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19 DECEMBER 2021

In this issue:
Generation Z and the Future of Everything

Unlearn. {Re}imagine. Everything.

The New, New, New Normal (or is it just the same?)

We talk a lot about lifelong learning but do we ever really learn?

Our global education, political, media, judicial, even religious systems are so locked in service of the status quo that many of us are blind to French critic Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr’s epigram “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose”.

The business as usual, sleight of hand, mentality of global business and political leaders has ensured that we enter 2022 with the pandemic almost where we started as nations return to lock down and blame everyone but themselves. Surely, it must be Africa, the continent that fuels the western economy with its bounty yet receives no taxation dollars from the companies who extract $ trillions every year?

Why would we patent, privatise and withhold a global solution to a global problem?

Nigeria's former chief humanitarian coordinator and activist for social justice, Dr Ayoade Alakija nails it in this mic drop appearance on the BBC. 

Status quo bias tells us that we should want to go back to the old normal as if a global pandemic, major climatic events and the destruction of truth weren’t reason enough to change how we live, learn and work. But change is coming whether we like it or not. Mother Nature has a way of balancing things when an invasive species takes too much, leaves too little and craps on the carpet. 

The march of technological progress in the form of AI, automation, gene editing, ubiquitous super-computing etc suggest that the nature and future of work will change. Many reports indicate that this shift may lead to mass technological unemployment at internet scale. If we don’t use our agency to shape the future we may end up with something that isn’t good for the people or the planet where 21st century technology is used to reinforce a 20th century status quo rather than reimagine it. 

If only there was a global infrastructure structure project like reversing climate change. We would enter a new golden age of innovation and creativity as we reimagine everything.

Here’s an excerpt from a talk I presented earlier this month live online to a global audience of young leaders who are part of Huawei’s Seeds for the Future leadership programme. The full length version is here.

I can be booked for talks on the future of learning, work and society as well as neurodiversity via The London Speakers Bureau ;) 

Thanks for staying with me. 

Until the next time - HAPPY HOLIDAYS! 🎅🏾

Graham Brown-Martin, Catalyst.

Coaching for catalysts and neurodiverse leaders

This is coaching for the creative innovators who constantly see new ways to improve the world. For the visionaries who don’t believe in silos or staying in their lane. For the changemakers who rapidly absorb information across disciplines that were separated and siloed by a broken education system. For the dreamers who make unexpected connections that lead to new, disruptive ideas and possibilities. For the dot connectors who see the dots others miss, dots others think are imaginary or even don’t exist, the new dots that potentially change everything.

This is for the mavericks, the rebels, the ones they said were crazy.

This is for the CATALYSTS.

Learn more.