The Future Learning Lab story
What we are
Future Learning Lab is a virtual "collaboratory" for scholars, entrepreneurs, students and others interested in the coming digital transition of education and learning. Worldwide, the twinforces of globalization and digitalization is transforming higher education, chalenging institutions and individuals alike to adapt -- in a critical manner. We need to learn from eachtoehr, share experiences, and acknowledge that the trajectories of change are not the same everywhere. Access to education and learning follow closely access to information, generally. Technology is key, but more important are the ways and mean by which we embed technology in social and cultural practices. We represent a variety of education institutions, fields of expertise and levels of engagement. Members have backgrounds from universities, teaching high school, building world class online education platforms, starting and running EdTech companies, politics, development work and more.
Future Learning Lab is both a network of both groups and individuals. Some members sign up to pursue a single project relating to our portfolio, while others participate in running our website services as well as curating webinars and meetings at various levels. Key members have backgrounds from the university sector, from entrepreneurship inside and outside of established business companies, as well as public sector levels.
Quite a number of former keynote speakers have signed up to become regular members, participate on our advisory board and collaborate on publications. Our keynote alumni is world class.
What we do
Future Learning Lab co-develops research projects and online courses. Our mission is not to host as many online courses as possible but to help enable potential course builders in their efforts as well as providing a hosting space at very limited costs.
We offer consultancy services in setting up courses, as well as designing an online presence whether it be for individual teachers and lecturers, education institutions or commercial companies. We have a particular focus on enabling collaboration between interest parties in the Global South and North, reflecting our concerns with real access to digital learning resources.
Once a year we invite broadly to push the conversation along through our annual World Learning Summit, where we have offered world-class speakers for more than ten years.
Our origins
Future Learning Lab began as a very modest idea and plan at the University of Agder in South Norway, in 2010. The vision was to create a space for conversation, with open doors to anyone who cared to join. Our first conferences were small and our projects local. By 2014, we had established an international presence, In 2015, we staged a conference at Stanford University, in the US, gathering about 300 world-class thought leaders. In 2016 we brought many of them with us to Europe. In 2017 we staged a conference collaboration with the Open University of the Netherlands. In 2018 we engaged with Seed Forum Global in Oslo, followed by a a small but perhaps our best conference ever, at the Arkivet Peace Foundation in Southern Norway, where our main theme was how to deploy emergent technologies in designs to afford education access to marginal societal groups, as for instance refugees.
All told, the vision behind Future Learning Lab has proven its merit. Our ambition is not related to institutions -- there are many of those who would outcompete what we do in a minute. Our ambition is to invite in individuals who have something to say regardless of institutional belonging, working together to forge a global conversation of what it means to be engage din higher education in our globalized, networked, and digitalized world.