Learning and workforce technology CEOs, chief learning and talent officers and higher education leaders and investors were among those drawn to the ASU+GSV Summit 2021 held recently. Participants attended sessions on site in San Diego and virtually to address education and skills and discuss ways to ensure that all people have equal access to the future and empower learners.
The event began in 2010 as a collaboration between Arizona State University and Global Silicon Valley, a global community and investment platform focused on elevating innovation in the education and workforce sector. The annual event brings together organizations and individuals interested in transforming society and business around learning and work.
This year’s sessions included members of the ASU community including ASU scientist Ariel Anbar, who took part in the “Democratization of Higher Ed Content Creation: ASU and CMU” panel and Lev Gonick, ASU CIO, who spoke during the “Accelerating the Digital Transformation of Learning through 5G” session. Other speakers included Emmy-nominated writer, producer and actor Mindy Kaling and investigative reporter and documentarian Ronan Farrow.
ASU president Michael Crow took part in several sessions including “Coffee with Crow” session, a conversation with Dreamscape Immersive Chairman and Co-founder Walter Parkes. Crow and Parkes discussed the progress of the Dreamscape Learn partnership between ASU and Dreamscape Immersive to transform the education experience through virtual reality. He also presented the Tuesday keynote on the radical democratization of higher education through technology.
In addition, Crow also participated on a panel for the session, Doing the Work: How Collaboration Among America’s Biggest Colleges is Helping More Students Complete Their Degree, along with Kim Wilcox, University of California, Riverside. The group included Bridget Burns, executive director, University Innovation Alliance, formed seven years ago by 11 of the nation’s largest research universities. The panelists discussed the Alliance’s successes, along with lessons learned and the challenges they’ve faced as they are working to break down the silos that often prevent colleges and universities from sharing best practices and learning from one another.
Crow explained that ASU was focused on innovating to help more students finish their programs of study and get their degree, but realized that it needed to find other institutions that were also working to achieve the same end. “We wanted to find out if we could break down the walls between the universities,” he said. “Universities are almost like cottage industries in some dark forest spread out from each other with no roads that connect them so they compete and don’t cooperate. We found this area where we could cooperate so we could innovate together, take on this question of how we can get more students from every family background to graduate, take on the mission that public universities were designed to achieve – the success of the individual and the success of our democracy.”
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