“The future is not to be predicted, it is to be achieved,” Dr. Don Tapscott told a packed house at Trent University Oshawa on February 11 as part of his lecture entitled “Creating 21st Century Cities”, the second in his New Ideas for a Connected Planet Chancellor’s lecture series.
Through an examination of the “Ten Themes of the Open Networked City”, Dr. Tapscott revealed how the transformative power of the internet is changing the way we live, work, communicate and even grocery shop. With particular focus on the increasing density of cities throughout the world (by 2050 approximately 70 per cent of the world’s population will live in urban areas), the old industrial-age way of doing things is paving the way for a society connected by glass, air and collaboration, Dr. Tapscott says.
Speaking of the lecture series, and the unique Trent learning environment, Dr. Tapscott said: “Doing these public lectures is one way to be helpful to Trent as chancellor. Hopefully they will be useful for people for a long time. I think that the Trent model of student-centric purposeful, collaborative learning is right, compared to the industrial aged model of mass production based on lectures. Everyone has a long way to go, but Trent has the basic DNA of the model and I like that a lot.”
As a leading global expert on business and technology, Dr. Tapscott, who was recently named one of the top five business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50, is an authoritative voice on the world’s expanding cities and the challenges they face.
“He’s a role model to look up to,” said Amanda Disher, a first-year student studying Psychology and International Development, who attended the lecture. Echoing Dr. Tapscott’s praise of the Trent environment, she added: “At Trent, we’re given so many opportunities to excel in our innovation, to bring new ideas forward and to roll with the whole idea of a 21st century city. We move forward in a way that’s pro-technology versus just looking at a classroom board.”
Trent alumna Catherine Kaye, who was also in attendance at the lecture, said: “I have heard Don speak a number of times before and I just love to listen to him. It makes my brain go round and round. I also worked for a number of years on city development so I’m really interested in his thoughts about where they’re going because the answers aren’t clear to anybody yet.”
Over the course of the lecture, Dr. Tapscott discussed how big corporations are transforming into networks and how, thanks to the internet, the encyclopedia and, therefore, knowledge, is consistently current and ever-expansive. The internet in many ways levels the playing field between government and the people, Dr. Tapscott said, adding that, as such, leadership can come from anywhere. The Internet also enables a pooling of resources and expertise like never before, and thereby contributes to helping to solve the world’s most complicated environmental, political and economic challenges. Collaboration, a key element of the Trent experience, was an evident theme in the presentation.
Speaking of Dr. Tapscott’s important role as chancellor of the University, Anne Wright, chair of Trent’s Board of Governors, said: “I think it’s important that people understand his skills, his ideas and how energizing he can be for Trent. The audience members definitely understand why he was chosen as chancellor because he’s a very impressive guy. He’s a Trent graduate, he was in one of the early classes and has always had a great deal of affection and support for Trent.”
Dr. Tapscott’s third and final lecture in the New Ideas for a Connected Planet Chancellor’s lecture series, entitled “Government and Democracy in the Networked Age”, will be held in Toronto on March 5, 2014. For more information visit www.trentu.ca/connectedplanet
Posted on Wednesday, February 12, 2014.