How do we shift our capacity to embrace a volatile, complex world?

Reda SadkiThinking aloud

This week, the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) is Devex’s “Presenting Partner”. We are proud to be sharing with Devex’s 170,000 NewsWire subscribers the remarkable progress and the results, outcomes, and impact we have achieved since the pandemic hit. Discover how we connect people, organizations, and communities to achieve collective impact better and faster… Get in touch… We stand ready to support any organization or network that needs to mobilize people at scale in support of meaningful change. We are seeking partners that share our yearning for transformation, and that can bring their challenges, resources, and capabilities to make this yearning a reality. We are actively fundraising to develop our global platform so we can support more partners tackling ‘wicked’ problems. The need for change is evident. Is your organization rethinking how it contributes to achieving global goals? Humanitarian INGOs headquartered in Geneva, London, or Washington are striving to “localize aid”. …

Social network and citation network in the COVID-19 Peer Hub

Disseminating rapid learning about COVID-19 vaccine introduction

Reda SadkiGlobal health, Global health, Learning strategy

In July 2019, barely six months before the pandemic, we worked with alumni of The Geneva Learning Foundation’s immunization programme to build the Impact Accelerator in 86 countries. This global community of action for national and sub-national immunization staff pledged, following completion of one of the Foundation’s courses, to support each other in other to achieve impact. Closing the loop from learning to impact produced startling results, accelerating the rate at which locally-resourced projects were implemented and fostering new forms of collaborative leadership. Alumni launched what immediately became the largest network of immunization managers in the world. Then the pandemic dramatically raised the stakes: at least 80 million children under one were placed at risk of vaccine-preventable diseases such as diphtheria, measles and polio as COVID-19 disrupted immunization service as worldwide. Alumni were amongst the first in their countries to respond, leveraging the power of being connected to each other …

Solidarity across public health and medicine silos during a pandemic

Reda SadkiEducation business models, Global health, Global health, Learning strategy

We are launching a new Scholar programme about environmental threats to health, with an initial focus on radiation. (I mapped out what this might look like in 2017.) As part of the launch, we are enlisting support of immunization colleagues. Our immunization programme is our largest and most advanced programme, and still growing fast since its inception in 2016. At The Geneva Learning Foundation, we have spent 5 years pouring mind, body, and soul into building what has become the largest digital platform for national and sub-national immunization leaders. Along the way, we discovered that it is not only about scale. Social Network Analysis (SNA) by colleagues Sasha Poquet and Vitomir Kovanovic at the Centre for Complexity and Change in Learning is now helping us to understand the power in the relationships not just one-to-many but many-to-many across the network. Yes, there is a linkage as most vaccines are for …

When learning meets emergency

When learning meets emergency: The Geneva Learning Foundation’s approach to crisis response

Reda SadkiGlobal health

This article is based on Zapnito CEO Charles Thiede’s interview of Reda Sadki on 16 September 2019. “I knew we had hit gold when a young doctor in Ghana was able to turn what he learned into action – and get results that improved the health outcome prospects of every pregnant woman in his district – in just four weeks,” says Reda Sadki, founder of the Geneva Learning Foundation. “His motivation was being part of this global network, this global community, but his focus was on local action.” The transformation from classroom learning to immediate implementation in a healthcare setting taught Sadki something profound about how people learn to lead change when facing life-threatening emergencies. For the Geneva Learning Foundation, which he founded just three years ago, this connection between knowledge and action is not accidental. It is the result of a deliberate methodology that challenges conventional assumptions about professional development …

Artificial intelligence for immunization learning

Digital health: The Geneva Learning Foundation to bring AI-driven training to health workers in 90 countries

