Learning has always been an evolving frontier. From confining education to four walls and hard copy books to learning remotely through digitized resources, education has never been easier and more accessible as it has truly evolved exponentially in the last few years. Traditional learning, the way our parents and grandparents have known it, is fine, but that's not how we want to describe our learning – just “fine.” It is riddled with flaws such as the potential for outdated materials, lack of diverse learning approaches, affordability and accessibility issues, and of course, the lack of individual attention, to name a few. It is a system that doesn't seem to keep everyone in mind when it comes to genuinely inclusive and practical educational opportunities for all.
“We want to discover, facilitate and improve the learning process for all of humanity” - Roberto Crosignani
The Covid19 pandemic forced us to re-evaluate and adapt how we live, learn, and work. Because of these challenges, we have become increasingly digital humans, adapting at an exponential rate and being forced to utilize online technology and platforms that provide a new wave of progress. Like many other things in life, education needs to continuously evolve and improve with the times.
Of course, with these changes brought on by the pandemic, we need to keep the momentum of adopting new processes that will benefit those in the future and avoid settling back into our old and comfortable ways. Our SingularityU Milan Chapter is taking advantage of the digital learning experience that has unfolded in the last couple of years and is now upgrading the way we use and manage resources in this new digital space. The Milan team, including Roberto Crosignani, Luca Bertelli, Gian Luigi Riva have built a hybrid education model to improve the learning process, which includes the creation of a new open-source augmented learning app. The team is extracting the advantages of both in-person and online learning to be more effective, efficient, accessible and inclusive. To execute this new hybrid model, the app works in three environments: live events, streaming events and virtual reality.
Holding true to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Milan chapter is focused on quality education (Goal 4). The new app will break the boundaries of locality to connect people worldwide, using various technologies (Zoom, Mentimeter, NFTs, Youtube, etc.) to optimize different stages of the learning process and cut the effort and cost of community events while also reducing the carbon footprint. Additionally, it will record meetings and store them for easy and unlimited access, mitigate and counteract less effective approaches to online learning and lastly, introduce more democratic opportunities for participants to engage and factor into their learning experience.
Hybrid learning is a "happy medium" approach to education, and Singularity's Milan Chapter truly has impact at the forefront of their efforts in making the future of learning more efficient, effective, inclusive, and accessible. When the world has access to education that meets them where they are and how they want to learn, what was impossible now becomes possible.