The Year 12 Future Fwd Jubilee Conference has been designed with the principle of looking forward to the next seventy years with optimism and agency. Having long been a fan of the work of 80,000 hours, we hope to introduce the students to the concept of effective altruism.
The team behind 80,000 hours encourage people starting out in their careers to consider how best to spend the estimated 80,000 hours of their working lives. They encourage everyone to consider the way they can use their own talents to most effectively change society for the better.
With this value in mind, the conference seeks to encourage year 12 students to think about some of the key areas that will be important in the next seventy years and recognise their own roles within this.
RONIT KANWAR
We are delighted that Ronit Kanwar has agreed to be our keynote speaker for this event. He embodies the values behind this conference. Named as one of Forbes30Under30, he is an entrepreneur who has built up a successful business bringing solar power to India and now works for Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic effort cofounded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt. Schmidt Futures support exceptional people making the world better. They work with not-for profits, start-ups, and policy across all problem areas such as climate change, criminal justice, and economic empowerment.
AI, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL BORDERS, AND ARTS SPACES
Following the keynote, year 12 students will divide into one of the four strands that encapsulate concerns that will be important for future-forward thinking: the future of AI; Global Health; Global Borders and the Future of Arts Spaces.
We are thrilled that current thought leaders will be leading each of these strands: Phillip John from Meta, Professor Simon Brake from Rosalind Franklin Laboratory and Jasmin Kaur, CEO of the Pandemic Prevention Network. Benjamin Western from the Shining Light Project will be working with the students in the Global Borders strand and we are joined by a range of academics, primarily from Warwick University to allow pupils access to the very latest academic research. Darren Walter, Artistic Director of Cornerstone Arts Centre has worked for many years on using the Arts as medium for social change and is curating a programme of current practitioners and academics who will guide the students to consider the future of arts spaces.
Resilience, Creativity and Connectedness
Many of the media headlines about education cast the plight of our young people in a dim light. Terms like ‘recovery curriculum’ and ‘catch up classes’ point only to what has been lost in the past two years. It is no wonder that there is an epidemic of anxiety and poor mental health amongst children. Much less focus has been given to what has been gained in the past two years and how to help teenagers to feel a sense of optimism and agency about their future.
The legacy of Covid means that the young have grappled with uncertainty and in the face of this, they have demonstrated great resilience. The importance of community and connectedness has been built viscerally into a generation who had little else to believe in during the worst of times.
They recognise, more than generations before, that they need to be part of something bigger than themselves.
We hope that the Jubilee Conference will celebrate the resilience, creativity and social connectedness of our next generation of future thinkers.