Reda SadkiGlobal health

GENEVA, 23 April 2019 – The Geneva Learning Foundation (GLF) is partnering with artificial intelligence (AI) learning pioneer Wildfire to pilot cutting edge learning technology with over 1,000 immunization professionals in 90 countries, many working at the district level. British startup Wildfire, an award-winning innovator, is helping the Swiss non-profit tackle a wicked problem: while international organizations publish global guidelines, norms, and standards, they often lack an effective, scalable mechanism to support countries to turn these into action that leads to impact. By using machine learning to automate the conversion of such guidelines into learning modules, Wildfire’s AI reduces the cost of training health workers to recall critical information. This is a key step for global norms and standards to translate into making a real impact in the health of people. If the pilot is successful, Wildfire’s AI will be included in TGLF’s Scholar Approach, a state-of-the-art evidence-based package of pedagogies to …

Seventh Epidemiological Training Workshop for Biologists Draws 48 Participants from Outside Organizations

New learning for radiation emergency medical preparedness and assistance

Reda SadkiEvents, Presentations

My presentation for the Geneva Learning Foundation at the 15th meeting of the WHO Radiation Emergency Medical Preparedness and Assistance Network (REMPAN), World Health Organization, Geneva – 3-5 July 2017. Featured image: Participants of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation’s (RERF) Seventh Epidemiological Training Workshop for Biologists. The objective of the RERF is to conduct research and studies for peaceful purposes on medical effects of radiation and associated diseases in humans, with a view to contributing to maintenance of the health and welfare of the atomic bomb (A-bomb) survivors and to enhancement of the health of all humankind.

New learning and leadership for front-line community health workers facing danger

Reda SadkiGlobal health, Learning design, Scholar Approach

This presentation was prepared for the second global meeting of the Health Care in Danger (HCiD) project in Geneva, Switzerland (17–18 May 2017). In October  2016, over 700 pre-hospital emergency workers from 70 countries signed up for the #Ambulance! initiative to “share experience and document situations of violence”. This initiative was led by Norwegian Red Cross and IFRC in partnership with the Geneva Learning Foundation, as part of the Health Care in Danger project. Over four weeks (equivalent to two days of learning time), participants documented 72 front-line incidents of violence and similar risks, and came up with practical approaches to dealing with such risks. This initiative builds on the Scholar Approach, developed by the University of Illinois College of Education, the Geneva Learning Foundation, and Learning Strategies International. In 2013, IFRC had piloted this approach to produce 105 case studies documenting learning in emergency operations. These are some of the questions which I address in …

The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563)

Tower of Babel

Reda Sadki#DigitalScholar

What happens when a fledgling, start-up foundation convenes learning leaders from all over the world to explore digital learning? Over 800 participants from 103 countries have joined the Geneva Learning Foundation’s #DigitalScholar course developed in conjunction with the University of Illinois College of Education and Learning Strategies International. The course officially launches on Monday. Yet participants  joining the online community have begun introducing themselves and, in the process, are already tackling challenging questions on the pedagogy, content, and economics of education and its digital transformation. “Look at all the people here!” exclaimed one Digital Scholar. And, yes, we are from everywhere. You could start from “cloudy England”, a hop-and-a-skip away from “rainy Amsterdam” and then keep travelling, stopping in any of the 103 countries where participants live. You might end up in the “paradise island” of Mauritius, “sunny but chilly” Sidney, or “hot and humid” Puerto Rico. Think about it. When Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis …

Digital learning with the Geneva Learning Foundation

Beyond MOOCs: the democratization of digital learning

Reda SadkiEvents

It is with some trepidation that I announce the Geneva Learning Foundation’s first open access digital course in partnership with the University of Illinois College of Education and Learning Strategies International. The mission of the brand-new Geneva Learning Foundation is to connect learning leaders to research, invent, and trial breakthrough approaches for new learning, talent and leadership as a way of shaping humanity and society for the better. This open access, four-week (16 hours total) online course will start on 4 July 2016 and end on the 29th. It will be taught by Bill Cope, Catherine Russ, and myself, three of the eleven charter members of the Foundation. We’ll be using Scholar to teach the latest digital learning pedagogies. Everyone will develop, peer review, and revise an outline for a course relevant to their own context of work. This outline is intended to be the practical basis for developing and offering an actual course – so this is no academic exercise. The …