More than 40 countries were represented among 350 invited attendees. Industry leaders such as former Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg and EY Global Talent Attraction & Acquisition Leader Irmgard Naudin ten Cate gave captivating presentations.
What stood out? An awareness of the tensions at play globally caused by living in a two-speed world. A world in which forces which are immediate, urgent and rapid (like AI) compete for talent those which (like patient capital) are slow, measured and deliberate.
Nowhere is that tension more evident than in education, but we see it everywhere.
Pace determines priority. Impetuous and nativist policy (think Washington) upends the world order: of tariffs, trade, borders and geopolitics.
No wonder there is a countervailing emphasis on those things which are more deliberate, centred, logical, anchored and slower-paced.
Everything from onsen or forest-bathing to the slow food movement. Ultra-marathoning, Naturopathic medicine; Ayurvedic medicine; meditation; trekking; Santiago de Compostela; pilgrimages; even the PhD.
As a result, skills percolate slowly.
On the other side, we still do see the rise of the rapid and the breakneck: everything from Design Sprints to ‘zero to 100’ drag-races; rapid prototyping; speed-to-market invention; lightning insights; Anthropic; Claude—whatever is next.
As a result, skills accelerate rapidly.
How then, do we best prepare our thousands of talented students, so they can anticipate the work-needs and future skills requirements generated by both forces?
These debates were there on the floor of the Future Talent Council summit.
Can we interpolate the two poles of fast and slow? Can we achieve an optimally-aligned ‘best of both worlds’ approach? Finally, can successful systems of learning integrate both impulses successfully—and simultaneously?
We think some can and some do. The Minerva Project—which was showcased in Stockholm—is one such. The Reggio Emilia Method of Early Childhood Education is another coherent example. Time series-based educational research projects are a third. Our own VU Block Model–which both compresses and intensifies learning in four-week renditions and extends the academic timetable to embrace the full calendar year—is a fourth.
Some pedagogies—like the above—are embracing and non-polarised in terms of time and excellence. They enhance AI fluency and confidence. They unleash curiosity. They empower peer-to-peer learning. They are collective. And they are inclusive.
The key is that models matter. Methods matter. Learning design matters. To use a term already popularised in behavioural economics and psychology nearly 15 years ago, thinking both ‘fast and slow’ is possible, desirable and widely applicable.
To focus further: there are four conjoined ‘DP’ terms which express where many of us are in further education today.
The first is Design Principles, evoked above.
The second is the question of the so-called ‘Degree Premium’. Although the lifetime earnings post-degree debate is raging, this assumes that degrees will stay more or less the same worldwide. But, as the Future Talent Council’s Centre for Education Transformation demonstrates, major pedagogical changes are on foot globally—rapidly and strikingly. And time is the new academic gold. Between the two s reinvention. Of so-called Industry Degrees—a transformed and updated version of what used to be called the co-op model. And of many other radical approaches.
As a result, programs that formerly took four calendar years to finish can now be optimised for completion in three (or even two) years–with no degradation of quality or experience.
That is cause for both hope and optimism.
The third conjoined term we encountered in Stockholm was ‘Disaster Preparedness’. Look at the education systems of war-torn countries like Ukraine. Since the Russian invasion 2022, life-threatening events have impacted education in the most dramatic way possible. It has been a clear matter of survival. Schooling was totally interrupted. Traditional university infrastructure was frequently bombed and destroyed. But clever hybrid forms of higher learning—often in public facilities—rose up in their place.
In that way, Disaster Preparedness gave birth to Distributed Programming. This produced Ukrainian educational offerings which were often predominantly online but low-fi; with carefully organised, flexible sites and study literally everywhere–from bomb shelters to former government offices. Guerilla learning. Traumatic teaching. Clever reinvention.
The results? Success on a surprising scale—with thousands of university students persevering and succeeding, despite incredible odds.
At a time of unprecedented fracturing in the world, it is wonderful to be able to see and to pursue these educational stories of hope, change, revolution and uplift. Of slow and fast—together.
My colleagues—such as Dr Kyle Turner—who is researching First Nations sovereignty in relation to AI, live and breathe that balance between two-speed and one-speed progress on a daily basis.
Kyle is pushing our understanding of the hybrid potential of AI in creative, Indigenous community-driven ways. In ways in which the locus of power shifts, and in ways that matter right now, and–equally–into the future. In ways in which the interests served are collective as much as they are individual.
This is the moment.
And it ushers in a fourth conjoined term: Dramatic Potential. The potential to create a true continuum of educational capability built on foresight. Of universities where industry allies co-design curriculum in surprising modes that are (like the VU Block) both fit-for-purpose and contemporary. Where rapid anticipation of the the future gives rise to more deliberate understandings of the past–and vice versa. Where the insights and scenarios generated by AI empower human decision-making in surprisingly positive ways.
Where—for example—a comprehensive 'slow' approach to preventative population health research lessens the need for rapid and urgent ambulance attendance in the home—and for so-called Emergency Medicine. Where ‘slow’ can obviate the need for ‘fast’.
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We came to Stockholm because it is one of the best places on earth to listen deeply to others; to inject remedies into the body politic that the world needs so much.
It needs them now. It needs speakers and doers. Fighters and singers. Collaborators and synthesisers.
The challenge now is not to choose between speed and depth but to design for both.
To hasten slowly, and fast—at the same time.
Professor Adam Shoemaker is Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University. Victoria University is a Member of the Future Talent Council.