This should be fun (and interesting). I’ll be heading to Amsterdam on July 21st for Google EDU’s Moonshot Summit. This event aims to bring “together top innovators from around the globe to design moonshot projects that will be launched in the Fall”. Attendees were selected, we are told, because of our “experience and belief that education can be improved for innovation”.
The moonshot co-exists with skunk works, DARPA, braintrust and many other terms that describe the conditions, process, or outcomes that foster and drive innovation. Google’s concept of a moonshot intersects innovation and scale, and posits that, in specific circumstances, scaling up can define innovation. “Instead of a mere 10% gain” Google’s Project X team explains, “a moonshot aims for a 10x improvement over what currently exists”:
The combination of a huge problem, a radical solution to that problem, and the breakthrough technology that just might make that solution possible, is the essence of a moonshot.
This event in Amsterdam is led by Esther Wojcicki, whose work around moonshots in education (and specifically blended learning in the classroom) I’ve just discovered.
Photo: The last Saturn V launch carried the Skylab space station to low Earth orbit in place of the third stage (Wikipedia/public domain).