Between November and March, select speakers, representing a wide spectrum of fields, come together to tackle and deliver their key messages as inspired by the talk themes: “Education for Life”, “Restart”, “Future of The Workplace”, “Passions”, and “Resilience”.
On 8 November, we dived into “Education For Life”, with three speakers offering their perspectives on the value of education, its shifting landscape, and how to design one that truly meets the needs of business and society at large.
Jan-Erik Baars, Design Strategy Consultant, Columnist, and Professor of Design Management at the University of Luzern, made a key observation: as long as universities continue to work in departmental silos, education will continue to produce silo thinkers. Instead, he proposed that education should encourage people to think across disciplines so that “they think collaboratively about the total user experience around a product or service.”
Ewa Maciejewski, Head of Programme Management for the University of St.Gallen MBA, pointed out that if business education is to stay relevant it must focus on competencies necessary in a time of rapid change and innovation. She proposed that business education be more like design education: “people will need to think across functions, be creative, agile, and open to change.”
Youri Sawerschel, Brand Strategist and Founder of Creative Supply, concluded with a visual presentation of the newly re-branded executive education programme at EPFL. He explained that the main idea was to bring business and technology together, and to do so in a visually clear way. He explained that for education to survive it needs to communicate the right values to all stakeholders in a way they can identify with: “EPFL is no longer just an engineering school – it is a centre for business and innovation.”
The presentations sparked a lively Q&A session, allowing the audience to add their own opinions to the already rich mix of views offered by the speakers, and the conversation went on late into the evening.
December’s “Restart” talk promises to put the audience back on the edges of their seats, as we brave our way through stories around restarting a life, a career, a business, and maybe even a country! Our audience is what makes these talks so powerful, and we cannot wait to meet you all again.
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