Nothing solves everything, but education comes close.

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego with my cofounder ??Beatrice Ionascu . The three-day conference titled “Brave New World” was focused on exploring the future of education technology, “Imagining a new era in which ALL people have equal access to the future”. Naturally, as an EdTech founder, I was eager to learn about the latest trends, tools, and ideas shaping the EdTech landscape.

ASU+GSV featured several world-class keynote speakers such as Bill Gates , Sheryl Sandberg , Sam Altman and Sal Khan covering a range of topics such as the importance of math literacy, AI's impact on education, and women's place in leadership (including in education). One of the standout keynotes was delivered by Michael Moe (Founder & CEO of GSV), who among other points truly showcased how everything feels unprecedented only when you haven’t engaged with history.

In addition to the main sessions, ASU+GSV offered a variety of engaging breakout sessions and hands-on workshops. I attended a workshop where superintendents coached CEOs like myself and provided valuable insights into how superintendents evaluate new edtech solutions. Another memorable session was a special gathering of edtech founders from the incubators of USC, Stanford & Penn (that I kindly got invited to by Doug Lynch !), where we had the chance to hear from John Katzman (serial EdTech founder), Deborah Quazzo (the founder of ASU+GSV) and Matt Greenfield (Managing Partner at Rethink Education)? in a more intimate setting with the opportunity of a Q&A session. I got to ask Deborah Quazzo about whether she thinks coding education will still be important with the rise of AI, but more about that later…

While the sessions I attended were all top quality, I was told even before day one that sessions are not where the true magic of ASU+GSV happens. The real highlight of ASU+GSV was the opportunity to network with fellow educators, edtech entrepreneurs, and researchers. For example, I had the chance to connect with Leigh Ann DeLyser , the founder of CSforALL , an organization I have been following for years. I also spoke with Mitch Kapor , who among other accolades is one of the founders featured in Founders at Work, a cherished book on my shelf. I was thrilled to also learn about his new book that he wrote together with Dr. Freada Kapor Klein , "Closing the Equity Gap: Creating Wealth and Fostering Justice in Startup Investing". I too had the chance to connect with several K12 education leaders and even teachers, who are the real heroes of the education world.

As I look back on ASU+GSV, it's clear that the future of education technology is both exciting and full of potential, in large part thanks to recent developments in AI. During the opening ceremony there was a joking remark about how half of the sessions at the summit were about AI. Throughout the summit, one theme I kept exploring was the place coding education is going to play in this Brave, New, AI-powered World. I discovered the emergence of two opposing camps; some tend to believe that as coding is something AI is already good at, it will quickly replace the need for human developers and hence the importance of teaching coding to children will diminish. Others think it's quite the opposite. They think that it's not AI that will take over the world but people who are good at using and understanding AI. They think coding, computational thinking and logic are core competencies needed to take advantage of emerging technologies and for succeeding in various other fields.

Sam Altman gave a great analogy of the popularisation of the calculator: when calculators became available to school children, many thought we would never need to learn mathematics anymore. This was clearly not the case. Instead, however, with better tools humans just became more ambitious about what we can achieve.

Finally, attending ASU+GSV was an incredible experience, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to learn from industry leaders and connect with like-minded founders, educators and investors. I would like to give a huge shout out to the EIB Institute and the Social Innovation Tournament which made it possible for my co-founder and myself to attend!