CREDIT: DANIEL ALEXANDER
Richard Worzel, leading Futurist in Canada is the speaker for Fanshawe's second REDTALKS event on March 2.

Fanshawe’s second REDTALKS is coming up on March 2, with a theme of looking to the future.

Richard Worzel, Canada’s leading futurist is this semester’s speaker, who will be “Re-imagining the Future of Education”.

“We started REDTALKS because we wanted to have a series that would say to people in London and surrounding communities that Fanshawe thinks about important ideas, impactful ideas,” said Tony Frost, executive director of the college’s Reputation and Brand Management.

“We launched it with imagining what the future of the workforce would be, so how will employment change in the next 20 years, a part of that is educating students how education will change in the next 10 to 20 years,” Frost said.

Fanshawe is bringing in a futurist who imagines what education will look like, which is very important to Fanshawe because talks like this bring in community members to the college.

For example, during last semester’s REDTALKS presentation in October, a number of politicians, business people, community members and community leaders came to Fanshawe to hear what the presentation was all about.

A number of people from outside the Fanshawe community may come in this time as well and see what education will look like in the future.

“Things are changing so fast now, where you need to be educated all the time which is good for the students to understand what’s coming in and think about the future to be successful in the market,” Frost said. “It’s important for students because they will one day be parents and their children will go to school.”

Worzel is a futurist and a professional member of the world future society, who focuses on North America, but also global issues. His clients include companies such as Coca Cola, Ford, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), Bell, the U.S. Navy Department of Medicine & Surgery, the National Research Council and the Clerk of the House of Commons of Canada.

“I make my living by helping corporations and industry associations plan intelligently for the future,” Worzel said.

While at Fanshawe, Worzel will cover why post-secondary education is important for society in the future and what kind of education would be of value to individuals. The post-secondary education is changing because the needs of the world are changing.

According to Worzel, the two objectives of post-secondary education are on the one hand, liberal tradition where they are learning things for the sake of knowing and on the other hand, a more problematic approach with post-secondary education training people with the skills needed to get a job, which has been a discussion going on for a decade. They both are critically important.

Education is now not a once in a life time thing, education is a continued process which allows us to adapt to a rapidly changing future.

“The future purpose of post secondary education is to help people adapt to a rapidly changing world both personally in terms of understanding what’s going on around them and their ability to contribute in it,” Worzel said. “Professionally making sure that they are useful to themselves, the economy, to society and can make their living.”

It’s a great opportunity for everyone to come and listen to a specific expert talk about an issue.

“Richard Worzel is Canada’s leading futurist who speaks on number of issues, education is one them so we are very happy to have him come in as a speaker. You have more control over your future when you can think about the future, I think it will be important for the people to attend,” Frost said.

Worzel is excited to speak at Fanshawe, since education is “critical” to everyone.

“For all the problems that we have, if we get education right we have a chance to solve problems and if we get education wrong we have no chance in solving the problem,” Worzel said.

According to Worzel, young people are also more “interesting” to speak to.

“Their minds are more flexible, they are more critical and they are more interested in the broader sense of the future than their parents, so I find younger audiences more challenging and exciting,” Worzel said.

Tickets are complimentary but must be reserved in advance as space is limited. For more information and to reserve a seat, please visit fanshawec.ca and search REDTALKS.