26. In Madrid with Enrique Dans

In the leafy streets of Central Madrid is the campus of IE Business School – one of the top rated business schools in Europe. This entrepreneur-founded institution provides a wide-range of courses across all aspects of management.

Long-time professor Dr Enrique Dans spoke with me about how he’s changed during the course of his career (Twitter @edans). Where he started a few decades back teaching programming, today his focus is on the societal impact of innovation. How do we use technology today? His theory is that the future is already here – but it is unevenly distributed. Some cities, countries, households are more advanced. For others there are regulatory or customs that block the uptake of technology.

Later we spoke about how education needs to change. Whereas we used to teach children to memorise key facts, today that’s all at their fingertips. We need teach people how to think critically, how to assess information, and how to put all the data they have to use.

Enrique has been writing about technology for years. He posts a daily blog then shares that with his followers on Facebook (40,000), Twitter (239,000) and LinkedIn (125,000).

You’ll find his far-ranging observations on technology, education and innovation provocative and interesting. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Dr Enrique Dans.