The conference was designed in such a way as to provide a broad societal background against which education and training should find its position first and how it could respond to the challenges of societies. The key note lectures should draw attention to the key challenges of modern society and show in what way the promotion of creativity and innovation could be set into the context of the priorities in the field of education and training, whilst the workshops should define the key factors and conditions that should be fulfilled in order the schools meet these goals.
The American economist Jeremy Rifkin, Esko Aho, former president of the Finnish Government, now president of the innovation foundation Sitra and David Istance, acting head of the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) of the OECD had been invited as key note speakers in the first part of the conference.
To give the background why innovation and creativity is needed Jeremy Rifkin presented the dramatic consequences of global warming which in turn is the result of the use of fossil fuels since the first industrial revolution. They are threatening the very existence of the human race on Earth. The key to the solution is at hand – the third industrial revolution that combines new technologies with communication: transition from the era of carbon as the main source of power into decentralized sources of renewable energy: wind, water, solar energy using hydrogen as the medium of storage and managed through digital communication systems. The technologies needed for this are already available, for them to be implemented a change in the mindset is necessary, a change that involves a shift from geopolitics to the politics of the biosphere. Children need to be raised in the consciousness that the world is a unique living space, in which everything is interconnected and interdependent. The human nature should be reconsidered again. Culture should be put before the material aspects, before...